Elsewhere in Europe, many railway stations have lower platform heights than in the UK.
I know the EU has issued some standards on platform heights. From personal experience, UK style platform are seen in Germany and the Netherlands.
I was wondering why platform heights are lower in many other European countries. Is it historical ? To allow wider loading gauges ? Was it to save money ?
Here's the EU "TSI":
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32002D0735
Resulting from an earlier directive, this allows each EU country to seperately ratify and decide on their own local impliementation. The above standardises various technical aspects of the railway.
Here in Finland platform heights and general construction is standardised for new builds and reconstructions. There do exist platforms in various types from raised gravel areas, wooden sleepers to modern constructions.
The main reason is probably as you say, historical. Earlier without any common reference point other than maybe track and loading gauge if you were lucky. Trains were just built and nor did we care if someone had to climb from the ground into the carriage. As countries and rail systems become more interlinked it made sense to standardise on various features - this very obviously is true with the high-speed systems.
Aside: I can see a headline in the 1829 Daily Mail: EU Beuraucrats force Jolly British Entrepreneur R.Stevenson Esq to use a gauge of 1435mm instead of 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in. </joke>
Standardisation at an European level (EEC, Europe, EU, inc. Morocco, Russia etc etc) makes an awful lot of sense for manufacturers, purchasing cost, availability of parts, interoperability etc. The above directive and TSI were likely outcomes of this is ensure that standards were ahered to. I guess most of these were already implemented by EU (+ others) anyway in most cases.
t.
Ian