Free loos at MAN, LIV & LDS from next Monday

[trainophile]

Seen this morning on Twitter, and apologies that I can’t figure out how to post a link from my phone, but Network Rail have announced that they are bringing forward the scrapping of the toilet charges at Man Picc, Line Street and Leeds with effect from 17th December.

A very welcome early Christmas present!

 

[Starmill]

To be fair the toilets at Manchester Piccadilly have been free unofficially evenings and weekends for months. I didn't pay to use the ones at Liverpool Lime Street Saturday night either. Presumably the decision haa been made to try and reduce the mess. Manchester Piccadilly has had at least one of the two sets free because the gates are broken every time I've uses them for a long time now.

Free toilets on the platforms at Leeds for years. They're disgusting though!

 

[Bletchleyite]

They've been free at Euston the past few weeks too. I wonder if the turnstile/change machine manufacturer can no longer supply parts or something?

Re Lime St I hope this doesn't mean they'll get disgusting, they used to be free and they were the worst station toilets I can recall using in recent years - filthy and vandalised.

 

[trainophile]

Ah the good old days when public conveniences had an attendant!

Found out that they still do in Prague, and once we got over having to pay anything up to £1 to use them, they were actually quite acceptable.

 

[mrcheek]

oh great, so theres more stations where there will be a massive decrease in quality of the facilities

 

[trainophile]

But you won’t have to scrabble about for change if you’ve gotta go!

 

[trainophile]

Bad signal - duplicated

 

[trainophile]

And I can’t speak for the men’s, but the ladies’ loo at New Street is still unvandalised since becoming free. It does seem to be the gents who cause the problems though. Scrap urinals and make them cubicle only?

 

[samuelmorris]

Honestly if you could pay with an Oyster card I'd pay £1 to use the facilities at a station if it meant they were kept clean. Using the single cubicle at Stratford with no lock, no toilet seat (at all), no soap and no hand dryer or towels reminded me what it's like to use one that's left to rot. As someone that has difficulty using toilets on a moving vehicle I really wish station toilets were better.

 

[Bletchleyite]

And I can’t speak for the men’s, but the ladies’ loo at New Street is still unvandalised since becoming free. It does seem to be the gents who cause the problems though. Scrap urinals and make them cubicle only?

At New St I think it helps that they are inside the ticket barriers. I've always found that toilets inside the barriers are in better condition than those outside, even if you don't have to pay. Except Clapham Junction, which are utterly unsanitary.

Urinals are very much not the issue, it's the cubicles that get vandalised and dirty.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Honestly if you could pay with an Oyster card I'd pay £1 to use the facilities at a station if it meant they were kept clean. Using the single cubicle at Stratford with no lock, no toilet seat (at all), no soap and no hand dryer or towels reminded me what it's like to use one that's left to rot. As someone that has difficulty using toilets on a moving vehicle I really wish station toilets were better.

The European WC-Center/McClean concepts seem to work over there, though £1.50-£2 a wee may not go down well with people even if you do get an attendant and the cubicle cleaned after every use.

https://www.mcclean.ch/

 

[mrcheek]

Honestly if you could pay with an Oyster card I'd pay £1 to use the facilities at a station if it meant they were kept clean. Using the single cubicle at Stratford with no lock, no toilet seat (at all), no soap and no hand dryer or towels reminded me what it's like to use one that's left to rot. As someone that has difficulty using toilets on a moving vehicle I really wish station toilets were better.

totally agree. and when travelling I always carry change too, so a cash payment is fine. The fact is. payable loos are generally the best. The free ones tend to be poor, often unusable.

 

[Bletchleyite]

totally agree. and when travelling I always carry change too, so a cash payment is fine. The fact is. payable loos are generally the best. The free ones tend to be poor, often unusable.

I find the change thing a big nuisance and would object less if contactless payment was available, and even less again if the barrier was like a proper ticket barrier rather than an awkward turnstile.

 

[robbeech]

Paid ones are generally the best?
I present you the Wimbledon argument. Some of the worst I’ve ever used, paid or not.

 

[DarloRich]

Free toilets on the platforms at Leeds for years. They're disgusting though!

aye, there's the rub

I used the Piccadilly bogs the other Monday. There was a homeless person in the cubicle having a kip. He was snoring. While I cant blame him for wanting a bit of warmth and a spell in the dry that is what happens without the gates.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Paid ones are generally the best?
I present you the Wimbledon argument. Some of the worst I’ve ever used, paid or not.

Given the state of Clapham Jn, is this more of "SWR/SWT can't maintain toilets properly"?

 

[robbeech]

Given the state of Clapham Jn, is this more of "SWR/SWT can't maintain toilets properly"?

Is it SWR that are supposed to maintain Wimbledon? It could well be this though I’m sure I’ve used some on that area of the network that have been ok but I can’t remember where that was.

 

[HowardGWR]

Toilets at airports are free and clean, unless perhaps an international passenger, from a country unused to such facilities, has has just used them. Schiphol Luchthaven used to paint a fly on the urinals to shew certain people where one should aim but I see these have been replaced with blank ones now, so perhaps education has worked.
I don't know why our main stations toilets (paid or unpaid) are not serviced properly.

 

[kristiang85]

I genuinely heaved in the Clapham Junction toilets the other week when I popped in for a pee.

I've always been against paying for toilets (and its harder these days now less people carry cash, me especially), however the state of some of them do persuade me some form of upkeep is needed! But surely this can come out of TOCs' operating costs or local authority money (the latter especially given it could stop people urinating in the street).

 

[gazzaa2]

They've been free at Euston the past few weeks too. I wonder if the turnstile/change machine manufacturer can no longer supply parts or something?

Re Lime St I hope this doesn't mean they'll get disgusting, they used to be free and they were the worst station toilets I can recall using in recent years - filthy and vandalised.

They used to be a disgrace.

I don't see why they can't just have a standard charge of 10 or 20 pence, just as a service charge to keep them reasonably clean and help keep out the druggies and frankly the homeless from using them as a wash basin. When it's 30 pence you end up putting 40 or 50 pence in because you haven't got the right change, especially when they won't take 5's.

They should only be free if you're already past the barriers with your ticket. I.e. Crewe (and they're bad enough). Otherwise they just deteriorate and rail users won't use them. You'll even end up going to the station pub if you need to go just to avoid using them and then end up paying money for a drink. At Lime Street people would go up to Coopers or Head of Steem to avoid using the station toilets.

 

[GW43125]

oh great, so theres more stations where there will be a massive decrease in quality of the facilities

St Pancras are free, and they seem alright to me.

 

[mrcheek]

St Pancras are free, and they seem alright to me.

as statisticians say, St Pancras is the exception that proves the rule

 

[PeterY]

At Liverpool I used Whetherspoons. At Man Picc there used to be a guy that held the gates slightly ajar. If I was traveling around London I'd use Victoria and Wimbledon, I used to pop into the small shopping next door to the station. Good news more are free.

 

[swt_passenger]

Given the state of Clapham Jn, is this more of "SWR/SWT can't maintain toilets properly"?

Clapham Junction is a Network Rail station.

 

[Parallel]

I’ve only use Clapham Junction’s loos once and they were the stuff of nightmares. No idea why whoever operates them can get away with providing facilities in that condition. I’ve always found the ones at TfW/ATW stations to be generally quite poor. They seem to be in a constant cycle of getting refurbished and then neglected. The refurbished toilets on platforms 2/3 of Newport are a huge improvement on what was there before.

I actually had no problems with the toilets at Lime Street when I used them earlier this year.

 

[underbank]

I don't know why our main stations toilets (paid or unpaid) are not serviced properly.

Neither do I. They're free in shopping malls, retail parks, motorway service stations, airports. The difference is that in such places, they're regularly cleaned/maintained. There are also often security staff to deal with the vagrants and vandals. Railway stations simply don't seem to bother to clean, maintain or properly supervise them, just like local councils who likewise ignore them and then whinge when they're vandalised. If railway stations "attract" a certain kind of person who vandalises the loos, then they need to get their security/BTP to monitor/supervise more closely.

 

[HowardGWR]

It's an amazing thing that Mark Carne sat their for years and then, when he had to go, suddenly grasped the idea of drinking fountains and free loos as a legacy decision. Still, well done about something. Every major station should have free loos that are policed, supervised and serviced. Every one.

 

[Whistler40145]

What's the reason for abolishing the toilet fee?

 

[Bletchleyite]

when he had to go....free loos

 

[Mugby]

The old underground toilets at Piccadilly, adjacent to Platforms 2 & 3 were better than the present ones!