The Harrington Hump is a modular and easy-to-install system by which the height of a railway platform can be increased at relatively low cost. The system takes its name from Harrington railway station in Cumbria, England, the location of the first production version. Harrington Humps have slowly, from 2011, been installed on other UK railway stations.
Background
Platform height across the UK rail network is not standardised; at the time of the construction of the network, different railway companies settled on different platform heights. Platforms sited low present entry and exit problems to mobility-impaired train users, including wheelchair users. Raising the level of a complete platform is relatively costly and in many instances beyond the means of Network Rail and local authorities. The impetus for the hump, it is claimed, was a complaint by the chairman of the Copeland Rail Users' Group about low platforms on the Cumbrian Coast Line causing users difficulty in alighting from trains, made at Allerdale Area Transport Advisory Group, a sub-committee of Cumbria County Council's Local Committee. A suggestion of a partial raising of platforms was made to parry a Network Rail assertion that remedial work would cost a "six-figure sum" per station.
The Hump
The Harrington Hump is a partial solution to this long-standing problem of user access to railway carriages from relatively low station platforms. The Hump is a pair of ramps and a short flat top, built from a glass-reinforced polymer, and capable of being designed to meet the width and height requirements of particular stations and to be installed in a few days. Installing a Harrington Hump is also much cheaper than raising the entire length of the platform – on the order of 1/10th of the typical £250,000 cost. The Hump was devised by Network Rail and Cumbria County Council, in conjunction with Pipex Structural Composites, and first installed at Harrington in December 2008. Harrington was chosen as the pilot site, it is claimed, because it has the greatest drop from train floor to platform, and because as a coastal station, it offered the harshest of environments in which to test the hump. Otherwise known as an "Easy Access Area", Network Rail has conceded that the structure will henceforth be known by its nickname, Harrington Hump. The Hump is positioned to meet a particular door on a train – usually a door designed for wheelchair access. As such, the Hump is less suited to platforms served by different configurations of trains, such as Dalton railway station, served by two different train operators using different types of trains with wheelchair accommodation doors in different locations. The second Hump was installed at St Albans Abbey railway station, and the third at Aberdovey railway station. Other stations to receive Humps include Northwich, Flixton, Whaley Bridge, Eccles and Hadfield. The Hump system won a Delivery of Customer Service Award at the 2009 Civil Service Diversity and Equality Awards. In February 2019 a Hump was proposed for Marsden Station in West Yorkshire; this would alleviate the issue of a 45 cm drop from train to platform
