Trivia: Stations in other countries that have tracks with platforms on both sides?

[jpl]

Boden in Sweden has platforms on both sides of track 3. Last time I was there the train doors opened on both sides. It makes connection to other trains easier.

 

[Gordon]

Depends on how big the gap to mind is, I'd say.

At Morden the gap is very small - there is no sense that the third rail is even 'accessible' when the train is in the platform. I always felt the same at Norwood Junction.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Oct 2025 ==

They also get away with yellow lines in a position that would get me yelled at if I stood there on a National Rail station with a train arriving. Different rules it seems.

(Also a lower voltage with the voltage difference split across the four rails. Or is that just in cast tunnel sections?)

Yellow lines can be farcical - as anyone who has tried to negotiate Farringdon Thameslink platforms at rush hour will know. For those who don't know the station, the Thameslink platforms are very narrow (being infrastructure that was absolutely not designed for the current passenger footfall). No amount of 'please stay behind the yellow line' (and there are loads) from the platform staff can mask the fact that the situation is inherently a death trap. Trains are allowed to accelerate away at high speed whilst the platform is still full of passengers trying to move in both directions, but there simply isn't enough room.

https://c8.alamy.com/comp/JEE8XJ/platform-4-at-farringdon-station-london-uk-shows-old-thameslink-series-JEE8XJ.jpg

 

[DelW]

I suspect not, because most people are going to be nowhere near the platform edge unless there is a train at the platform to board. But I don't have the stats to hand.

The platform 7/8 island is not very wide, and the subway ramp takes a big chunk out. Plenty of passengers use the p7 side to walk past the subway or simply as somewhere to wait, especially when p8 is crowded.

If it's a valid connection you should have time to get up and over the bridge. If not the connectional allowance needs reviewing.

Guildford has a bad habit of last-minute platform changes, especially for the GWR trains, which are the main users of p8.

 

[zwk500]

Well, thanks. So much for passenger convenience. It's box-tickers 1, passengers 0.

Remember - the pasenger is always in the wrong.

The railway's job is to transport as many people as possible, not every possible passenger. This does mean that individual passengers won't always be able to make the optimum journey. If the station had been built with a conventional platform on only 1 side nobody would be demanding they take out the track to make a flat connection at Guildford.

Only in an imaginary world in which trains always arrive on time.

Guildford has a bad habit of last-minute platform changes, especially for the GWR trains, which are the main users of p8.

These are problems for the railway to fix, and opening doors on the other side doesn't fix the root cause of late platform changes or delayed change. And, FWIW, while it's impossible to get 100% of trains on time the railway could be doing a darn sight better about getting into the high 90s.
Oh, and if valid connections are threatened by inbound trains running late then the outbound train should generally be held, IMO.

And there's nothing wrong with wanting to making a connection with a time below the allowance.

I agree, so long as you do so on the understanding that the railway never advertised ("promised") the connection. Otherwise it's like going into a Wetherspoons and being upset when they don't offer you complimentary Champagne on entry. I've personally made 3-4 minute connections at Bristol Temple Meads when the advertised allowance is 10 minutes, but that's because I absolutely pelted it when using the subway to change trains.

The platform 7/8 island is not very wide, and the subway ramp takes a big chunk out. Plenty of passengers use the p7 side to walk past the subway or simply as somewhere to wait, especially when p8 is crowded.

Tbh this is an argument for just fencing off Platform 7.

Anyway, guidlford is in the UK and this is meant to be an international thread.

 

[AdamWW]

The railway's job is to transport as many people as possible, not every possible passenger. This does mean that individual passengers won't always be able to make the optimum journey. If the station had been built with a conventional platform on only 1 side nobody would be demanding they take out the track to make a flat connection at Guildford.

Of course.

But it also quite often seems to see it as its job to never accept that anything it does might be improved and instead blame passengers for having unrealistic expectations.

 

[NCT]

Those who want doors open on both sides should support DOO.

 

[Tester]

Those who want doors open on both sides should support DOO.

Eh?

 

[NCT]

Eh?

The only reasonable way to ensure a speedy dispatch. Otherwise it's guard closing doors on opposite sides separately (particularly problematic when done from the passenger saloon in busy periods), where closing the doors on the other side could easily add 30 seconds.

 

[Tester]

The only reasonable way to ensure a speedy dispatch. Otherwise it's guard closing doors on opposite sides separately (particularly problematic when done from the passenger saloon in busy periods), where closing the doors on the other side could easily add 30 seconds.

I'm not seeing an intractable problem here.

 

[izvor]

Anyway, guidlford is in the UK and this is meant to be an international thread.

Indeed, so in a desperate attempt to restore topicality I've found this shot of Chișinău, Moldova in 2018. Fairly common Eastern European platform layout, encased in concrete.

 

[AdamWW]

Indeed, so in a desperate attempt to restore topicality I've found this shot of Chișinău, Moldova in 2018. Fairly common Eastern European platform layout, encased in concrete.

And a very interesting photo too - thanks for that!

I don't know what the skinny platform between the tracks is for. In fact the layout is rather odd, in that the thin platform becomes a much wider one beyond the canopy.
(It's also not obvious to me why the train in the photo, which had arrived from Bucharest, didn't just use the platform nearest to the station building. The next train due wasn't for a long time.)

I did once end up on a mini platform like that in Slovakia having inadvertently descended from a train on the wrong side and it wasn't a very comfortable place to be as the train left.

 

[The exile]

And a very interesting photo too - thanks for that!

I don't know what the skinny platform between the tracks is for. In fact the layout is rather odd, in that the thin platform becomes a much wider one beyond the canopy.
(It's also not obvious to me why the train in the photo, which had arrived from Bucharest, didn't just use the platform nearest to the station building. The next train due wasn't for a long time.)

I did once end up on a mini platform like that in Slovakia having inadvertently descended from a train on the wrong side and it wasn't a very comfortable place to be as the train left.

View attachment 190610

Mini platforms on the “offside” used to be fairly common for loading parcels etc - keeping all that traffic clear of the passenger platforms. Remember them being pretty busy at Cologne back in the late 80s.

 

[izvor]

I don't know what the skinny platform between the tracks is for. In fact the layout is rather odd, in that the thin platform becomes a much wider one beyond the canopy.
(It's also not obvious to me why the train in the photo, which had arrived from Bucharest, didn't just use the platform nearest to the station building. The next train due wasn't for a long time.)

Mini platforms on the “offside” used to be fairly common for loading parcels etc - keeping all that traffic clear of the passenger platforms. Remember them being pretty busy at Cologne back in the late 80s.

I don't think it's that, at least in eastern Europe. Passenger platforms between running lines, such as existed, were usually narrow. Trains passing on parallel tracks were usually (not always) directed to draw up clear of each other. Passengers waiting to board were supposed to wait by the station building until their train had been announced. In recent decades this is not observed so much.

The top photo was taken at Chișinău on the same day as the one in post #40, looking the other way. The "skinny" platform had narrowed at the point that the DMU had drawn up, and passengers were alighting on that side not the wide side. The second photo is of a country station outside Chișinău (Bucovaţ), showing the standard narrow platforms. I would guess that when Chișinău was "modernised" they just adopted the old layout, more or less.

I have seen this arrangement at many stations in countries across the region, from Czechia to Ukraine. In many the "platform" road adjacent to the station building is no longer used, if there are other tracks available.

Chișinău seems to have long had bizarre practices, as (despite having only a few trains per day) local trains from Ungheni used to arrive at the "local" platforms, quite a way down the line (just visible in the distance in AdamWW's photo above the line of wagons to the right). There was no entrance/exit there (I spent a long time looking) and it was a long trek up the platform to reach the station building, only to have to go back the same way to reach the town centre!

 

[MarcVD]

In Belgium, I think the only station that once had platforms on each side of the tracks is Gent Sint Pieters. And I say "had" because the station is undergoing a major transformation today, where those additional platforms will disappear. I think only 4 tracks - out of 12 - still have them today. They were not accessible to passengers - just used by railway employees .



(pictures from Google)

 

[AdamWW]

This looks like a station where they really only want people to get off on one side. (Saint Quentin, in France).


Photo shows an island platform where one line has a platform face on the opposite side to the island platform, fenced off and with markings to make it clear that it isn't in use.