Why has the UK historically had higher platforms than on the continent?

[BRX]

I know that there are now EU standards and that platform heights are tending now to be raised in continental Europe - but as far as I understand, the UK has for a long time built platforms at a height not far off the internal floor level of carriages, and this seems to have applied regardless of the station type - even very minor rural stops will have a full height platform.

In contrast, on the continent it's common to see, especially at minor and older stations, platforms that are quite close to ground level, requiring the ascent of several steps to get on board.

Does anyone know the reason the UK seems to have pursued high platforms from very early on?

 

[daikilo]

Since passenger railways were pretty much 'invented' by the UK, it is more a case of other countries (but not all) choosing to have low platforms. I suspect the UK high platforms resulted from early passenger trains being aimed at the more wealthy and promoters had to consider e.g. long skirts/dresses.

 

[swt_passenger]

Since passenger railways were pretty much 'invented' by the UK, it is more a case of other countries (but not all) choosing to have low platforms. I suspect the UK high platforms resulted from early passenger trains being aimed at the more wealthy and promoters had to consider e.g. long skirts/dresses.

The Victorians were probably tipped off about the future RVAR requirements. The drive for level access still seems to be only a GB thing...

 

[daikilo]

The Victorians were probably tipped off about the future RVAR requirements. The drive for level access still seems to be only a GB thing...

Not at all, most recent tramways/LR/metros in Europe have level access as much as possible, and it is spreading accross regional networks as well.

 

[John Webb]

According to "The Oxford Companion to British Railway History", the earliest railways to carry passengers, such as the Leicester and Swannington, had designated stopping places where people boarded from ground level, the coaches being provided with steps. Tickets were often sold from inns adjacent to such stopping places.
The Liverpool and Manchester built platforms at its stations from the start, and eventually the various Railway Regulation Acts brought about a standardisation of platform heights and ramps at the platform ends.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The drive for level access still seems to be only a GB thing...

It doesn't. Since the rollout of the FLIRTs and low-floor intermediate coaches for the old style EMUs Swiss local services have had near 100% level boarding (and that's with low platforms), and the IC2000 coaches have too, as well as the new IC EMUs for the Gotthardtunnel. They really are getting there.

We are a pale imitation with our ridiculous insistence on building stock (Stadler aside) with floors about 20cm above our already high platforms.

It is a real pity that PRM-TSI did not specify level boarding with no gap (by way of moving steps) for all new rolling stock and a suitable standard height for all new or refurbished stations. It would be of massive benefit to everyone - not just wheelchair users, also people who find steps difficult, those with prams and luggage etc.

 

[BRX]

ventually the various Railway Regulation Acts brought about a standardisation of platform heights and ramps at the platform ends.

The question then is why didn't the same happen on the continent?

 

[edwin_m]

It's a very good question and I don't claim to know the answer. The only possibility I can think of is that the size of Continental trains may have been more variable than British ones. If some freight wagons or indeed passenger coaches were wider than other passenger coaches then a high platform would have had a big gap to the narrower stock, and falling into this gap might have been more risky than climbing steps from a lower platform. The differences between the British and the UIC methods of gauging may have a difference here, but I doubt that was a factor in the 19th century.

 

[30907]

At a very early stage it was UK custom for intermediate stations on double track to have side platforms and for people to wait on them
By contrast, across mainland Europe standard practice was for passengers to board from one side and wait in the building, and platforms between tracks were narrow. Consequently they were low (or almost non existent) to avoid fouling the loading gauge.
Why this difference arose I have no idea.

 

[AM9]

The question then is why didn't the same happen on the continent?

'the continent' was (and still is) over 30 separate countries so although they mostly had standard gauge track, why should they have developed their domestic systems along common infrastructure details like platform heights. By 1922 when the UIC was formed, most rail systems were fully developed and like in the UK, some of them were over their heydays. It was relatively easy to pass a law in the UK to encourage common standards, but can you imagine in the 1920s getting southern Europe countries such as Greece, Portugal and Turkey to modify the height of almost every platform because the more advanced ones like the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany* decided that their standard was to be adopted. The German railways of the 1920s were a random grouping of standards anyway given that much of their network was still structured by autonomous states. GB had been a single country (comprising three historic nations under a single government) since 1801, i.e. before any passenger railways were constructed, so applying standards was considerably easier by statute. Despite that, there are many branch lines built by lesser companies th

 

[Bwlch y Groes]

According to "The Oxford Companion to British Railway History", the earliest railways to carry passengers, such as the Leicester and Swannington, had designated stopping places where people boarded from ground level, the coaches being provided with steps. Tickets were often sold from inns adjacent to such stopping places.
The Liverpool and Manchester built platforms at its stations from the start, and eventually the various Railway Regulation Acts brought about a standardisation of platform heights and ramps at the platform ends.

Even until it closed in 1956, some of the halts on the Pontypridd, Caerphilly and Newport Railway had no platforms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontypridd,_Caerphilly_and_Newport_Railway

 

[martinsh]

Even until it closed in 1962, some of the halts on the Pontypridd, Caerphilly and Newport Railway had no platforms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontypridd,_Caerphilly_and_Newport_Railway

Your link says the passenger service closed in 1956 ?

 

[Bwlch y Groes]

Your link says the passenger service closed in 1956 ?

Ah yes. I was thinking it was mid-50s when I was typing that but then I looked at the top of the page and it said "The line closed to passengers in 1962". I guess some passenger services must have run non-stop. I think my grandfather did that line on a charter heading east around that time

 

[WatcherZero]

Could well have been the same as the US, they didn't build platforms at the majority of rural stations because it was simply too expensive to build and maintain a long structure outside urban areas when a couple of sets of wooden steps that could be placed alongside one carriage would suffice. It might also have been because the French and German rail networks developed much later primarily in the latter half of the 19th and early 20th century being initially highly fragmented but then nationalised very early too reducing the opportunity for capital investment on prestige luxuries like passenger facilities.

The Germans nationalised their railway in the 1870's when it was seen as being a tool for the military, the French nationalised construction and design extremely early, 1842, though the investment and operation was still private, this led to a severe under investment between the 1840's and 1870's with them being in a dire state by the war of 1870. They also fully nationalised services in the 1930's when the road competition was kicking in leading to the shutting down of virtually all of their extensive narrow gauge passenger operations. In fact that may well have been a part, in both France and Germany the heavy railways wernt the principal passenger operations concerned more with freight, that was Narrow Gauge and Tramways respectively.

 

[BRX]

'the continent' was (and still is) over 30 separate countries so although they mostly had standard gauge track, why should they have developed their domestic systems along common infrastructure details like platform heights. By 1922 when the UIC was formed, most rail systems were fully developed and like in the UK, some of them were over their heydays. It was relatively easy to pass a law in the UK to encourage common standards, but can you imagine in the 1920s getting southern Europe countries such as Greece, Portugal and Turkey to modify the height of almost every platform because the more advanced ones like the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany* decided that their standard was to be adopted. The German railways of the 1920s were a random grouping of standards anyway given that much of their network was still structured by autonomous states. GB had been a single country (comprising three historic nations under a single government) since 1801, i.e. before any passenger railways were constructed, so applying standards was considerably easier by statute. Despite that, there are many branch lines built by lesser companies th

Sure - all this is true - but my question's not really about common standards, just the fact that the UK seems unusual compared to other countries in adopting high platforms pretty much from the beginning. Other European countries may have started out with different "standard" heights but what they seem to have had in common is generally much lower platforms than ours, relying on steps to climb into carriages.

 

[BRX]

Could well have been the same as the US, they didn't build platforms at the majority of rural stations because it was simply too expensive to build and maintain a long structure outside urban areas when a couple of sets of wooden steps that could be placed alongside one carriage would suffice.

Maybe the UK being a relatively densely populated country is part of the answer. Compared to other places in the world even a very rural stop might tend to have a larger catchment population, and therefore a tendency to invest a bit more in infrastructure at those stops.

 

[fegguk]

It most likely to some extent stems for the regulation of railway by Government and Parliament in the UK. Such things as having fences to keep people from straying onto private property from the railway land come from our system of having a Parliament made up from people that pursue there own interest and who were in the past drawn form a very narrow section of society. The well publicised death on an MP at the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester cannot have failed to influence his colleagues and railway regulation of railways for good and ill have been the result ever since.

 

[duesselmartin]

what is interesting that Germany is still far away from a common platform height, struggling in places still with three different heights. In my own Rhine-Ruhr Region, the communter S-Bahn standard adopted in the 1970s and conversions took place to 2010, is now suppose to be lowered again.
The UK tends to take disabled/barrier-free access a lot more seriously.

 

[NickBucks]

Could it because the early users of the UK rail network were affluent and arrived on horse or horse and carriage or penny farthing. They could exit this mode of transport and board the train at the same height so avoiding getting their trousers or dresses all muddy. When the railway became accessible to the lower classes platforms at the level we know today were needed as these passengers came on foot.

 

[Helvellyn]

Nobody has mentioned freight and mail yet. I wonder how much of that was a factor at stations, particularly mail, where a big step between platform and train would be a hindrance to efficient transfer of such goods?

 

[etr221]

The impression I have is that in the early days of railways in Britain low (rail or not much more) height platforms were quite common, and high platforms (as we know them) were only standard/near universal from the end of the 19th century - pictures of trains in the 1890s commonly show coaches with full length low level footboards for low platform stations. And rail motors and the like (including the modernisation plan diesel railbuses) continued to be built with retractable steps for use at rail level platform halts long after.

Quite why high platforms became a British characteristic is one of those things needing deep study - it probably just came about as distinctly British and non-British ways of running a railway emerged in the mid Victorian period, for no terribly obvious reason, beyond hints from the railway inspectorate, and the fact that (as it seems to me) British railways tended to have a relatively frequent service, more so than abroad.

 

[WatcherZero]

Nobody has mentioned freight and mail yet. I wonder how much of that was a factor at stations, particularly mail, where a big step between platform and train would be a hindrance to efficient transfer of such goods?

It was actually a major consideration at rural stations where milk was being farmed and transported to the cities, they tended to build all or part of the platform above carriage floor height so that the extremely heavy milk churns could easily be rolled down in to the carriage then vice versa at the other end.

 

[Mag_seven]

It doesn't. Since the rollout of the FLIRTs and low-floor intermediate coaches for the old style EMUs Swiss local services have had near 100% level boarding (and that's with low platforms), and the IC2000 coaches have too, as well as the new IC EMUs for the Gotthardtunnel. They really are getting there.

I viewed a wheelchair getting on to a busy Zurich S-Bahn train the other week - because of that level boarding it piece of cake to what you have to do here with ramps etc. And this was in the middle of the rush hour with a DOO train and no staff intervention required.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It was actually a major consideration at rural stations where milk was being farmed and transported to the cities, they tended to build all or part of the platform above carriage floor height so that the extremely heavy milk churns could easily be rolled down in to the carriage then vice versa at the other end.

One thing that's very noticeable in other European countries is that the passenger platform tends to be low but there's usually an old disused goods platform which is high.

 

[themiller]

There may be a GB standard for platform heights but, as can be seen around the network, there are many platforms which don't comply with this. That is why the 'Harrington Hump' was developed. As has been said above, there are many different platform heights on the continent - when in Germany many years ago, I was surprised by the high platforms at Mettmann which appeared to be higher than ours giving a level entry to the 'Silverfish' stock

 

[Bletchleyite]

There may be a GB standard for platform heights but, as can be seen around the network, there are many platforms which don't comply with this. That is why the 'Harrington Hump' was developed. As has been said above, there are many different platform heights on the continent - when in Germany many years ago, I was surprised by the high platforms at Mettmann which appeared to be higher than ours giving a level entry to the 'Silverfish' stock

It's usual for S-Bahn stations to have high platforms UK-style, this is to speed boarding and alighting.

 

[Adlington]

what is interesting that Germany is still far away from a common platform height, struggling in places still with three different heights

See this low-tech, low-cost solution ("Mobile Bahnsteigerhöhung") from Wissingen, Lower Saxony:
http://www.rtlnord.de/nachrichten/m...m-bahnhof-in-wissingen-sorgt-fuer-lacher.html

 

[Cowley]

Were our higher platform heights also partly due to our narrow loading gauge, meaning that there wouldn’t have been as much room to fit steps down to a lower level on carriages? Ie just easier to build carriages with level floors and have higher platforms instead?

 

[Class 170101]

GB had been a single country (comprising three historic nations under a single government) since 1801, i.e. before any passenger railways were constructed, so applying standards was considerably easier by statute.

But there are two track gauges. 5ft 3 in on the Island of Ireland and 4ft 8½ in England, Scotland and Wales. Why the difference when all were united in 1801?

 

[Adlington]

Also 7ft in England.....