What happens if you use a train toilet when the train is at a station?

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This is part genuine enquiry and part flippant bullshit, obviously, but every time I use a train toilet I am confronted by the sticker "DO NOT use when the train is at a station."

Why? What happens? Does it reverse the plumbing? Does it just dump everything out onto the track? Does nothing happen?

― Matt DC, Thursday, 14 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

yes wee and poo go on the track. Which is not nice for the people who have to stand on the platform looking at it. In the middle of nowhere it doesn't matter (except to track engineers perhaps). Some of the smaller trains have retention tanks but this leads to problems of reverse suction (getting your own back). I've been told that in Russia and other parts of eastern Europe the trains have a trapdoor affair so you can actually see the tracks when you flush. but I've not been (in both senses!) on a train there to substantiate this!

― MarkH, Thursday, 14 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

when the train is travelling at speed the shit and piss get broken up into small particles by the air rushing underneath the train and the high speed impact with ground, so there isn't a problem with it just lying there.

Some of the trains in Spain used to have toilets which went striahgt through to the track. Very draughty if you pulled the flush at the wrong time.

― RickyT, Thursday, 14 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

What kind of mentalist would you have to be if you pulled the flush at the wrong time? Surely any fool knows when to flush the toilet?

― Emma, Thursday, 14 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

In Ken Loach's gritty examination of rail privatisation, THE NAVIGATORS, the workers get plastered with poo when someone flushes the toilet as a train goes past. The person who was supposed to warn them was looking the other way, ensuring comic capers galore.

― Peter Miller, Thursday, 14 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The sort of mentalist who accidentally treads on the floor button that operates the flush whilst descending onto the toilet.

― RickyT, Thursday, 14 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Idiot.

― Emma, Thursday, 14 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The tpoilet on the Oxford Tube has a trapdoor affair at the back of the pan, and empties out directly on the wheel.

I have a friend who is a train engineer and she has had to do "under- loo inspections". As she says - shit doesn't just vapourise you know.

― Pete, Thursday, 14 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

not onto the wheel surely? By it maybe. The first and last time I used the Ox Tube toilet the flush wasn't working at all. I then deliberated about whether to warn the guy who went into the toilet when I came out. In the event I didn't.

― MarkH, Thursday, 14 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

aren't the real mentalists the ones who put the flush button on the floor in the first place? On a lot of trains it is on the wall. Far more sensible.

― MarkH, Thursday, 14 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I believe that on the ill-fated Advanced Passenger Train you *could* go to the toilet when the train was at a station, because they worked differently to all other trains. Somehow. But of course we know what happened to that project ...

― Robin Carmody, Thursday, 14 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I contend that you are all LYING! Surely if you flush the toilet then a great deal of water must flow out as well, and dropping that onto a high voltage electric line is not a good idea, even if you are going at a high speed.

Should I write to Johnny Ball and ask him?

― Matt DC, Thursday, 14 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

you ppl have toilets on your trains? shit....

― Geoff, Thursday, 14 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

water can't possibly affect electricity with third rail tho can it? What about if it rains or the track gets flooded. That isn't an issue. Electricity with third rail is very safe, more so than overhead pylons, as anyone who has seen a tube mouse running a long a third rail then jumping off (so it isn't actually earthed) will testify.

― MarkH, Thursday, 14 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Going to the loos at high speed is hilarious.

― alix, Thursday, 14 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Unless you do it in a plane toilet and poor Darren from Addiscombe gets transfixed by the subsequent falling spear of frozen liquid waste on the eve of his long-awaited wedding to Sharon. This was his moment. This was his perfect moment. But also his ruination day. That's the day that his ruination day.

Four conscious ripoffs in one post. Not bad going.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 14 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

OK I now have this vision of the prototype Advanced Passenger Train, standing sad and neglected in a siding, FULL TO THE BRIM OF UNDRAINED SEWAGE!! No wonder they cancelled the project!

― mark s, Thursday, 14 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

And those with a responsibility for promoting BR's modernisation were so *obsessed* with the APT as well, putting the design of the prototype in a BTF film with John Betjeman looking at the last steam train on British Rail, showing it at the start of a later BTF film which was otherwise full of old locomotives to mark 150 years of railways ... call me a romantic 70s futurist, but it's a shame it all had to end that way.

Hey, Howard Jones liked to get to know the InterCity 125 well! (work that one out!)

― Robin Carmody, Thursday, 14 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

ACTUALLY EMMA IF YOU READ THE LINK i POSTED AWHILE A GO, A SWEDISH FLYER FLUSHED AT THE WRONG TIME AND WAS VACUUM SUCKED ONTO THE TOILET AND HAD TO BE REMOVED BY FIREMAN

― Mike Hanle y, Thursday, 14 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The trains in Holland flush directly onto the train track. The house-boats flush directly into the cannals aswell. Very dodgy on a still day. It makes you think twice about having a swim...

― Dave S, Friday, 15 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

two years pass...

I did this last night on the way home from the pub. I felt rebellious. Then guilty. But thankfully the station was St John's which no one ever uses.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 5 March 2004 11:34 (twenty-one years ago)

you shat on the rail tracks?

― the surface noise (electricsound), Friday, 5 March 2004 11:37 (twenty-one years ago)

I've never seen anyone swimming in the canals before. Maybe I visit at the wrong time of year?

― Rumpy Pumpkin (rumpypumpkin), Friday, 5 March 2004 11:41 (twenty-one years ago)

I find it amusing that this question was weighing so heavily on my mind on my 23rd birthday.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 5 March 2004 11:46 (twenty-one years ago)

They don't have these signs in London surburban trains; I wondered whether they disposed of the stuff differently. I thought it was all part of the superb advanced-ness of the big smoke.

Aside number 1 - why are there no bogs on the majority of SW Trains rolling stock? (note use of rolling stock instead of train; I could pretend this is because Trains trains would look bad, but in truth it is because I am a spod.)

Aside number 2 - Who was Edward Pond? did he get more commissions than train bogs?

― Dave B (daveb), Friday, 5 March 2004 12:01 (twenty-one years ago)

most new trains have toilet tanks that store the crap until they can be emptied at some suitable point. Suburban trains have never had toilets as a rule, its only one going to the commuter belt and beyond that have featured loos.

― Ed (dali), Friday, 5 March 2004 12:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Dave, define "train".

― Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 5 March 2004 14:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Train = the thing that moves along the line.

As for SWT trains - not the new ones, nor the old slam door ones. The ones in the middle that run to Norbiton and suburbia, rather than down to Woking and Aldershot and such like.

They don't have the signs on Connex SE, and I should know, as I always need a pee when I go home on the train.

― Dave B (daveb), Friday, 5 March 2004 15:04 (twenty-one years ago)

i admit to deliberately peeing and flushing when stopped in towns that i don't like (e.g., edison, nj; metropark, nj; wilmington, de).

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Friday, 5 March 2004 15:54 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm so doing that next time I'm on a train going through Slough.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 5 March 2004 16:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Come, friendly shit...

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Friday, 5 March 2004 16:07 (twenty-one years ago)

SWT trains have no toilets because Stagecoach are worried about gay people committing ungodly acts in them.

― Ricardo (RickyT), Friday, 5 March 2004 16:09 (twenty-one years ago)

B-b-b-but they were commissioned by BR back in the day.

Matt - you'll have to move fast - the GWR expresses are in Slough for about 2 seconds.

― Dave B (daveb), Friday, 5 March 2004 16:16 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't think any train that stops at St. Johns nowadays is likely to empty its toilets directly onto the track. It'll all get pumped out at Slade Green or Hither Green instead.

(this may well apply to all trains with Edward Pond artwork in the interior - I'm not entirely sure.)

― caitlin (caitlin), Friday, 5 March 2004 16:19 (twenty-one years ago)

This would explain why you can flush with impunity.

However, the existence of a rolling tank of shit is not a nice thought, though it might explain why the bogs on Connex trains are always blocked in a worst toilet in Scotland way.

― Dave B (daveb), Friday, 5 March 2004 16:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Does nobody like/hate/know John Betjeman?

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Friday, 5 March 2004 16:32 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't know him as well as I should, especially all the stuff he did about trains. I have read 'South Kentish Town', which is a story he wrote and read for Radio 4 about a man who accidentally gets off a Northern Line train at a disused station. According to the book "London's Disused Underground Stations", it's loosely based on a real event.

(if you did the same thing by accident now, it would be rather painful, because South Kentish Town's platforms have been demolished.)

― caitlin (caitlin), Friday, 5 March 2004 16:35 (twenty-one years ago)

South Kentish Town also features in Tobias Hill's Underground IIRC. There were platforms at the station in the book.

Caitlin - how do you know this to be so re platforms?

― Dave B (daveb), Friday, 5 March 2004 16:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Because I recently was given this book. South Kentish Town is the bottom photo on the cover.

― caitlin (caitlin), Friday, 5 March 2004 16:50 (twenty-one years ago)

I have the abandoned stations book; what's the difference between abandoned and disused? (unless you're going to count things like Holborn's Aldwych platforms)

― Dave B (daveb), Friday, 5 March 2004 16:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Matt, that would be the most unfriendly bomb to rain down on Slough ever.

― suzy (suzy), Friday, 5 March 2004 16:58 (twenty-one years ago)

one month passes...

http://www.plusmodel.cz/recenze/kranking-up-front.jpg

― Dada, Monday, 5 April 2004 17:00 (twenty-one years ago)

four years pass...

I fall donw on the working train today towards homme. I think as it was a lady of large that is to push over :((((((

― f_rankle, Wednesday, 14 January 2009 23:18 (seventeen years ago)

The ankle portion is hurted :((((((((((((((

― f_rankle, Wednesday, 14 January 2009 23:18 (seventeen years ago)

I did this last night on the way home from the pub. I felt rebellious. Then guilty. But thankfully the station was St John's which no one ever uses.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 5 March 2004 11:34 (4 years ago) Bookmark

seriously the most useless station in the history of all things ever, forever associated with the disaster that brought down the Nunhead branch bridge and claimed 67 lives, never used by man nor beast except as a launching-point for many a graffiti-related cross-track venture

― Goodnight, Mr. Johnson. (country matters), Wednesday, 14 January 2009 23:42 (seventeen years ago)

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