Discussion
This is why I bang on so much about level access. Noone should have to depend on railway staff and the correct alignment of the train to the platform to be able to use a train.
This also highlights another common problem with train design. The sole single wheelchair space on the train. Cos of course no wheel chair user has friends in wheelchairs tho they want to travel with ...
Public transport that isn't level access is defective by design.
@quixoticgeek I often wonder if the people making decisions in regards to accessibility realise just how great the impact is when they fail to do the right thing - impact well beyond the incident itself - or if they really just don't care.
On a human level I just can't understand how this is possible, and at the end of the day it are still humans who are in charge and do the work.
@quixoticgeek
My railway knowledge is tiny, do you know how the levels of platform and train deck were set early on?
I wonder if they once were identical?
@Photo55 that's a can of worms. Platform height was for a century or so not really standardised. With heights ranging from 15mm (a line in Portugal) to ~1200mm (some UK lines). The UK standardised, but the trains were still never level access. In the EU platforms are supposed to be either 550 or 760mm. But it's poorly implemented and level access is rare. Even new stock being built now is often not level access. It's utterly bonkers that train companies think this is acceptable.
@quixoticgeek
Ships and aircraft are quite unstandardised, and neither is the sea.
The result is access being via various steps and gangways placed and adjusted by members of the crew, ground and port staff.
(Some low-winged smaller aircraft carry steps in their doors)
I don't think we grumble that those should be automagically level access wherever it is.
If I were asked to show that trains are quite different, what should I start off by saying?
@Photo55 the difference is we don't take a ship to commute to work... And here in Europe every ship I've used has had good accessibility. When I was on crutches I was able to get to my cabin step free. Air travel is a nightmare that has too many issues to list.
@quixoticgeek Wow: "Phoebe said she was told by staff to try and get her wheelchair through the train aisle, but it did not fit so she crawled through three carriages."
@quixoticgeek
Yes, level access! 👍 It’s not rocket science.
@quixoticgeek This past Summer, in my town, Amtrak opened the first new passenger rail stationhouse in over a century, with the first-ever level boarding platform in Vermont history.
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@quixoticgeek
These people have somewhat to say about heights etc.
Interestingly, one of them suggests the train to platform horizontal gap is often negative.
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/train-v-platform-heights.281599/