Quote:
Originally Posted by Merlin66
Bullet trains belt through stations in Japan every hour or so.
No issue..
|
Yep, but as was later discussed, the stations/platforms were designed for it. It would take new lines (Which I doubt there is space reserved for) and new designs to keep someone from waking up in a different suburb to their elbow. not to mention situational awareness that so many people seem to lack.
To take Rockbank station as the example again where the Ballarat trains breeze through at speed unless they are stopping there and at even higher speed if they express through the next station as well, the drivers must have their hearts in their mouths every time given there is a rail level pedestrian crossing to get from one platform to the other and people blindly bumble across, coffee in one hand, iphone in the other.
We would need to be a lot further from a design legacy that seems to be related to the steam era for it to work. Even the newer stations like Tarneit (I called it Derrimut before which is not right, working from memory) the platform is completely open right to the edge, inches from the trains. Imagine a train expressing through there at even 100KMH! If you were on the road doing 100 and saw someone standing 500mm from the edge of the lane looking at their phone you would be unlikely to keep on at 100, and drivers in cars can swerve as well as brake, something a train driver can't do. they can only hit the emergency brakes and hope there is not a thud.