Have you ever wondered about those little plastic bumps along the edge of railway station platforms, and how they are installed?
Officially known as Tactile Ground Surface Indicators (TGSIs), installing the little plastic things takes a whole crew of workers.
First the old yellow painted line is ground off the platform.
Then a steel straightedge is temporarily bolted into place.
This provides a guide for the hole drilling.
A special drilling rig is required to create the holes with the correct spacing.
Meanwhile another staff members is the lookout for approaching trains.
Once all of the holes are drilled an interesting looking grid appears.
And now the boring bit commences – hammering in each plastic dimple one by one.
Down the middle runs a yellow line, with orange either side.
The different workers attack their part of the work in different ways.
Leaving odd collections of dimples when they knock off for the day.
But eventually the job is finished.
Footnote: constantly inconsistent standards
There happens to be two different ‘standards’ for the installation of tactile markings at railway stations in Victoria.
Platforms on the ‘suburban’ network have three orange rows, three yellow rows, and six orange rows.
While ‘regional’ platforms used only by V/Line train have two rows of yellow dimples along the edge, followed by ten orange rows.
Beyond the two different ‘standards’, a number of railway stations have their own oddball installations of tactile markings – this thread on the Railpage Australia forums has more detail than you probably ever wanted to know.
And V/Line versus Metro
Diggers Rest is an even more peculiar example – in 2011 the station was upgraded as part of the Sunbury Electrification project, with V/Line-style tactile markings installed along the resurfaced platform.
But a few months later, the little plastic bumps had been changed to the suburban style.
Someone having worked their way along the entire platform, prising up the three rows of orange dimples along the train side, and installing three new rows along the platform side.
I wonder how many hours that took to achieve!
once at school we had white tactile’s and on one strip a button was coming off
The same thing happens at Melbourne railway stations.
Aren’t all stations owned by Vic Track? So the government would be paying for the tactiles and then why would there not be one standard, metropolitan or V Line.
The ‘Victorian Rail Industry Operators Group Standards’ specify how railway stations and other infrastructure should be set up:
http://ptv.vic.gov.au/about-ptv/engineering-policies-and-publications/victorian-rail-industry-operators-group-standars-vriogs/
It specifies the position of Tactile Ground Surface Indicators (TGSIs) on platforms but not the colour or number of them.
Interesting that Sydney has decided to leave the yellow painted line and then have blue rows of tactile tiles being the painted yellow line. I like the Victorian implementations better.
It seems to vary a bit up in Sydney – some stations have a yellow line of tactiles, not paint:
On wet days these can be deadly.
I’ve seen lots of people slip and fall on these – yet they seems to be growing everywhere.
Even more exciting than the flat ones at the station, are the metal ones on drop kerbs around the CBD.
It astounds me that something so slippery for many can be the answer to help the few. I guess the net benefits still stack up – old people quality life years with broken hips are relative less value than long term vehicular related injuries to otherwise health vision impaired people… That the way governments and health professionals assess these things right?
Over in Auckland they have the same problem:
http://critikarlreviewstheworld.com/2014/01/21/tactile-paving/
Wet weather makes them especially slippery.
Your pictures are broken
https://wongm.com/2014/11/little-plastic-bumps-along-railway-platforms/
Now fixed!
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