Toilets on trains: Luxury or Necessity?

[Bletchleyite]

Just saying "make it illegal to run the train then" isn't going to solve anything. All you'll get is trains being cancelled instead of running with defective toilets. And then, rather than a few people being inconvenienced, you'll have hundreds.

What you need is a financial penalty that is hefty but still lower than a cancellation, then TOCs might bother to plan properly[1] to ensure toilet availability.

[1] Sufficient emptying facilities, tanking facilities at stations, reshuffling sets to ensure an 8-car at least has one working bog when it goes out, proper maintenance etc. All hassle, and all cost, but should be made cheaper than non-provision or cancellation.

 

[al78]

To many people it can be a necessity. There have become less toilets at stations over the years in so much as they are only open at times when the station is staffed

It is a necessity for everyone at some point. It is impossible to hold your bladder indefinitely, and ultimately if you have to go you will go whether you like it or not.

 

[AM9]

What you need is a financial penalty that is hefty but still lower than a cancellation, then TOCs might bother to plan properly[1] to ensure toilet availability.

[1] Sufficient emptying facilities, tanking facilities at stations, reshuffling sets to ensure an 8-car at least has one working bog when it goes out, proper maintenance etc. All hassle, and all cost, but should be made cheaper than non-provision or cancellation.

Surely, cheaper than cancellation penalty minus the money saved by cancelling then train.

 

[AM9]

It is a necessity for everyone at some point. It is impossible to hold your bladder indefinitely, and ultimately if you have to go you will go whether you like it or not.

Although it might seem like it, train journeys never last 'indefinitely' and rarely are the journeys without access to facilities longer than what most passengers can endure. Sometimes, the non-availabilty of a toilet is more as a result of poor passenger behaviour. If the TOCs weren't to be unreasonably penalised for the actions of their customers, that same group of people would have to accept their lack of access as a consequence of their fellow travellers' conduct.

 

[takno]

Although it might seem like it, train journeys never last 'indefinitely' and rarely are the journeys without access to facilities longer than what most passengers can endure. Sometimes, the non-availabilty of a toilet is more as a result of poor passenger behaviour. If the TOCs weren't to be unreasonably penalised for the actions of their customers, that same group of people would have to accept their lack of access as a consequence of their fellow travellers' conduct.

They could probably manage their passengers behaviour better if they had staff on the trains, so arguably it is their fault. In practice instances of it are vastly outnumbered by broken door/out of water/out of tank space kind of faults.

 

[trainophile]

I dislike the expression "fellow travellers". It implies that we are all somehow connected, and therefore in some way responsible for other people's behaviour, when in fact we just happen to be travelling on the same train at the same time.

If some imbecile deliberately blocks or vandalises the only toilet on a train, causing everyone else to not have access to that facility, there is only one person responsible, and the rest of us certainly don't feel any "fellowship" towards the culprit!

 

[Old Yard Dog]

I use the train so I don't have to drink and drive. However travelling home to Little Sutton from a night out in Liverpool or Chester, which involves a half mile walk from the station, can be agony. When you reach my age, your bladder can only hold out for so long (less than an hour).

Hooton station has at least now got a toilet unlike Moorfields which seems to have lost its. Lets hope they put it back during the forthcoming loop line closure. Merseyrail, sadly, are not very user-friendly in the lavatorial department, possibly due to difficulties in servicing trains with no terminal station in Liverpool.

 

[AM9]

I dislike the expression "fellow travellers". It implies that we are all somehow connected, and therefore in some way responsible for other people's behaviour, when in fact we just happen to be travelling on the same train at the same time.

If some imbecile deliberately blocks or vandalises the only toilet on a train, causing everyone else to not have access to that facility, there is only one person responsible, and the rest of us certainly don't feel any "fellowship" towards the culprit!

I would agree that only one person is responsible, i.e. the perpetrator, however many on finding it would somehow automatically blame the train operator rather than accept that the behaviour of a minority of 'the travelling public' (of which they are a member) sometimes penalises the majority.

 

[AM9]

They could probably manage their passengers behaviour better if they had staff on the trains, so arguably it is their fault. In practice instances of it are vastly outnumbered by broken door/out of water/out of tank space kind of faults.

In my occasional experiences of toilets out of use, it frequently looks like toilet paper thrown all over the floor or soap everywhere. I don't know how you think that more staff on a train would solve that, but you should be prepared to pay a lot more for your travel.

 

[Bletchleyite]

that same group of people would have to accept their lack of access as a consequence of their fellow travellers' conduct.

And we should accept a train full of litter because some people don't put it in the bin?

Bad behaviour is a known, and to provide an acceptable customer experience TOCs do need to deal with it rather than making excuses.

 

[Bletchleyite]

In my occasional experiences of toilets out of use, it frequently looks like toilet paper thrown all over the floor or soap everywhere. I don't know how you think that more staff on a train would solve that

Roving cleaning staff would be a start.

 

[najaB]

Roving cleaning staff would be a start.

It's the age-old situation though: more staff = higher costs = ???

 

[yorksrob]

I would agree that only one person is responsible, i.e. the perpetrator, however many on finding it would somehow automatically blame the train operator rather than accept that the behaviour of a minority of 'the travelling public' (of which they are a member) sometimes penalises the majority.

Nevertheless, you can't blame a perpetrator or perpetrators of such incidents for the fact that new trains, soon to be operating between Reading and London (and further) are being built without toilets to begin with, or those occasions when toilet facilities haven't been replenished in the depot.

 

[6Z09]

Many station toilets have restricted opening hours so as to fit in with staff shifts, then locked if station is unstaffed .
That is down to staff cutbacks whatever way you look at it!

 

[Camden]

Problem is many pronged. Primarily there is the issue of "cost", in a society that seeks to cut cost down to the bone, to the very limit of what people will accept.

Second, and not unrelated, is the issue of misuse which is a problem these days.

And lastly I think there is the issue of innovation, that no one has sought to find a cost effective way of dealing with the issue. If this was to do with anything other than no 1s and 2s, someone would have come along ages ago to "revolutionise our lavatorial habits while on the go forever".

I'm not suggesting that everyone be fitted with bags, but if even the slowest person can be coached into putting their shopping on the right hand side of the self service checkout and then knowing where to put the money in afterwards, I'm sure there could be another solution to this than the troublesome bowl set up that history has saddled us with.

 

[northwichcat]

In my occasional experiences of toilets out of use, it frequently looks like toilet paper thrown all over the floor or soap everywhere. I don't know how you think that more staff on a train would solve that, but you should be prepared to pay a lot more for your travel.

As the original post said it was Northern's team who said toilets are a luxury. From my experience on Northern services toilets are rarely fault free and if there's a problem then at least 95% of the time it's something Northern are responsible for e.g. toilet door problem, no water, broken flush, a leak etc. The one thing they seem to be good at is ensuring there's a bar of a soap in the toilet cubicle (yes we still have bars of soap on our trains) but if there's no water then it doesn't do much.

I'd like to see The Queen go in to the toilet on a Pacer considering it's apparently a luxury.

 

[6Gman]

I dislike the expression "fellow travellers". It implies that we are all somehow connected, and therefore in some way responsible for other people's behaviour, when in fact we just happen to be travelling on the same train at the same time.

If some imbecile deliberately blocks or vandalises the only toilet on a train, causing everyone else to not have access to that facility, there is only one person responsible, and the rest of us certainly don't feel any "fellowship" towards the culprit!

Like!

 

[LowLevel]

I do love the grumpy second paragraph that implies that a toilet stop will only be granted if convenient and in an emergency. We don't ask control for a toilet stop, we tell them we're doing it

 

[SpacePhoenix]

When did the practice end of having a toilet at each end of every coach?

 

[infobleep]

necessity or journey longer than say 30 mins id say, luxury on metro services.

Some metro services are rather long and go through countryside with no toilets when staff are not staying the stations. I thinking of the Guildford to Waterloo via Cobham or Bookham services. It doesn't feel that metro until you reach Surbiton on the Cobham and may be more Metro Leatherhead or Epsom on the Bookham route.

 

[infobleep]

well as someone who suffers from colitis a toilet on a train is a must i will not us any transport with out a toilet except a short bus ride

Having a RADAR key to access the locked toilets is great but not if the locked loo is double locked using another key that only the non exists to staff have access to or us it behind another door that is locked using a key only staff have access to.

 

[infobleep]

The DfT will decide the necessity of toilets based on typical (mode I would guess) journey length, rather than end to end distance travelled by the train.

Does that take into account peak journeys vers off peak. I mean if one is travelling to Clapham Junction from Guildford in the morning peak, after the 6.53 has departed, all the trains until. 8.31, have no loos on board. These being the 7.03 and 7.35 via Cobham and maybe the 7.58 Epsom service. The journey to Clapham Junction via Cobham is 50 minutes and even longer via Epsom. I've only included those journeys where the 8.31 doesn't overtake them.

Of course stations on route have loos. Take a Sunday where the Cobham line only has one train an hour and many stations have their loos locked.

 

[infobleep]

Definitely a necessity for the majority if services. Most trains cover a reasonable distance over a reasonable time, and it's entirely reasonable that toilets are provided. The only exceptions exist really on the shorter intraurban routes (Cathcart Circle, London inner suburban runs and the like) where a toilet simply takes up valuable space and isn't really important when people are travelling for about ten minutes or so.

Would you include outer suburban routes, such as Guildford to Waterloo via Cobham or Bookham?

 

[infobleep]

Surely the salient point swings around if the service is expected to have a toilet? We don't expect a bus to have a toilet, we don't expect Merseyrail to have a toilet, nor an Underground service. So we pay a bit more, to use a service that we expect to have a netty- in the event that our kids, pregnant partner, IBS sufferer, drunk mates, elderly parents, diarrhea suffering selves etc etc can use the bog if the need arises !

In that case we should not make trains or stations accessible as surely it would be cheaper not to do so. For hundreds of years buildings weren't designed to be wheelchair friendly so why bother now?

I don't agree with that statement of course and nor do I agree with their being no toilets on trains.

I put up with it but I'd rather not have to..

My worst experience recently was a Gatwick to Reading service. I managed to mostly hold off.

I've had internal surgery and have no colon any more. I have an internal pouch. It's not as good as a healthy colon and if it's got inflammation, as it did at the time, it's even less good.

If they had stopped for longer at a station with a loo, I couldn't say now long I'd be. I'm usually longer than the average person, as my body works differently and it can take me longer to do the business so to speak.

 

[infobleep]

There aren't. Some trains have fewer toilets, and they seem to be out of use more often (though in BR days I do remember walking through several coaches of Mk2s before finding one that worked), but there aren't any more with *no* toilets than there ever were.

The sole issue I have with this thread really is the attitude problem being displayed by Northern, but it is not the only attitude problem that franchise has, and as I've said I believe it comes right from the top.
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Not required for safe operation of the train, I agree (provided toilet stops are arranged on longer journeys without passengers having to ask, as it's humiliating putting your hand up and asking the guard if you can stop off for a wee like some kind of schoolchild), but the response they gave was a firm "we don't care".

TOCs should give a priority to ensuring all facilities on their trains work and are in clean condition. Failures should be an exception. The only difference is that *if* an exceptional failure occurs, if it's the brakes you have to cancel, if it's the bogs you don't.

"It's a luxury" is, as I say, an attitude problem - and is potentially a form of disability discrimination.

It's also sex discrimination, as at the hypothetical rural station it's much easier for a male to "go in the bushes" than a female.

Simple answer is to build some woods by stations then people can use them instead, as they are less likely to be seen.

I may joke but when out on country walks I have resorted to resting against tree trunks in wooded areas. It was either that or not go walking for the day. Clearly that's not feasible for stations or trains.

 

[infobleep]

But expectations are very important. If I know no facilities are provided on the train, I will use them somewhere before boarding, and will let a train go if necessary to do so. If they are supposed to be provided, I might not, as I expect they *will* be provided.

If a train has a facility - any facility, be that toilets, aircon, trolley service, whatever - I expect it will be provided as advertised, and not flippantly shrugged off as "a luxury". If it isn't provided, I want a sincere apology and steps to be taken to remedy the reason it wasn't provided, not an arrogant and flippant brush-off like that.

The correct response from customer services there would be along the lines of "We are really sorry the toilet was not provided on this service, this is because it was out of order because of a plumbing fault, which is scheduled to be repaired on 18/12/16 as we are waiting for a part on order to repair it. Unfortunately due to a lack of rolling stock we have to put it out in service as the fault does not make the train unsafe to operate, and the only other option would have been to cancel the train".

With a proper incident management system you'd know the detail above to respond, it shows a proper investigation of the customer's issues, it isn't arrogant, it's apologetic etc. It's not ideal, but people recognise that Northern's situation isn't ideal at least until the new stock arrives. But the response they did give is "we don't care".

FWIW, I would expect *as a minimum* that any train with no bog has this highlighted on the PIS so a passenger can make an educated decision whether to board or not, and furthermore that any Advance tickets should be automatically valid for the previous or next train of that TOC if the passenger so chooses. GWR seem good at the PIS angle (ha!), others much less so.

Is that a new thing in GWR? I aka because on the Gatwick to Reading service no such PIS announcement and I didn't know about the lack of a loo until after we'd departed Gatwick. We'd been sat at the airport for 8-10 minutes before we left too!

 

[infobleep]

The last time my train had a bog break, the station person at Maidstone East refused to open the station loos, even though the guard asked him to !

That would make a great comedy sketch!

 

[yorksrob]

That would make a great comedy sketch!

It would indeed, although I wasn't laughing at the time !

 

[AlterEgo]

In that case we should not make trains or stations accessible as surely it would be cheaper not to do so. For hundreds of years buildings weren't designed to be wheelchair friendly so why bother now?

There should only be reasonable adjustments made. It is always a cost versus benefit calculation. For this reason, much of the Tube is unlikely ever to be accessible to people with mobility issues, as the cost is absolutely prohibitive.

I am not sure what the cost of retro-fitting toilets onto suburban units would be. Does anyone know?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Is that a new thing in GWR? I aka because on the Gatwick to Reading service no such PIS announcement and I didn't know about the lack of a loo until after we'd departed Gatwick. We'd been sat at the airport for 8-10 minutes before we left too!

Don't know about that line, I just know they have always been reasonably good at posting missing facilities on HSTs on the PIS.


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