Level access at London terminals

[reytomas1228]

Hello everyone, I am new to this forum and have a query regarding accessibility. My partner is an electric wheelchair user and we often travel to London on GTR services from Brighton. In general, there aren't many problems regarding ramp assistance at London Victoria or London Bridge, although occasionally staff fail to turn up to get us off the train even with booked assistance. However, there have been instances when staff appear to be very annoyed with having to help provide the ramps, arguing that we would be delaying the service if we boarded the train (which, by the time we finished arguing with the staff, did end up happening). This made me wonder why there is no level boarding via raised platforms at busy London terminals, particularly at London Victoria platforms 13-19. Having level boarding would make a huge difference to our journey, allowing us to board and alight without worrying if staff are available.

As far as I know, the only step-free National Rail stations in London that offer unaided level boarding access are 6 stations on the Overground's East London Line and the Heathrow Express dedicated platforms at Paddington and Heathrow. In these cases, the services calling at these stations feature a completely uniform rolling stock and the stations have virtually straight platforms to reduce the gap between the train and platform. Within the next two years, this number of stations is expected to increase due to Crossrail and the Thameslink Programme offering level access at their core stations using raised platforms and platform humps, respectively.

At London Victoria, Gatwick Express services have dedicated platforms 13-14 and run a uniform fleet of 387s, while Southern services at platforms 15-19 are served, if I'm not mistaken, exclusively by 377s. These platforms are also all remarkably straight. And so, I wanted to know if there is a reason why some platforms in stations such as Blackfriars and Paddington (high level) will have level boarding while those in similar stations such as London Victoria and Gatwick Airport have no such plans. I also wanted to know if anyone knows of any plans to further expand the use of level access. For example, Greater Anglia's upcoming Stadler fleet is meant to have a low floor near the doors to meet the standard platform height of 950 mm.

 

[Ianno87]

Remember at Victoria, the standardisation to 377s and 387s is only pretty recent. 442s were still on GatEx a year or two ago, and the rest of the station can still see the occasional 455 come over from the Slow Line side during disruption or maintenance on the Slow Line platforms. Plus engineering trains need to run in and out of the station sometimes too.

There's much more of a need for operational flexibility at Victoria, which has a much higher frequency of trains per platform per hour than Paddington.

 

[matt_world2004]

If you are a wheelchair user and getting the ramp causes the train to be delayed imho its not your problem. You should not feel pressured to not boarding a service because a train companies own acessibility policy causes a train to be delayed.

 

[tsr]

It’s also worth remembering that 387s can end up using nearly all platforms at Victoria (13 & 14 are branded GX but there’s no obligation for GX services to go there - though GTR get less money from the Oyster readers on other platforms, for passengers who have travelled from Gatwick). A ramp should be far easier to use, compared to making sure those specific services use those platforms.

 

[MotorcycleAlan]

It might be worth getting in touch with www.transportforall.org.uk they take great interest in trying to sort such issues.