The toilet doors are awful - on more than one occasion I've tried to enter the bathroom only to see a horrified person sitting with their trousers/skirt down being slowly revealed to the world (having failed to hit the lock button after the door closed). No matter how frantically they mash the buttons they have to wait for that giant door to slowly open fully, then slowly close. Just awful.

They really are ridiculous. I was on a train journey recently where a frantic mother spent a good 5 minutes trying to extract her child who had accidentally locked the door from the inside and was in hysterics because he couldn't get out.

If the "open" button both unlocks and opens, what use case is there for closing the door from the inside without locking it?

The doors take so long to close that it would be easy to press the button and immediately exit the toilet, leaving it locked but with nobody inside, effectively taking it out of use for other passengers.

I think it is to prevent vandals from closing and locking the door from the outside.

I use that button to close the door when I have finished using the train toilet. You have to race the automatic door and rush out before it closes on you.

(Of course the button should be outside).

Why do you want to close the door if you're not inside? If that's not the norm, doesn't it just indicate to others that the toilet is occupied?

Because they stink, and it's very unpleasant for people in the carriage sitting near the toilet if the door is open.

> I had no idea the button wasn't even a button

I too "pressed" those buttons hundred of times. Never I would have imagined that they are just a piece of plastic with a motion sensor pointed on.

Luckily on my trains we have those as well as the old style toilets. I don't trust the new ones at all.