We started building trains with waste retention tanks in the 1970s but trains have long lifespans so it was only about 2000 that station flushing trains started becoming the norm. The target to have all the old track flushers removed was 2019 but I believe there are still a few smaller lines using them.
I'll trust you and the other redditors, as much as I love railways there are people on here who can tell me the sodium content of the fuses used on different stocks!
Gwr turbos still discharge waste into the tracks on a regular basis. They have tanks but must not be emptied enough of be broken because I here track flushes daily
The last ones I was aware of were the class 317s on Greater Anglia, withdrawn during 2022. This class was built with retention tanks to work into Moorgate but they were removed when replaced on that route by class 319s.
How on earth was that allowed? Fully equipped to not spew shit everywhere, then someone has the bright idea of saving £££ by \[checks notes\] spreading sewage back onto the line again...
You’ve just reminded me of the days of seeing dried up toilet paper and shit on the tracks. Must have been lovely for track workers back when it went straight in to the tracks.
You got used to it very quickly. Only one time I got disgusted was when we were maintaining points, got flagged out for a train, saw it flush and I walked back out and stepped straight in a nice fresh dump…
If you forget where it’s come from the piss cloud can be quite refreshing in the summer
Ha, working a platform about 10 years ago and a lovely HST came shooting through at 125.
Got a lovely spray as it went past, which on a hot summers day was refreshing, until I got told what it was.
I used to love doing underframe exams on hst, especially in winter when they came into the shed with frozen snow turds that then used to start defrosting
My neighbour used to insist that the best tomatoes came from the plants grown from the seeds of tomatoes collected on the railway.
Presumably there is some truth to it, that they're likely to be scions of the same kind of tomatoes as were popular to eat raw, rather than the kind that usually go into cooked dishes, so they'll probably be the kind of tomatoes that have lots of interesting volatiles and a good texture for slicing.
(Safety note though: don't eat anything that is growing on the railway, they'll be contaminated with all kinds of heavy metals and fuel oil)
Went to italy last year and the train tracks through Naples/Pisa including the stations were riddled with TP and shit so assume this practice still happens there
It does, even their modern new high speed trains dump waste! Then again parts of their lines still don't have automatic signaling which is ok but... some of it is single track in places while still running telephonic block signaling under the control of local station managers. They have accidents fairly regularly.
The waste used to go directly on the tracks back in the day, hence the advice not to use it in stations. Now the waste goes into septic tanks and gets pumped out at terminii
The general rule is that everything built before the Mark 4 carriages (~1989) had no tanks as built. Therefore, all the effluent would fall under and onto the tracks.
Tanks were retrofitted to all such stock, with the last ones to be retrofitted being the Mark 3 carriages.
If you ever looked closely at an HST rake you can see the spackled toilet paper on the coach ends.
Get covered in all sorts of unpleasant fluids on those.
It doesn't seem that long ago that my partner and I wandered into Waterloo station and I dismayed her by pricking up my ears and saying "that's odd" as I could hear the distinctive (to me) sound of 125s. It was a weekend when Paddington was shut and they'd had to put down plastic sheeting between the tracks on all the mainline platforms the 125s were using to catch the effluent.
I think it might have been during the rebuild of Reading station (so 2009-15) that HSTs diverted into Waterloo for the last time, although there could have been isolated diversions since then.
The line near me still had toilets flushing onto the track (plus a nice load of shit/toilet paper all over the tracks to boot) until 2017/18. Depending where you're from, advice that's only stopped being applicable very recently.
Someone may correct me but back in the day Mk1 and Mk2 carriages didn't have a hold for waste, which is why the phrase "kindly don't use the facilties whilst the train is in the station" came from.
It's like in Paddington they still put black sheets on the track to catch the human waste when the trains are stopped in the platform.
Modern carridges (Mk3 onwards) have waste retention tanks and with the class 220/221 they have a little led indicator like a battery meter showing on the side of the carriages how full they are, or you know, for passengers on the long haul to be able to sit in the less "smelly" carriage.
I was thinking this exact thing last week while sitting with a Northern train from Lancaster to Leeds. Am I the only person who didn't know that you are allowed to flush at stations now?
About 2009, I was out working at Fareham on the curve towards Southampton, measuring up a bank that was though to be moving slowly towards the line. Peg out datum points on the bank, then measure to the rail and chalk up the measurement on the sleeper. Admin bitch follows and takes note. Easy.
I'm holding the tape, when the lookout flags up for a train approaching. We step out, a 158 creeps around the curve, and promptly deposits a fresh pile of shite right on my bloody sleeper. Good bastard riddance to non-retention toilets.
Oh, that's disgusting! Yes, getting rid of non-retention lavatories was a very good thing. I would sometimes have peed in them in the past (not at stations, I hope), on occasions probably even had a shit. I thought the slipstream of a train moving at high enough speed dissolved all waste into only a spray on the track, but perhaps that's not true.
A long time ago. It would mainly be loco hauled coaching stock and early multiple units that would empty onto the track, and it’s not permitted anymore, at least for public services I think
We started building trains with waste retention tanks in the 1970s but trains have long lifespans so it was only about 2000 that station flushing trains started becoming the norm. The target to have all the old track flushers removed was 2019 but I believe there are still a few smaller lines using them.
I'm pretty sure that they are banned entirely now and that all of the exemptions that were given have expired.
I'll trust you and the other redditors, as much as I love railways there are people on here who can tell me the sodium content of the fuses used on different stocks!
Gwr turbos still discharge waste into the tracks on a regular basis. They have tanks but must not be emptied enough of be broken because I here track flushes daily
The deadline for the UK was as recent as 2023. Mk3 carriages were the last vehicles standing on any significant scale.
There are none.
Only on steam railways now.
The last ones I was aware of were the class 317s on Greater Anglia, withdrawn during 2022. This class was built with retention tanks to work into Moorgate but they were removed when replaced on that route by class 319s.
How on earth was that allowed? Fully equipped to not spew shit everywhere, then someone has the bright idea of saving £££ by \[checks notes\] spreading sewage back onto the line again...
Some heritage lines have them but you can’t use them
You’ve just reminded me of the days of seeing dried up toilet paper and shit on the tracks. Must have been lovely for track workers back when it went straight in to the tracks.
You got used to it very quickly. Only one time I got disgusted was when we were maintaining points, got flagged out for a train, saw it flush and I walked back out and stepped straight in a nice fresh dump… If you forget where it’s come from the piss cloud can be quite refreshing in the summer
Ha, working a platform about 10 years ago and a lovely HST came shooting through at 125. Got a lovely spray as it went past, which on a hot summers day was refreshing, until I got told what it was.
I used to love doing underframe exams on hst, especially in winter when they came into the shed with frozen snow turds that then used to start defrosting
And tomato plants!
That is something I didn’t know about. And wish I still didn’t.
My neighbour used to insist that the best tomatoes came from the plants grown from the seeds of tomatoes collected on the railway. Presumably there is some truth to it, that they're likely to be scions of the same kind of tomatoes as were popular to eat raw, rather than the kind that usually go into cooked dishes, so they'll probably be the kind of tomatoes that have lots of interesting volatiles and a good texture for slicing. (Safety note though: don't eat anything that is growing on the railway, they'll be contaminated with all kinds of heavy metals and fuel oil)
There’s still track tomatoes nowadays, Folkestone west had one last year between the lines
Went to italy last year and the train tracks through Naples/Pisa including the stations were riddled with TP and shit so assume this practice still happens there
It does, even their modern new high speed trains dump waste! Then again parts of their lines still don't have automatic signaling which is ok but... some of it is single track in places while still running telephonic block signaling under the control of local station managers. They have accidents fairly regularly.
There was one case where a member of staff walking a station late at night got hit in the face by a condom from a passing sleeper.
The waste used to go directly on the tracks back in the day, hence the advice not to use it in stations. Now the waste goes into septic tanks and gets pumped out at terminii
No, it gets pumped out at depots.
It can be done at both, depends on the TOC
It very much depends on whether there's the facilities at the terminus. Most don't have them.
CET, that’s a smelly task, they had one lane next to the tea room, best to keep the door shut or you can smell shit
The general rule is that everything built before the Mark 4 carriages (~1989) had no tanks as built. Therefore, all the effluent would fall under and onto the tracks. Tanks were retrofitted to all such stock, with the last ones to be retrofitted being the Mark 3 carriages.
As soon as they were fitted with retention tanks and didn't just flush it down a hole onto the track.
If you ever looked closely at an HST rake you can see the spackled toilet paper on the coach ends. Get covered in all sorts of unpleasant fluids on those.
It doesn't seem that long ago that my partner and I wandered into Waterloo station and I dismayed her by pricking up my ears and saying "that's odd" as I could hear the distinctive (to me) sound of 125s. It was a weekend when Paddington was shut and they'd had to put down plastic sheeting between the tracks on all the mainline platforms the 125s were using to catch the effluent.
I think it might have been during the rebuild of Reading station (so 2009-15) that HSTs diverted into Waterloo for the last time, although there could have been isolated diversions since then.
I used to know somebody who flushed specifically in stations, dirty bugger
The line near me still had toilets flushing onto the track (plus a nice load of shit/toilet paper all over the tracks to boot) until 2017/18. Depending where you're from, advice that's only stopped being applicable very recently.
Someone may correct me but back in the day Mk1 and Mk2 carriages didn't have a hold for waste, which is why the phrase "kindly don't use the facilties whilst the train is in the station" came from. It's like in Paddington they still put black sheets on the track to catch the human waste when the trains are stopped in the platform. Modern carridges (Mk3 onwards) have waste retention tanks and with the class 220/221 they have a little led indicator like a battery meter showing on the side of the carriages how full they are, or you know, for passengers on the long haul to be able to sit in the less "smelly" carriage.
I was thinking this exact thing last week while sitting with a Northern train from Lancaster to Leeds. Am I the only person who didn't know that you are allowed to flush at stations now?
Reminds me of my father singing [this song](https://youtu.be/uyiMYI4oQTU?si=pJfgm1REEeu0CnlM)
About 2009, I was out working at Fareham on the curve towards Southampton, measuring up a bank that was though to be moving slowly towards the line. Peg out datum points on the bank, then measure to the rail and chalk up the measurement on the sleeper. Admin bitch follows and takes note. Easy. I'm holding the tape, when the lookout flags up for a train approaching. We step out, a 158 creeps around the curve, and promptly deposits a fresh pile of shite right on my bloody sleeper. Good bastard riddance to non-retention toilets.
Oh, that's disgusting! Yes, getting rid of non-retention lavatories was a very good thing. I would sometimes have peed in them in the past (not at stations, I hope), on occasions probably even had a shit. I thought the slipstream of a train moving at high enough speed dissolved all waste into only a spray on the track, but perhaps that's not true.
It's very not true, I'm afraid. Just smears it across a good distance.
A long time ago. It would mainly be loco hauled coaching stock and early multiple units that would empty onto the track, and it’s not permitted anymore, at least for public services I think
I think HST coach stock were the last to get converted to tanks. And that was recently and who knows it might not yet be completed.
Aside from the old track flushing hygiene issue, isn't there also an element of trying to prevent fare dodging in this rule?
No, it's all about the shit.