From the
BBC» -
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckv7kge48z4o - (does this link work in the
UK▸ ? - I am in Spain)
The announcement "mind the gap" is almost as much a part of travelling in London as the Tube sign or a red bus. But when is the gap between the train and the platform too far and too dangerous?
Eric Loach thinks he has the answer to that, and it is 30cm, or 12 inches. He knows this because while lying on the platform in agony having fallen over while getting off a train, he had time to look at the vertical drop between the train and the platform.
In February, at Ealing Broadway station in west London, he stepped off an Elizabeth line train onto the platform. Such was the force from the drop, that he broke a bone in his foot. He collapsed on the platform.
Eric, who also suffered bruising to his right knee, says the gap is not acceptable: "It's a 12-inch gap. Mums with buggies, people with heavy luggage, elderly people, of course it's not acceptable.
"It's a scandal, someone will be seriously injured or die. It's a death trap."
[article continues]
I have over recent weeks seen lots of gaps ranging from flat access with the train virtually touching the platform though to some where you have to haul yourself up multiple steep steps and where at the bigger stations the railway provides the equivalent of cherry pickers to lift wheelchairs onto trains. And just the other day, a lady looking to leave the Cardiff - Portsmouth service at Southampton had booked assistance to span the gap with her walker.
