Walking across the track

[Trog]

A big issue with the high platforms in the UK, which doesn't just effect passengers but also staff (particularly track maintenance) is that it's not easy getting from the track level to the platform other than at the end ramps. Makes it far harder to get out the way quickly if required, even more so that on a high speed line to get to a position of safety you'd not only have to get onto the platform but beyond the yellow line.

Never used to be a problem, many platforms also used to have steps every couple of chains to make it easier to get out.

I was once working in a platform when a train missed the 20 TSR and came through at 80, you would not believe how fast we got up on the platform. Train driver white as a sheet hanging onto his desk for grim death as his loco did a good impression of a ship in a storm. Duff jacks and Trackmen rolling all over the platform. Once he was past we just dusted ourselves off, and jumped back down and carried on. There did not seem much point in reporting him, as from the look on his face, he would not be making that mistake again.

 

[Gordon]

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There seem to be two themes in this discussion and it’s getting a bit confusing because some people are talking about the acceptability of walking across/along tracks and some are talking about walking across tracks in station area (ie using a flat crossing where no subway or footbridge exists. The original post was not quite clear on which of these the answer was for.

Therefore, to answer both themes:


Stations:

Taking France as an example – although there is a rolling programme to rebuild platforms and there are still low platforms and flat crossings at some stations even on main lines. Where these still exist on main lines a ground-mounted ‘white man’ lights up when it is NOT safe to cross. Unless it has changed recently one example was Romaneche Thorins in the Beaujolais on the main classic Paris – Lyon ‘Ligne Imperiale’ – very busy with regional passenger and (very) heavy freight.


Open line:

In my experience you quite often see people crossing tracks or taking the short cut route out of station area via trackside across ‘mainstream’ Europe – even in ‘well ordered’ Switzerland where you would think people might be more scared of upsetting ‘authority’.



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[tgsh2011]

Slovenia! And I recall being most surprised watching it lol!

 

[Schnellzug]

I must say, I really don't understand why it's insanely dangerous to cross a single track, non-electrified railway line with one train every couple of hours, and no freight that anyone's seen since the 1970s, when it's surely many hundreds of times more to do that on a road with thousands of cars thundering down it at anything up to 60 mph or more more every hour of the day. Most people manage to do so with a reasonable chance of succes, though.