Platforms

[Edo]

Hi All

Quick question on platforms.

When did CIE raise the platforms to their current height?

I assuming it was sometime in the 60's/70's ?

Im doing my final plans up for my effort at putting together a layout vaguely resembling Bagnalstown and I noted that the platforms were much lower in James O'Deas photos from the early 60's and more recent photos in the 80s.

thanks

 

Ed

[jhb171achill]

Depends.

The DSER, MGWR and GNR always had full height platforms, but the GSWR had low ones, like in mainland Europe.

Quite a few were still like that into the mid 1970s, when many smaller ones closed (Knocklong, Goold’s Cross, Killonan, etc.).

Mallow, however, still had low platforms until at least 1980 and possibly a few years after that. I think it was the last.

[jhb171achill]

Postscript: now that I think of it, several Cobh line ones remained low into the 80s, with some on the Youghal line low until closure. 

Adore was low too, as were some others on the North Kerry, and the (only two!) on the Waterford & Tramore were too.

A number of West Cork platforms were lower than normal but not quite as low as the GSWR.

[Edo]

Thanks JHB

That explains a lot.

Its in an interesting question why the GSWR decided to go differently than the other rail companies on the island in regard to this...............was there a continental influence in the Engineering department? or was it just cheaper?

 

[jhb171achill]

44 minutes ago, Edo said:

Thanks JHB

That explains a lot.

Its in an interesting question why the GSWR decided to go differently than the other rail companies on the island in regard to this...............was there a continental influence in the Engineering department? or was it just cheaper?

 

I’ve no idea, Edo. There’s no evidence of anything continental as such in early railway station design here - though many early British railways also had low platforms.

Probably just an “early railway” thing.