Rail Transport Safety Bill

[ozbob]

http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/view/legislativeAssembly/hansard/documents/2010.pdf/2010_02_25_WEEKLY.pdf

[#Metro]

Long Post Warning

Mr EMERSON: Certainly, Mr Deputy Speaker, because this bill is about rail safety and I have
raised repeatedly in this House numerous concerns about safety at that train station. Today I will be
raising new concerns about safety at that station, concerns that all in this House should be very aware
of.
As I have said previously, as part of that multimillion-dollar upgrade, a gap of about 50
centimetres exists between the platform and the trains. My office has received numerous reports about
people being injured attempting to negotiate this gap—a clear issue of safety at the train station. Clearly
that situation is unacceptable, especially given that an average of 1,700 passengers pass through the
station every peak hour, including hundreds of children who attend the nearby Holy Family, Brigidine, St
Peters and Indooroopilly high schools and colleges

Actually, someone got caught in the gap ( before the upgrade)

health—had his leg
caught between the platform and the carriage. This was before the upgrade. Lorraine makes the point
that she told the then Labor MP for Indooroopilly, Ronan Lee, how important it was to have this matter
fixed during the upgrade. So she alerted the Labor Party about this safety issue. Well before the money
was spent on the upgrade she told the then Labor member about this. But was it fixed? No!

Apparently, the monitors are also not working at Indooroopilly:

This week my office was
contacted by a man who uses the Indooroopilly train station every day. For five months the two
information monitors in the walkway from Lambert Road have not been working. Andrew—the
gentleman who contacted us—said he contacted Queensland Rail several times and each time there
was a different reason as to why they had not been fixed. Andrew has personally witnessed on two
occasions people tripping down the stairs to get to the other platform because the monitors are not
working and people do not know which platform to access. I table a photo of those monitors.

although a fix seems unlikely, now that the station upgrade has finished...

I think the real question here is: is it a matter of costed opposition policy to move all of the many
railway stations across the Citytrain network which are on a curve? As of yet I have not had an answer
in that regard. Nonetheless, I would make the point that, since the Indooroopilly Railway Station was
upgraded in November 2008, about 1½ million people have used it. While any incident is regrettable,
the sum total of the issue which the member for Indooroopilly raises as a massive issue of public safety
concern was as follows: one person fell because they had a seizure—obviously not because of the
platform; one report of a person who was assaulted—obviously that is problematic but not a result of the
platform; two people have fallen while running through the subway and up the stairs—unfortunate but
not because of the platform; and three people out of 1½ million have injured themselves when
embarking their respective trains, and so we could argue that the platform height may have been an
issue in that regard.

I think members should understand that what the member for Indooroopilly is arguing for is a
commitment that would cost hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to move all of the platforms
that are on a curve, because since November 2008 three people out of 1½ million have experienced
some injury in that regard. It is a fair point, but it is a big call to make.

[mufreight]

Tramtrain once again a little research would have been helpfull, since the upgrade of Indoorpilly there have been at least three recorded instances of people sliping into the vertical gap between platform and carriage entry and this after $26.500.000.oo has been spent to upgrade the station to make it disability compliant.
it is only a matter of time until there is an incident where serious injury results with legal action for damages yet the new platforms at Oxley and Darra and the rebuilt platforms at Darra are all being built to a level lower than carriage floor entry, so much for the much publicised zero harm policies if the solution involves cost, the furphy being thrown up that the platforms can not be raised because of clearance problems with the operation of freight services due to the platforms being located on a curve is not valid, as electric rollingstock is the longest and widest rollingstock in use on the system.
Platforms 5 and 6 at Central are curved at the Fortirude Valley end, are full height and freight rollingstock is regularly operated through these platforms.