Regional fleet toilets...

[whole diary]

[IndustryInsider]

I think that's largely the case, OK HST^▸ (High Speed Train (Inter City class 43 125 units))'s do sometimes have some scum on board, but generally speaking they don't do short distance stopping routes on which a lot of the vandals, graffiti mob, and general low life target - i.e. suburban services in and around Bristol, Cardiff and London - after all, they don't want to be on the train any longer than they have to be.

[Tim]

.... and perhaps it is easier to get away without paying your fare on those services (assuming most vandals don;t have tickets)?

[JayMac]

If anyone is really interested in the complexities of operation for train toilets then can I suggest they head up to the National Railway Museum in York this weekend (20/21 November).

http://www.nrm.org.uk/PlanaVisit/Events/toiletdaytrail.aspx

 

Incidentally, World Toilet Day (subtitled: 'the big squat' - I kid you not!) is this coming Friday (19th). Bet you are all glad you now know that!!

I should add, there is an important message behind the 'Day'.

[thetrout]

The line "answering the big question: what happens when you flush the loo on a train?" on that link made me LOL^▸ ('laughing out loud')!

There was a commedian (Possibly Jimmy Carr) that did a rant about the railways and one line that refers to this "We're in the 21st centuary and yet we're still cr*pp*ing on the track "

[Tim]

"We're in the 21st centuary and yet we're still cr*pp*ing on the track "

Much prefered by me over retention toilets which don't have enough water for a proper flush, although I might have a different view if I worked on track maintenance.

[Brucey]

<Idiot mode*>Do all trains used on our railways at the moment have retention toilets or are we still dumping onto tracks?  If we are still dumping, is there any cleaning process first?</Idiot mode>

* = I genuinely don't know the answer to this!

[SDS]

I think most trains now have retention tanks, that stink the train out (vomiters).
The only ones I can think of that dump (straight onto the track) are the HST^▸ (High Speed Train (Inter City class 43 125 units)) sets and some DMU^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit)'s.

[paul7575]

AIUI^▸ ('as I understand it') the cutoff for DMUS is that all DMUs^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) up to 158s were non-retention as built, 159/0s were fitted during their original conversion (from 158s) before entering service, and later stock as built is all retention tank fitted.

(SWT^▸ (South West Trains)'s 158s and 159/1s have had tanks retrofitted but they are the exceptions.)

Paul

[inspector_blakey]

Such loco-hauled mark 1, 2 and 3 stock as remains in use also drops things straight down the chute. Looking on the bright side, at least there's a u-bend; I've been on Regional/InterRegional Italian trains before where you could look down the pan and watch the ballast whizzing by. Rather draughty if you need to sit down, and slightly oddly FS has (or used to have) specially made monogrammed toilet roll and paper towels.

An interesting exception is mark 3 sleeper vehicles, which were built with retention tanks from new, I assume so that passengers could use them in stations during the dwells at the start/end of the journey to let people board early or have a lie-in.

[Brucey]

Interesting, I'd have thought that all stock would be retrofitted with retention toilets, but obviously not.

Must be a lovely job for the Network Rail engineers when they discover a turd on the line...

[JayMac]

Would that be on the 'turd' rail? 

Where's me coat?

[SDS]

Read something in the Ciras mag about NR^» (Network Rail - home page) staff getting p***ed off about having nasty stuff sprayed over them by overflowing retention tanks on the ECML^▸ (East Coast Main Line) when they took a curve.
NR response was something along the lines of, well we give them paper suits.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Cough, splutter: http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=5751.msg55349#msg55349 

[inspector_blakey]

Interesting, I'd have thought that all stock would be retrofitted with retention toilets, but obviously not.

Sounds like a relatively easy job, doesn't it? In fact I would guess that it's a pretty huge engineering challenge working out where to fit retention tanks below the solebar on a whole range of stock that wasn't designed to have it in the first place. Not necessarily insurmountable, but almost certainly very expensive and probably not economically viable given the remaining lifespan of most of FGW^▸ (First Great Western)'s stock (although having said that there's no replacements on the horizon just yet...!). You'd also need to equip depots with the facilities to empty huge numbers of bogs reasonably swiftly too.

As an aside, I was always a little puzzled by the heat that GNER^▸ (Great North Eastern Railways)/NXEC^▸ (National Express East Coast) (can't remember which is was at the time) was getting for leaks from the mark 4 fleet given that there are many other operators in the country whose fleets just dump it straight on the ground.

Another point to remember is that it's not just track staff who are affected by "straight on the ground" toilets. They can also make life unpleasant for shunters and depot engineering staff, since flushing a loo into a 125 mph slipsteam means that a lot of it gets plastered over the vehicle's underframe.

[JayMac]

Cough, splutter: http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=5751.msg55349#msg55349 

Cough, splutter, indeed. Spit, wipe and possibly hurl as well. If these poor track workers have a vehicle parked close by it could also be a case of the sh*t hitting the van!