SHOULD BE RAISED

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIV, Issue 21014, 18 April 1938, Page 6

SHOULD BE RAISED

TIMARU RAILWAY PLATFORM TRAVELLERS’ OPINIONS Is there any feature of the Timaru Railway Station which accounts fcr the number of minor accidents there every week? Is the platform as safe for use as it should be? To find an answer to these questions a “ Timaru Herald ” representative interviewed several I commercial travellers and others who ' travel by rail frequently. They were i unanimous in their opinion that the platform of the station is too low, and jis a real menace to the travelling public. Describing it as a “a veritable death trap,” one traveller who journeys over every main line in New Zealand once a month severely condemned the I station. “I think it is one of the worst in New Zealand,” he said. “Cer- | tainly there are others as bad, but not |at towns the size of Timaru. The ■ narrow platform means congestion near the main entrance. People crowd right up to the carriages as soon a§ a train draws in and travellers must alight with extreme caution or they | will be swept off their feet.” i “A positive danger” were the words | used by Mr H. Provost to describe the I station. "I have been a commercial I traveller for 29 years, and during that time I have travelled up and down ! New Zealand hundreds of times 1 I know all the main stations well, but I | still get squeamish when I have to get i off at Timaru. Either you jump from I the carriage platform and land on ' the station two or three feet below, or 1 you risk using the step and falling to | the station." I Using the Ashburton station as an I instance, Mr Provost illustrated how ' a higher platform gave travellers more ■ confidence. Besides reducing the disi tance from the carriage plaform, is i had a tendency to lessen the risk of I falling under the train. There could j be very little risk of injury if passengers could step from the carriage platform to the station comfortably. I Even if the distance from the first step to the station was reasonable passengers would not complain, though it was difficult to negotiate the steps when carrying bags because they were so narrow. Travellers Alarmed “I do not know how many ‘-tai accidents you have had here, but I know of several minor ones that could easily have proved serious,” continued Mr Provost. “It is all very well to tell people to take care. If the station | alarms experienced travellers—and I ; can assure you it does for I have heard several discussions—how must it appear to others. Very few people travel by rail more than five or six times a year, and it can hardly be expected that they should be aware of all these dangers. If it can be remedied at Ashburton then it can be remedied at Timaru. It certainly means recon- | struction of the whole platform and I the expenditure of many; but neither hurdle is so insuperable that the desire to save human life cannot surmount it.” A well-known business man in ~ : mI aru who travels to Christchurch every week, went so far as to visit the station when the south express came in on Saturday with a reporter and point out where the danger lay. Uie carriage platform is about two feet six inches above the station platform, and there are two steps on each carriage. The lower one is about r: inches above the station platform level, and the top one about 10 inches. The steps are about six inches n width, but the lower one projects no more than three inches outside the top one. This arrangement is quite all right for the purpose of climbing on to the carriage, but in alighting, it means that passengers must step directly from the carriage platform to the station, or if they use the top step, descend from there to the station, a distance of 18 inches. It is almost impracticable to use the lower step in alighting. With such a narrow top step, and such a height from the station platform, it takes very little to unbalance people carrying parcels and bags. If the platform were another six to 12 inches higher it is undeniable that a very grave danger would be removed. Recent Accidents Of 23 people who alighted from two adjoining carriages of the express on Saturday, not one descended to the platform with any degree of confidence. And of those 23 no fewer than eight stumbled to the platform. Only last Saturday week a woman slipped from the step of a carriage and sprained her ankle so badly that she had to be carried to a taxi. Recently a young man slipped on a step and stumbled forward on to the bag he was carrying, severely spraining his wrist. A small girl fell down the ria: ■ steps and slid off the platform on to the permanent way under a stationary carriage two weeks ago. On the Timaru station incidents like this happen every day. The reporter in making his investigations heard ail sorts of stories connected with similar incidents—and all cannot be apocryphal. While such condition exist; while every day sees its quota of minor accidents, it can only be marvelled that the fatality rate is not higher. If travellers cannot alight with certainty from a stationary train, what hope have they if they should inadvertently step from a slowly moving one? It is acknowledged that in no circumstances should anyone step from a moving train, but that does not remove the necessity for doing everything possible to avoid serious consequences should they do so. The question of remedying these conditions is admittedly a big one, it involves radical alterations to the present station platform. But if it is going to make the platform safe, then it appears that all the ingenuity of the engineers should be exercised in making those alterations.