BENGALURU: Alighting on Platform One at Cantonment railway station is an agonising experience for any train passenger. It’s a nightmarish experience if you are a senior citizen or happen to have arthritis or any knee issues.
The reason: the platform level here is so low that one needs to literally jump on to it holding the train door handles or hold the hands of family members or co-passengers to disembark here.
Railway officials concede that the problem gets compounded when the Chennai-Bengaluru A/C double-decker train arrives as the train floor is one step higher than regular trains. Express caught up with a few passenger alighting at Cantonment station recently at 1 pm.
Homemaker Mangalam Ganesan, who was helped by her husband to get down, says, “Please do something about it. It is very difficult for older people like me. It is so easy to board and alight at any station in Chennai. Why are we having this problem here alone?”
Retired English professor Vimala laughs and remarks that even before the train reached the station, the entire compartment was speaking about the precautions to be taken to alight at this station. “There are many cases of people falling down and hurting themselves. How can the platform be so low here?” she asked.
A retired bank official, A V Natarajan, made one big jump after putting out his luggage on the platform. His wife Brinda sat on the train floor and then slowly stretched out her leg and finally managed to get her feet on to the platform and hold on to Natarajan’s hand to prevent herself from falling.
Shruti Gupta, a Bengaluru resident who is pursuing her Engineering course at VIT in Vellore, said, “The train halts here for a few minutes. This ensures there is pressure on people to alight quickly. Even youngsters like us struggle with luggage. It is very tough on elderly people.”