European Railroad Discussion > France: SNCF class Z50000 "Francilien" EMUs

One of the most interesting new EMUs in and around Île-de-France (Paris and surrounding cities) is a Bombardier built Francilien, or class Z50'000, design. It replaces some ancient French push pull stock with their boxy electric locos. Franciliens were at first taken in use Northeast of Paris lines, now they run other Northern routes too. There are 7 and 8 module length variations, probably due to some platform length issues. First Franciliens entered service in 2009 and now there are over 160 EMUs in use, so you should be able to find this neat looking train at Paris Gare de St Lazare, Gare du Nord and Gare de L'Est, or at any of the intermediate stations. 

Interestingly the design looks quite much Coradia Nordic of Alstom, despite being manufactured by Bombardier. But who is to say Bombardier should not create a neat looking roundish high volume local train type?

This model was initially designed with plug doors, but after two years of testing sliding doors were installed instead. Can you guess why? ;)


Pictures below were taken by Ilkka at Stade de France station.

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Let's look inside!

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Some units seen at stations in Paris.

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Love the back to the 70's look of the interior!

Cheers,
Jack

Eh, French people just love colors (in general), so for them it is modern!

McKey Wrote:
>
> This model was initially designed with plug doors,
> but after two years of testing sliding doors were
> installed instead. Can you guess why? ;)
>

   The most common reason of which I am aware why plug doors are replaced with sliding doors stems from [ slight ] bodyshell deformation under heavy load conditions, changing the dimensions of the "doorway" into which the plug must fit, and thus not able to fully close.  Obviously this usually affects commuter stock more than long distance vehicles.

   Since the doors swing out slightly, there also needs to be closer attention paid to the height of and gap to the station platforms, especially now that "no step entry" is in vogue [ or in some cases mandated ].  It is also, I believe, more difficult, though not impossible, to fit effective sensing equipment to a plug door to detect pinched / trapped passengers.  However, I don't recall any instances of plug doors being replaced on an existing fleet for these reasons.


SZ

Thanks for guessing Steinzeit! I learned a lot from your thinking for the technical reasons, some wider thought on why the doors were changed. And I feel bad about possibly not giving enough background info to enable finding out the right reason here. The real reason is about behavior of Parisians: at the time when Franciliens were introduced they were in fact too wide to fit into all stations. But this is just a matter of rebuilding the backward stations for new trains (periodic rebuilding is necessary anyway). However, when you visit Paris you notice people keeping doors from closing. Thinking about how doors operate, plug door sensors notice any objects in their way and reopen. So simply keeping an object or body part in front of plug door sensor will keep door from closing until your companion can enter the train too...multiply this by the number of people traveling there and the fact that during rush hours _any_ unexpected incident will delay all the train on the line and you are in big trouble. Besides for sliding doors being faster to open and close they are what Parisians are accustomed to, and can be operated so that the regular keeping doors open to help your friend to train too does not cause such a long delay. Unlike with plug doors and real rush hour, with sliding doors you can also spot who and where is keeping the doors from closing, if the train is "stuck" at the station. Class Z50'000 were built especially with rush hours in mind, they are single level because it takes more time for people to enter and alight from double decked stock, and the capacity is in fact very closely same. 

And, just like with anything else, history keeps repeating itself. We have Regio 2N of Bombardier entering service in three flavors, classes Z55500, Z56300 and Z56500. EMU is so wide that again it does not fit to all stations without rebuilding them first...
This is a (traditional for French) double decked stock with lots of new designing to maximize the capacity and people flow. Below one picture of the class Z55000 and its modular design, borrowing many features from Z50000 Franciliens. Clas Z55000 has every other module as double decked coach and the rest are door+service modules that are single level. Sorry, I will have to process more pictures to show this innovation properly...    

Steinzeit Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> McKey Wrote:
> >
> > This model was initially designed with plug
> doors,
> > but after two years of testing sliding doors
> were
> > installed instead. Can you guess why? ;)
> >
>
>    The most common reason of which I am
> aware why plug doors are replaced with sliding
> doors stems from [ slight ] bodyshell deformation
> under heavy load conditions, changing the
> dimensions of the "doorway" into which the plug
> must fit, and thus not able to fully close. 
> Obviously this usually affects commuter stock more
> than long distance vehicles.
>
>    Since the doors swing out slightly, there
> also needs to be closer attention paid to the
> height of and gap to the station platforms,
> especially now that "no step entry" is in vogue [
> or in some cases mandated ].  It is also, I
> believe, more difficult, though not impossible, to
> fit effective sensing equipment to a plug door to
> detect pinched / trapped passengers.  However, I
> don't recall any instances of plug doors being
> replaced on an existing fleet for these reasons.
>
>
> SZ

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Yes, I had forgotten about the throughput requirements on the central underground sections.  I think that might have been one of the reasons Zürich changed, too.

Best, SZ