Railway Platform - Characteristics

Characteristics

A most basic form of platform consists of an area at the same level as the track, usually resulting in a fairly large height difference between the 'platform' and the train floor. This would often not be considered a true platform. The more traditional platform is situated at an elevated level relative to the track, but often lower than the train floor, although ideally the platform should be at the same level as the train floor. Occasionally the platform is at a higher level than the train floor. This may be the case when a train with a low floor level serves a station built for trains with a higher floor level, for example at the Dutch stations of the DB Regionalbahn Westfalen (see Enschede). Likewise, on the London Underground some stations are served by both District Line and Piccadilly Line trains, and the Piccadilly trains have lower floors.

A tram stop is often in the middle of the street; usually it has as a platform a refuge area of a similar height to that of the sidewalk (e.g. 10 cm), and sometimes has no platform at all. The latter requires extra care for the boarding and unboarding passengers and for the other traffic to avoid accidents. Both types of tram stops can be seen in the tram networks of Melbourne and Toronto. Sometimes a tram stop is served by ordinary trams (with rather low floors) as well as metro-like light rail vehicles with higher floors, and the tram stop is provided with a dual height platform. An example can be found in Amstelveen, Netherlands. Similarly a train station may be served by heavy-rail and light-rail vehicles (with lower floors) and also have a dual height platform. This applies for example on the RijnGouweLijn, Netherlands.

In this context, the term platform has also gained popular usage as a verb among rail conductors, as in, "The first two cars will not platform at ."