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Long distance and toilet facilities

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blakey1152

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Went down to Chatham last Saturday and after we had got off the train I noticed that the next service due in was a train to Dover.

The screen then helpfully informed that this was a four coach service and there was no working toilet on board!

Obviously having the lack of toilet information on the screen gives intending passengers the choice on whether to travel on that service or not but surely a long distance service from London to Dover should have working facilities?

Blakey
 
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Vinnym

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Read an article in the Liverpool Echo two days ago. It stated that a LNWR service from London Euston to Liverpool departed with no serviceable toilets, bearing in mind that this service takes 4+ hrs. It went on to say that the driver eventually made an extended stop (15 mins) at Crewe, so that passengers could use the facilities there. A long service without toilet facilities, is this usual?
 

Llanigraham

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Whilst not perfect if the only other option is to not run the service at all, which would you prefer?
As has been said many times, the days have spare units has long gone.
 

DelW

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Went down to Chatham last Saturday and after we had got off the train I noticed that the next service due in was a train to Dover.

The screen then helpfully informed that this was a four coach service and there was no working toilet on board!

Obviously having the lack of toilet information on the screen gives intending passengers the choice on whether to travel on that service or not but surely a long distance service from London to Dover should have working facilities?

Blakey

Read an article in the Liverpool Echo two days ago. It stated that a LNWR service from London Euston to Liverpool departed with no serviceable toilets, bearing in mind that this service takes 4+ hrs. It went on to say that the driver eventually made an extended stop (15 mins) at Crewe, so that passengers could use the facilities there. A long service without toilet facilities, is this usual?
No doubt a service taking more than about an hour end to end should have toilets, but I guess that in the situations quoted, the alternative would have been cancelling the train? That would also hit passengers wanting to use it for shorter distances, for whom the lack of toilets might well be irrelevant.
 

VT 390

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No doubt a service taking more than about an hour end to end should have toilets, but I guess that in the situations quoted, the alternative would have been cancelling the train? That would also hit passengers wanting to use it for shorter distances, for whom the lack of toilets might well be irrelevant.
I don't think the journey time should decide if a service has a toilet or not but the type of journey it is making as for example many Underground services are longer than an hour should they have toilets as well?
Though I do think the example above should have had working toilets I do agree that it is better to have no toilets than to cancel a service.
 

DelW

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I don't think the journey time should decide if a service has a toilet or not but the type of journey it is making as for example many Underground services are longer than an hour should they have toilets as well?
Though I do think the example above should have had working toilets I do agree that it is better to have no toilets than to cancel a service.
You're right, it does depend on the usage, i was really thinking in terms of the majority of passenger journeys being longer than an hour, but I didn't put that clearly :frown:. I doubt many people do end to end trips on the tube other than the drivers. Not sure how they manage, maybe better not to know!
 

PHILIPE

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There have been many instances of GWR IETs running long distances with multiple toilets out of use although, hopefully, suitable action has been taken as the instances tweeted seem to have decreased recently.
 

Starmill

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The new express diesel three car trains for Manchester Airport to Barrow-in-Furness / Windermere services have only one toilet on a run of two and a half hours (class 195). The old express diesel three car trains that were used on these routes until recently, of course, had two toilets (class 185). One toilet is fine for the number of people travelling but bearing in mind that these units have been designed with these routes in mind there is a definite concern that the redundancy is insufficient. I think almost everyone would agree that two hours plus with no toilet is not really appropriate, and as there is only one toilet on the rolling stock, a lot of careful planning will be needed to keep the toilets clean and in working order at all times. Even the two car class 158s that had been used temporarily on the route had two toilets, with only a handful of these units the exception.
 

Starmill

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I don't think the journey time should decide if a service has a toilet or not but the type of journey it is making as for example many Underground services are longer than an hour should they have toilets as well?
So-called 'metro' services like London Underground, Merseyrail, London Overground and Crossrail should be providing toilets at their stations, not on trains. There isn't really an excuse for this not to be done. If somebody needs to use the toilet, they should be able to get off the train, use the facilities at the station, and then await the next train, which will be along soon. That's a lot more efficient than providing a toilet onboard the train.
 

big_dirt

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So-called 'metro' services like London Underground, Merseyrail, London Overground and Crossrail should be providing toilets at their stations, not on trains. There isn't really an excuse for this not to be done. If somebody needs to use the toilet, they should be able to get off the train, use the facilities at the station, and then await the next train, which will be along soon. That's a lot more efficient than providing a toilet onboard the train.
I think that any TOC which sells Advance tickets should be obliged to provide toilet facilities, and non provision of toilet facilities on a service should be reason to allow someone to travel on a subsequent service without penalty.
 

VT 390

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So-called 'metro' services like London Underground, Merseyrail, London Overground and Crossrail should be providing toilets at their stations, not on trains. There isn't really an excuse for this not to be done. If somebody needs to use the toilet, they should be able to get off the train, use the facilities at the station, and then await the next train, which will be along soon. That's a lot more efficient than providing a toilet onboard the train.
I agree that most of these operations a toilet should be provided at stations but I do not think at London Underground stations which are actually Underground should have toilets.
 

Bletchleyite

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non provision of toilet facilities on a service should be reason to allow someone to travel on a subsequent service without penalty.

I absolutely agree with this, and to be honest if a toilet stop was not made as I requested and permission to travel on a following service denied I would take this one all the way to Court (to defend a Byelaw/RoRA charge) if that was necessary.
 

Bletchleyite

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I agree that most of these operations a toilet should be provided at stations but I do not think at London Underground stations which are actually Underground should have toilets.

I think we need to look at provision in China - pretty much every street corner, it's excellent[1]. Toilet provision in the UK is shameful.

My view is that toilet urgency (caused by either age or medical condition) should be considered a disability and that failure to provide facilities should be considered failure to make reasonable adjustments. Huge swathes of society cannot use e.g. parks because there are no toilets, and it's also gender discrimination because a man can use a bush much more readily than a woman.

[1] Mostly squats, but to be honest other than the disabled facility I'd rather that as you don't have to touch a mucky public bog.
 

rich.davies

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Read an article in the Liverpool Echo two days ago. It stated that a LNWR service from London Euston to Liverpool departed with no serviceable toilets, bearing in mind that this service takes 4+ hrs. It went on to say that the driver eventually made an extended stop (15 mins) at Crewe, so that passengers could use the facilities there. A long service without toilet facilities, is this usual?

I was on a LNWR service from Liverpool to Euston on Tuesday morning. It was the 8.33 departure and both toilets were out of order. We got to Birmingham New St where a unit that came in from Crewe coupled up and that only had one working toilet too. So 3 out of 4 toilets on what i think was an 8 car train, were out of order. The driver did say we could move in to the other unit but it was that full, it was hardly worth it.

For a journey that long, i didn't think it was acceptable for 3 toilets to be out of order.
 

GaryMcEwan

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I did Glasgow Queen Street to Inverness on a 3 car 170 and both toilets were out of use. I asked the conductor why they were out of use and got told 'they just are.'
 

Starmill

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I absolutely agree with this, and to be honest if a toilet stop was not made as I requested and permission to travel on a following service denied I would take this one all the way to Court (to defend a Byelaw/RoRA charge) if that was necessary.
I was denied permission by as-was LM Twitter on a Crewe to London via Stoke-on-Trent train to use the toilets at Milton Keynes Central when both were out of order on my train, the train was busy and I hadn't been able to speak to the guard, so resorted to Twitter. I simply did it anyway, as I wasn't sure I would have been able to wait for another 40 minutes to use the toilets at London Euston. I simply joined the next LM train from Milton Keynes to London, and there was no ticket inspection.

On another occasion I was doing Birmingham to London with them, the conductor arranged what he called a toilet stop at Coventry as both toilets were out of order. I thought they'd wait for at least 5 minutes to give people chance. I didn't take at all long to use the facilities at Coventry, but they literally only waited for 2 minutes longer than normal, and as such had actually closed the doors a few seconds before I got back to the train. A conversation with the station staff about this did result in me being passed for travel, again with a cheap Advance, on the following LM service. This then arrived in London more than half an hour later than the time for my booked train, so compensation was duly claimed and paid.
 

Bletchleyite

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I'd have gone to the Press with the evidence of that - "incompetent train company tells passenger to pay extra or wet himself" would I'm sure be a good story.
 

Sankey Wire

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A couple of years I was on a Saturday evening Edinburgh - Euston voyager, the Train Manager announced (somewhere north of Carlisle) that if the last working-toilet had to be locked out, the train would be required to make toilet stops.
 

johntea

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Random question but what happens when a long distance driver needs the loo?
 

Billy A

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I was on the Inlandsbana in Sweden some years ago and while we were in the middle of absolutely nowhere a passenger reported trouble with the toilet. The driver came back to investigate (while the train was still underway, don't ask me) and having had no joy the tour guide announced that as facilities remained unavailable anybody caught short was to let her know and the driver would come to a halt so that the needy could step down and find their own tree.
 

philthetube

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I did Glasgow Queen Street to Inverness on a 3 car 170 and both toilets were out of use. I asked the conductor why they were out of use and got told 'they just are.'
Not sure what reply you expected, the conductor probably didn't know why and any other answer would have been fiction.
 

AM9

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Out of interest, has anybody been on a train where the on board crew guard the first-class gangway to keep lesser beings out of that part of the train when all the standard class toilets are out of order? Would they relent or risk a mutiny?
 

Spartacus

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Random question but what happens when a long distance driver needs the loo?

Used to be careful use of a lucozade bottle (wide neck) which got tossed out the window at some point, but now it's far more likely to involve an extended stop somewhere, or possibly an additional one. I imagine 1E01 must be a challenge for some at 2hrs 35 minutes between Newcastle and Kings Cross.

A couple of years I was on a Saturday evening Edinburgh - Euston voyager, the Train Manager announced (somewhere north of Carlisle) that if the last working-toilet had to be locked out, the train would be required to make toilet stops.

Saturday and Friday nights are often a big challenge for trains with retention tanks, or more precisely the passengers needing to use them. A full day out in service with extra 'supplies' being added to the tank increasing as the evening wears on means tanks regularly fill up and toilets get locked out.
 

Flying Snail

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Out of interest, has anybody been on a train where the on board crew guard the first-class gangway to keep lesser beings out of that part of the train when all the standard class toilets are out of order? Would they relent or risk a mutiny?

Has this has happened to you or you have a source of it happening to someone else?

If not then why are you inventing patently ridiculous scenarios of staff treating passengers with contempt?
 

sprunt

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Out of interest, has anybody been on a train where the on board crew guard the first-class gangway to keep lesser beings out of that part of the train when all the standard class toilets are out of order? Would they relent or risk a mutiny?

I suspect they might relent when told that the alternative is a puddle of wee in the vestibule, given that it's non-negotiable whether it comes out or not, and I've no intention of sitting in wet trousers for the rest of the journey.
 

cactustwirly

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So-called 'metro' services like London Underground, Merseyrail, London Overground and Crossrail should be providing toilets at their stations, not on trains. There isn't really an excuse for this not to be done. If somebody needs to use the toilet, they should be able to get off the train, use the facilities at the station, and then await the next train, which will be along soon. That's a lot more efficient than providing a toilet onboard the train.

But the western side of Crossrail isn't a metro service, with quite a lot of through journeys from London, taking around an hour.
 
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