MK3 Door Redesign

We were approached by a client with an interesting door redesign project. The vehicles the doors were to be used on are 1980s Mk.3 railway vehicles currently in use in Europe. 

The monocoque structures of the vehicle bodies had previously been repaired to eliminate corrosion however the existing doors on the vehicles were those dating from the 1980s. Our client wished to launch a program of door replacement on the fleet over a two year period and to replace every existing pneumatic plug door on their fleet. 

Whilst the existing design was available to us, Assenta Rail proposed using this purely as the basis for the redesign and designing the doors based on this original manufacturing drawings but utilising different materials to improve structural strength and durability.

A new design based on the original manufacturing drawings was created and various independent companies were commissioned to supply components for the manufacture of the replacement doors. 

As part of the process for determining the dimensional integrity of the existing door apertures, Assenta Rail commissioned a specialist company to digitally scan the apertures, so we could assess any variations in size to ensure the replacement doors would fit correctly when fitted to the vehicles.