Why Britain's railway costs 20 times France's -- example no. 80054

This is a "barrow crossing" in a relatively little-used place:


A barrow crossing is a path across a railway line where the gaps between the track have been filled-in to create a level walking surface -- in fact, something that in times of yore* you could easily wheel a barrow over.

Here's another example, in a rather more intensively-used place:


These are new barrow crossings, built on the London Tramlink where, apparently, pedestrians are sensible enough to observe the warning signs rather than being squished by a 50mph tram.


These modern barrow crossings have been designed to take account of the needs of people with disabilities, or people pushing buggies or cycles:


Can I now introduce you to the quaint Norfolk town of Downham Market, founded in the Saxon era and today a rather pretty station on the main London-King's Lynn railway line:


As you approach the station from the south, the train crosses Railway Road by a level crossing and then passes a signal box, which perches at the south-most end of the northbound platform:


Just past the signal box is a very fine barrow crossing, connecting the two sides of the station:


This crossing doesn't just have warning signs, it has expensive signal lights to warn pedestrians when it is safe or unsafe to cross:


Apparently roughly every three to four months, someone is foolish enough to ignore these lights and to dive across the tracks -- thus having a narrow escape from being squished by a train. This is, after all, Norfolk.

Rather than accept this as a necessary and welcome thinning of the gene pool -- if people are that dumb, surely Darwinian laws should be allowed to take their natural course? -- Network Rail is now proposing to spend no less than one million pounds of public money building a footbridge.

This, in fact:


Setting aside my objections to the nanny-statist principles being invoked here, the first "design" was a bog-standard thing, perfectly serviceable, I would have thought:


After consultation with conservation experts and assorted amenity groups, Network Rail decided their initial design was insensitive given that it was plonked right next to that rather pretty Jacobean-style station building (opened in 1846), so they substantially revised the design.

The Mark 2 design looked like this:


No, I can't see how it's any better, frankly, although they have undoubtedly painted it beige and brown (and removed some of the steel framework put in place in case at a future date someone wanted to install lifts):


Fortunately Downham Market station is part of the territory of the Borough Council of King's Lynn and West Norfolk which, surprisingly, is a rather well-run local authority. The Council refused to grant either Listed Building consent or Planning Permission.

Not being allowed to refuse permission on the basis that Network Rail were being bloody idiots, the refusal was on numerous technical grounds (the Council was clearly covering all the bases for when Network Rail wastes even more public money with an inevitable appeal), including illegality by failing to make provision for the needs of people with disabilities.

The grounds I liked best were that the design of the bridge was insensitive to the needs of a very fine listed building and would ruin its setting.

You only appreciate the utter brilliance of those grounds when you see what's squatting on the other side of the road:


Who said local government officers don't have a sense of humour?


* Did I really just write "times of yore"? I can only apologise.