Platform access

[Steamport Southport]

Don't forget back in the day they would be more likely using bath chairs rather than wheel chairs.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_chair

 

 

Huge cumbersome things. You still saw them in use at seaside towns well into the 1970s.

 

 

Jason

 

[Michael Hodgson]

 

 

2 hours ago, Reorte said:

Interesting signal there - why that rather than a more conventional bracket?

The conventional signal wouldn't be a bracket at all - a simple straight post.  As explained above, sighting would be an issue with the post at the side of the line, and this arrangement (usually called a gallows  bracket) is used where necesary to be both low enough to be visible  past a bridge or often a platform canopy, but offset as you obviously can't put the post in the 4-foot.

Edited December 12, 2023 by Michael Hodgson

[Reorte]

1 hour ago, Stoke West said:

Non of the Settle to Carlisle stations had a footbridge except Appleby so all passengers had to use foot/barrow crossings , Giggleswick has a foot crossing only , there must be stations only accessable by foot crossing , Stogumber on the WSR being one .

The current situation (unless it's changed in the last few years, which I doubt) still has several of them accessed via foot crossings, and in the case of Horton it's a public footpath. Kirkby Stephen and Settle have acquired footbridges since, and either platform of Kirkby Stephen at least (don't know about Settle, never got on or off there) can be accessed step-free from the road*, although it's a bit of a faff from the car park.

 

* well I think the track up to the down platform is step free but I'm not 100% sure. I seem to remember a bit of work being done on it a little while back so I'd be surprised if it wasn't.

[Wheatley]

1 hour ago, Reorte said:

... either platform of Kirkby Stephen at least (don't know about Settle, never got on or off there) can be accessed step-free from the road*, although it's a bit of a faff from the car park.

 

The down platform is step free, but the gradient must be about 1 in 7 - check your brakes ! At least it has lighting now, until the late 1990s the down side lighting was a Wipac spotlamp on the up side lamp post (singular) ! 

[Michael Hodgson]

2 hours ago, Stoke West said:

Non of the Settle to Carlisle stations had a footbridge except Appleby

 

Why not?  An awful lot of Victorian pre-opening inspections by the Inspectorate said you need to provide a footbridge before giving consent to stations  being opened for passengers.  Some of the very earliest lines may have got away with it on grandfather rights, but I wouldn't have put Settle Carlisle in that category as the MR was a bit of a latecomer.

[Steamport Southport]

51 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

 

Why not?  An awful lot of Victorian pre-opening inspections by the Inspectorate said you need to provide a footbridge before giving consent to stations  being opened for passengers.  Some of the very earliest lines may have got away with it on grandfather rights, but I wouldn't have put Settle Carlisle in that category as the MR was a bit of a latecomer.

 

Most would be accessed from the local road bridge, had a subway or paths leading up to it.

 

Very few people would be crossing the lines to get to the other side. You are either going one way or the other!

 

 

Jason

[Reorte]

11 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Most would be accessed from the local road bridge, had a subway or paths leading up to it.

 

Very few people would be crossing the lines to get to the other side. You are either going one way or the other!

Off the top of my head Dent, Horton  and Ribblehead can't be. Technically you can get to both platforms at Horton via footpaths but it's a very long way around! The current platform layout at Ribblehead isn't original, so there might've been access before (would need to look that up). Garsdale might've been one too when it was still a junction (the up platform was originally an island - did it once have a subway?)

Edited December 12, 2023 by Reorte

[Jeremy Cumberland]

1 minute ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Most would be accessed from the local road bridge, had a subway or paths leading up to it.

 

Very few people would be crossing the lines to get to the other side. You are either going one way or the other!

 

 

Jason

I'm not sure. Armathwaite, Lazonby, Langwathby and Garsdale now have direct access to both platforms from the road that passes under the railway next to the station (and none of these now has a foot crossing), but I think this is reasonably recent. Dent has a road over the railway immediately north of the station but the only access to the up platform is by foot crossing between the platforms. Ribblehead and Horton only have a road on the up side, and access to the down platform is by foot crossing (which is also a public footpath in the case of Horton).

 

Ribblehead is interesting because the down platform was only built in 1992.

[Southernman46]

There is a access crossing at the west end of Yeovil junction very much still in use for less able passengers to gain / exit the platforms escorted by a member of staff.

[Stoke West]

4 minutes ago, Southernman46 said:

There is a access crossing at the west end of Yeovil junction very much still in use for less able passengers to gain / exit the platforms escorted by a member of staff.

Of course at Yeovil  Junction the north side platform was not thro running until 26-03-1975

[Stoke West]

23 minutes ago, Jeremy Cumberland said:

I'm not sure. Armathwaite, Lazonby, Langwathby and Garsdale now have direct access to both platforms from the road that passes under the railway next to the station (and none of these now has a foot crossing), but I think this is reasonably recent. Dent has a road over the railway immediately north of the station but the only access to the up platform is by foot crossing between the platforms. Ribblehead and Horton only have a road on the up side, and access to the down platform is by foot crossing (which is also a public footpath in the case of Horton).

 

Ribblehead is interesting because the down platform was only built in 1992.

Ribblehead did have a down platform directly opposite the up platform  but was demolished to build the longer stone loading sidings the previous quarry sidings were shorter

[Michael Hodgson]

2 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Very few people would be crossing the lines to get to the other side. You are either going one way or the other!

 

If you were going to buy a ticket you would usually only find a booking office on the platform for one direction or the other, not both. 

[Steamport Southport]

1 hour ago, Michael Hodgson said:

If you were going to buy a ticket you would usually only find a booking office on the platform for one direction or the other, not both. 

 

But wouldn't the person with you be buying the tickets? Nothing stopping them using the barrow crossing.

 

There was probably only half a dozen trains a day at most of these rural stations. Plenty of time to buy a ticket and daily travellers would have probably had season tickets. People tended to know the train times as there wouldn't be another one for hours.

 

 

I'm afraid many are failing into the trap of what happens now rather than what happened back in the day. Disabled people just wouldn't be travelling very often and almost certainly wouldn't be travelling solo. You couldn't even get on a bus until recent years in a wheelchair.

 

 

Jason

Edited December 12, 2023 by Steamport Southport

[Barcaldinegoods]

11 hours ago, Jeremy Cumberland said:

It's just past the footbridge, which is where the photo is taken from. The signal needs to be sighted under the bridge.

 

Apologies for briefly drifting a bit off topic but just to correct the above...

 

That Midland Railway gallows signal was to enable sighting of it, (on a left hand curve) past the water tower which stood between the footbridge and the signal. Per the first picture below (note the porter with barrow about to use the crossing for its primary purpose- back on topic!).

  

After water tower was demolished (early 1970s as I recall) the gallows signal was no longer required and was replaced by a straight-post signal (per second picture; neither of these pictures are mine). 

 

In then second photo you can see the remains of the base of the water tower.  

 

The footbridge remained throughout, and stands to this day.

 

Today there is a straight-post colour light signal in the place of the semaphore.

 

The barrow crossing was removed once access to the Ilkley platform was created via the road behind (Hag Farm Road)      

 

Basis for above is recollections & photos from having lived just around the corner from the station between 1966 and 1979. 

 

Chris 

 

 

    

[Sitham Yard]

My recollection from relatively few years ago is that at Bridlington there was a notice to the effect that anyone who could not use the footbridge to access the platform for Scarborough bound trains could use the barrow crossing if accompanied by station staff. Can anyone confirm please?

Andrew  

[Barcaldinegoods]

Back to Burley-in-Wharfedale if I may... this is well off topic so mods may wish to delete / move this. But on the topic of the gallows signal by the barrow crossing I've been doing some digging back to times before my recollections begin. 

 

In 1922 the current steel girder footbridge (second photo) was built (there was a plate dated 1922 attached to it). Prior to this was a wooden footbridge, per first picture. Note the straight, fairly tall signal which is visible over the footbridge. This obviously pre-dates the gallows signal. 

 

So the gallows signal presumably dates from the building of the steel footbridge in 1922.

 

The choice at that time was therefore I assume: 

 

a) An even taller signal to clear the new footbridge. This would perhaps have been too high to be safely sighted by drivers re-starting from the station. A lower, co-acting arm (per at Embsay for example) might have been obscured by the water tank. 

 

Or, the chosen solution: 

 

b) The gallows signal, giving sighting of the arm at a desirable / optimum height, past the new footbridge, and past the water tank.   

 

I'm not a signalling expert (nearest I get to that is a great-grandfather, who was signalman for the Midland at Methley, Woodlesford and Bolton Abbey). Hence better qualified others here may wish to correct any shortcomings in my signalling knowledge above! 

 

Chris  

 

 

 

[phil_sutters]

4 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

But wouldn't the person with you be buying the tickets? Nothing stopping them using the barrow crossing.

 

There was probably only half a dozen trains a day at most of these rural stations. Plenty of time to buy a ticket and daily travellers would have probably had season tickets. People tended to know the train times as there wouldn't be another one for hours.

 

 

I'm afraid many are failing into the trap of what happens now rather than what happened back in the day. Disabled people just wouldn't be travelling very often and almost certainly wouldn't be travelling solo. You couldn't even get on a bus until recent years in a wheelchair.

 

 

Jason

There were situations where one needed to change platforms - for example where your branch line arrived at the junction and your onward train was across on the other side of the mainline.

Not only were numerous stations not accessible to wheelchair users, but many carriages were not accessible either, even if a ramp was available to get to the doorway. If one could get aboard a non-corridor carriage you would take up about half the compartment, facing across the train, with the seats on either side of you inaccessible. Think of corridor carriages with fairly narrow doors into the compartments. The corridors themselves were often not very wide, so manoeuvring from the vestibule, into the corridor could be difficult and into a compartment virtually impossible. Toilets were totally inaccessible. In some cases people in wheelchairs had to be 'entrained' into the guards van through the double luggage doors and then sit in the luggage compartment for the journey. Their companions might find that there was nowhere in there to sit, unless there was a spare seat in the guard's section. The design of wheelchairs was also a factor. They could be far more rigid and cumbersome than modern designs.

[newbryford]

22 hours ago, Reorte said:

The current situation (unless it's changed in the last few years, which I doubt) still has several of them accessed via foot crossings, and in the case of Horton it's a public footpath. Kirkby Stephen and Settle have acquired footbridges since, and either platform of Kirkby Stephen at least (don't know about Settle, never got on or off there) can be accessed step-free from the road*, although it's a bit of a faff from the car park.

 

* well I think the track up to the down platform is step free but I'm not 100% sure. I seem to remember a bit of work being done on it a little while back so I'd be surprised if it wasn't.

 

The foot crossing is regularly used at Settle for those that have difficulty with stairs [*] as well as the trolley service for the train.

The crossing is protected by locked gates and station staff assist.

 

[*] There are quite a number of coach parties that join the train at Settle that have customers of the "more mature" age range.

 

[Wheatley]

15 hours ago, Barcaldinegoods said:

In 1922 the current steel girder footbridge (second photo) was built (there was a plate dated 1922 attached to it). Prior to this was a wooden footbridge, per first picture. Note the straight, fairly tall signal which is visible over the footbridge. This obviously pre-dates the gallows signal. 

 

So the gallows signal presumably dates from the building of the steel footbridge in 1922.

 

The staircases have been replaced by some with a rather gentler gradient, but remarkably (considering the 1990s electrification) the bridge deck is still the 1922 rivetted girder.  

 

 

This 1965 picture also solves a long standing mystery for me, namely "what are the metal hoops on top of the Up side wall for ?" (they're still there). Gas pipe supports it seems ! I think there are some at Guiseley too. 

[Martino]

It’s been a while since I visited Twyford (Berkshire) as I moved to the US back in 2006, but I remember that taking a Paddington to Henley train would result in Twyford passengers pilling off the train and then down the platform end to a board crossing from the platform end to the car park (old goods yard) and then waiting at track level while the DMU past en route to Henley.  Of course the big surprise came when you got to your car and found your radio was still in the car as they often had been removed by some local scrote!

[JeremyC]

In  the film 'This is York'  at 14:30 to about 15:00, a wheelchair is brought via the goods lift and collects a passenger off a train. (The scene is split so you need to watch right through). The wheelchair is literally an armchair on wheels.

 

Edited December 13, 2023 by JeremyC

[Stoke West]

4 hours ago, newbryford said:

 

The foot crossing is regularly used at Settle for those that have difficulty with stairs [*] as well as the trolley service for the train.

The crossing is protected by locked gates and station staff assist.

 

[*] There are quite a number of coach parties that join the train at Settle that have customers of the "more mature" age range.

 

Settle footbridge was installed 1993 from Prestonpans 

[The Stationmaster]

On 12/12/2023 at 15:51, Stoke West said:

Of course at Yeovil  Junction the north side platform was not thro running until 26-03-1975

At which point - on the Saturday night just after the possession started - I 'saved' the previous signal box diagram as it was taken out of the case to be replaced by the new one. (and I've still got it).

[Wickham Green too]

3 hours ago, Martino said:

It’s been a while since I visited Twyford (Berkshire) as I moved to the US back in 2006, but I remember that taking a Paddington to Henley train would result in Twyford passengers pilling off the train and then down the platform end to a board crossing from the platform end to the car park (old goods yard) and then waiting at track level while the DMU passed en-route to Henley.  Of course the big surprise came when you got to your car and found your radio was still in the car as they often had been removed by some local scrote!

I guess Paddington to Henley trains are a thing of the past as a 345 or 387 wouldn't be able to coast all the way to the terminus - let alone get back ! ......... the car park board crossing is still there anyway - though just out of shot !

 

165.119 : 28/8/23

[Michael Hodgson]

There are degrees of disabiity as well as numerous different forms of diability.  Not all diabled people need wheelchairs, not all wheelchair users are totally unable to walk. Some people can manage to board something like a traditonal Mark I carriage and sit in a normal seat, but need a wheelchair to get to the train.  They might or might not be able to cope with traditonal railway toilet cubicles.  The most limiting problems for some would be getting across the line if it's only a footbridge, and how to deal with the wheelchair when they've boarded. 

 

Others with worse mobility of course can only use the railway with assistance to board and may need to be met on arrival if they are not accompanied.  They might only be able to use the railway if they can remain in their wheelchair and so they need modern rolling stock design. 

 

Some people can cope but are just extremely slow - which can be an issue at crossings without protection.

 

Deafness and/or blindness present quite different problems - warning signs or announcements may not be apparent to them.