Step entrances on trains

[Bornin1980s]

A somewhat strange difference between trains and buses. On local service buses, the front entrance is always stepless. The first low floor buses appeared more than 20 years ago, and as of this year, step entrances are banned on local service buses, even double-deckers. So why do all trains still require a step up, years after very low floor trains appeared on the continent? The Pacers still retain the large internal step that got their roadgoing cousins banned from local services. On more modern trains, the step up from the door itself is never quite so large, but they are still quite high off the platform. Only in the most recent round of orders are some (but only some) trains designed for stepless entrance from the platform.

How is it that trains are still being built with the kind of step up which is banned on buses?

 

[8J]

Platform heights and curvature vary greatly across the national network. I also doubt that it would be possible to build a train that lowers and raises like a bus as a train is a lot heavier than a bus and all sorts of gaugeing issues would arise.

Merseyrail are building trains with a built in ramp/step that expands/retracts so that it is accessible without the need to staff to come out with a ramp.

 

[edwin_m]

Already being discussed in the thread on platform height.

http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=149756

 

[Billy A]

Historical reasons I guess. With different companies running different lines in the old days there was little standardisation and so BR inherited the situation as it was. A line is unlikely to replace all its rolling stock in one go so new stock is likely to be compatible with platform heights as they are. The alternative of changing all your platforms to tie in with new stock results in the rest of your stock being of the wrong height for the new platforms.
That's not a problem that you're going to have with buses.

 

[3141]

How is it that trains are still being built with the kind of step up which is banned on buses?

If you spent an hour at a station looking closely at various types of train, thought about the space needed for equipment below the floor, and considered the things that would have to be done to provide stepless entrances, you might be able to answer your question yourself.

 

[rebmcr]

There have already been stepless trains running in the south east for years.