| Posted by thewiz on January 2, 2014 | |
I fail to see how this is considered safe in a country that is obsessed with personal safety. Surely Amtrak could spring for a proper platform for each track!
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To respond to thewiz: I BELIEVE Middletown is the ONLY ground-level "platform" on this entire route, all others being floor level. Middletown is also probably the LEAST USED station on this route in terms of passengers on-off. Still, I AGREE this type of situation SHOULD NOT exist on what is being touted as a "High Speed Corridor."
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| Posted by Andrew on January 3, 2014 | |
I had to look twice to see the problem. All platforms here in the U.K. that I know of are at coach floor level, on the main line. At least they seem to have made it before your snow storm.
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| Posted by on January 3, 2014 | |
Very few US station platforms outside of the Northeast Corridor have floor-level boarding. Almost all stations have the platforms at track level.
On the "high-speed" Keystone service between Philadelphia and Harrisburg, PA, there are ground-level platforms at Ardmore, Paoli, Exton, Downingtown, Coatesville, Parkesburg, Mt. Joy and Middletown. Elizabethtown was a ground-level platform until its reconstruction last year.
The SEPTA commuter agency which serves the areas around Philadelphia has ground-level platforms at almost every station. You'll also see its trains operating between stations with the vestibule doors open. New Jersey Transit has ground-level platforms on all lines except the Northeast Corridor line between New York and Trenton. MBTA in Boston has almost all ground-level platforms. The MARC (Maryland) and Virginia Railway Express commuter trains are almost all ground-level stations, except a few on the shared MARC/Amtrak "Penn Line" between Washington and Baltimore.
Outside the Northeast Corridor, most of the passenger trains operate on tracks owned by freight railroads. The freight railroads tend not to allow floor-level platforms to be built because they would limit the size of the freight cars which can operate on the same track.
This has become a point of contention in the US, not so much because of the speed and safety of floor-level boarding but because disabled passengers are demanding equal access to trains without the use of manually operated lifts.
The other problem with floor-level boarding is that not all US passenger equipment has its doors on the same level. For example, Amtrak's single-level passenger equipment has the "traditional" floor-level doors, which can also be opened as you see in this picture. But the double-deck Superliners and California cars used on the Surfliners, San Joaquins and Capitol Corridor have a lower door, which can't be used with a high-level platform. They can only be used with ground-level platforms. And both types of equipment are used on some routes, so it's not possible to construct "floor-level" platforms in that cases.
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