Coach restrooms

[Ray Way]

I just came off riding Silver Star 91. I don’t know if it’s just random bad luck. But this is the 2nd time in a row that I have taken this train and there have been people “trashing” the coach restrooms. On this trip, the Conductor came over the intercom and sounded P.O’d: “People are clogging the toilets!! Please do not throw trash in the toilets and keep the bathrooms clean!!”

This particular conductor, however, may have been on a power trip. She also threatened to charge people for a second seat if they did not remove belongings—apparently every seat in Coach was taken. She also assigned every one their seat and told people they must sit in their assigned seat for the duration of their trip.

Going back to the trashed bathrooms, this also happened on the Star when I rode it last year. The coach bathrooms were trashed apparently just after having been cleaned in Washington DC, and the conductor was not happy. This was a different conductor, however.

I have never ridden in Coach on the Silvers—I’ve always done Sleeper so I can’t speak for myself on how “bad” the bathrooms in Coach are.

Has anyone noticed more bathroom badness occurring on Amtrak? It seems to me some people just don’t respect having communal facilities. The key word here is “some” people. Most people are considerate.

I don't blame the conductor for scolding those who block seats with their stuff! Especially with a full train.

 

[pennyk]

Absolutely serious. I wouldn't want to cause an acute attack in someone with asthma or reactive airway. I try not to "just do it" without considering the possible consequences.

As someone who is allergic to Febreze, I would be quite upset walking into a restroom where a passenger had just sprayed an aersol filled with chemicals.

 

[Old MM]

 

[zephyr17]

As someone who is allergic to Febreze, I would be quite upset walking into a restroom where a passenger had just sprayed an aersol filled with chemicals.

I have fairly frequently run into Superliner sleeper restrooms where the car attendant has placed a can of Fabreze for passenger use.

 

[pennyk]

I have fairly frequently run into Superliner sleeper restrooms where the car attendant has placed a can of Fabreze for passenger use.

I have heard that also. Because of that reason (and others), I try to travel in bedrooms, with a private restroom. (However, because the cost of bedrooms, especially on the Silvers, has greatly increased, I do not travel as much, which disappoints me.)

 

[TEREB]

We just traveled from Paris to Barcelona on a bullet train. The public bathrooms had a sanitizer dispenser and tissue sheets with instructions to use the sanitizer to wipe down the toilet seat. There was also a bathroom for moms to change their babies. I was very impressed.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

I think using wipes is a better policy than spray since many people are allergic to air freshener, especially febreze (including me). I think avoiding anything with a fragrance is a good idea if you wish you be considerate to your fellow passengers who may have asthma and/or allergies.

Agree strongly that premoistened cleaning wipes are best but I can also deal with wiped/rinsed cleaning sprays like Lysol. It seems to be the persistent residue of generic "air fresheners" that creates the most problems for me.

I have fairly frequently run into Superliner sleeper restrooms where the car attendant has placed a can of Fabreze for passenger use.

Same here and it's highly undesirable for me, but the flushing system is not that great at getting everything so maybe that's why they do it.

 

[Hound6827]

It's a no brainer. You always bring lysol wipes on planes trains . Wipe down the area before its being used. Amtrak cleans there coach restrooms. They are scheduled to be done every 2 hours on long distance trains. And every hour for the sleepers. People clean eeverytime they use restrooms and grant it some don't. We use our brand of cleaner. We post a notice on the card behind the door when its done last. Jim former Amtrak Employee

 

[Eric in East County]

In early November 2017, we were heading west on SWC No. 3. We were still east of Trinidad when an announcement was made that one of the coach restrooms was out of order because someone had flushed a paper towel down the toilet. Not long afterwards, another announcement was made that someone had scattered toilet paper all over the floor of another restroom. The culprit was warned that, if caught, “You will be removed from the train for vandalism.”

 

[desertflyer]

The best car attendant I ever had brought some sort of commercial foaming toilet bowl cleaner for every bathroom. The toilets were the cleanest for two days that I'd seen in all of my trips on Amtrak. I wonder if he paid for that out of pocket or had a friend in EVS? Either way, the results spoke for themselves and it seemed like a lot of people could clean up after themselves when given the opportunity.

Full disclosure, this was in a sleeper and not coach but I would think the results would be somewhat similar.

 

[railiner]

Our bus restrooms, even the ones that flush, are much simpler than Amtrak’s or airlines. They do not employ a vacuum system that is prone to clogging. Instead, they rely on gravity.
As for odor control, the powerful chemical, added to the holding tank, usually does a pretty good job. But in extremely heavy use, or if the tank is not dumped and flushed at the proper period, odor can become a problem.
In the past, if far from a servicing location we would add some additional chemical, but for some it became an irritant.
We did discover another remedy that would solve the problem temporarily, much better, and at low cost…
Simply pouring in a capful of Downy fabric softener worked miraculously, stopping the odor, and didn’t seem to irritate anyone.

All our buses soon carried a bottle…

 

[zephyr17]

Our bus restrooms, even the ones that flush, are much simpler than Amtrak’s or airlines. They do not employ a vacuum system that is prone to clogging. Instead, they rely on gravity.
As for odor control, the powerful chemical, added to the holding tank, usually does a pretty good job. But in extremely heavy use, or if the tank is not dumped and flushed at the proper period, odor can become a problem.
In the past, if far from a servicing location we would add some additional chemical, but for some it became an irritant.
We did discover another remedy that would solve the problem temporarily, much better, and at low cost…
Simply pouring in a capful of Downy fabric softener worked miraculously, stopping the odor, and didn’t seem to irritate anyone.

All our buses soon carried a bottle…

Hmm, the mention about buses got me thinking.

Amtrak's vacuum toilets appear to be a feature only on the long distance trains, at least Superliners and Viewliners. Amfleet I toilets, and I think the Horizons, operate much like the bus toilets. They're gravity fed with blue "water". They're a lot simpler, although passengers manage to plug them up to, they appear to be a lot less sensitive.

I don't recall Acela toilets from the one time I used one, and I don’t think I ever used one in an Amfleet II.

So why do Amfleet Is have simple gravity toilets and Superliners and Viewliners have finicky, much more complex vacuum ones with more failure points?

 

[Maglev]

So why do Amfleet Is have simple gravity toilets and Superliners and Viewliners have finicky, much more complex vacuum ones with more failure points?

Just off hand, I would say it is because the retention tanks are far from Superliner toilets, but right under Amfleet toilets. There is only space in the Superliner ceiling and floor for vacuum pipes that extend to tanks at the ends of the car, which are actually above the lower-level toilets. Likewise, in Viewliner I's, multiple toilets distributed along the length of the car cannot each have a retention tank; there is a central tank and vacuum system. I'm not familiar with VII's.

 

[jis]

Just off hand, I would say it is because the retention tanks are far from Superliner toilets, but right under Amfleet toilets. There is only space in the Superliner ceiling and floor for vacuum pipes that extend to tanks at the ends of the car, which are actually above the lower-level toilets. Likewise, in Viewliner I's, multiple toilets distributed along the length of the car cannot each have a retention tank; there is a central tank and vacuum system. I'm not familiar with VII's.

AFAICT very few if any, build any new cars with those splish splash Blue Fluid toilets. Amfleets were the last of them. Older planes also had and have them, but none of the newer planes do.

 

[Eric in East County]

When I went to the Boy Scout Jamboree in 1960, the B&O coaches we rode in still had toilets that emptied down onto the ties. (No worry about people clogging up the toilets with paper towels back then!) Although this practice was not very sanitary, neither is a toilet that backs up and floods a coach full of people.

 

[TrackWalker]

As we found out cruise ships, too, are not immune from occasional issues with their vacuum system toilets.

 

[zephyr17]

When I went to the Boy Scout Jamboree in 1960, the B&O coaches we rode in still had toilets that emptied down onto the ties. (No worry about people clogging up the toilets with paper towels back then!) Although this practice was not very sanitary, neither is a toilet that backs up and floods a coach full of people.

The direct dump toilets lasted a long time after 1960 even the Superliner Is originally used a delayed dump method where the black water was held in tanks and then periodically sprayed out. I remember going through Portland and the conductor always making an announced approaching Vancouver "Attendents, place your cars on 'inhibit'". That inhibited the system from dumping. There was something about the speed of the train (I recall that speed was a factor in when the system decided to dump) and length of time it spent navigating through the Portland suburbs that made it likely the cars would spew in the suburbs if not inhibited.

Dumping on the tracks was not as bad as it sounds. The gravel ballast made a decent septic field for the contents spread out by speed.

 

[Douglas Dunker]

The best car attendant I ever had brought some sort of commercial foaming toilet bowl cleaner for every bathroom. The toilets were the cleanest for two days that I'd seen in all of my trips on Amtrak. I wonder if he paid for that out of pocket or had a friend in EVS? Either way, the results spoke for themselves and it seemed like a lot of people could clean up after themselves when given the opportunity.

Full disclosure, this was in a sleeper and not coach but I would think the results would be somewhat similar.

I also found that a train that I was on had foaming cleanser in each restroom and agree that it was much cleaner.

 

[TrackWalker]

...Dumping on the tracks was not as bad as it sounds. The gravel ballast made a decent septic field for the contents spread out by speed.

Those of us track workers that worked for a living in that "decent septic field" would take exception your comment.

 

[railiner]

Just off hand, I would say it is because the retention tanks are far from Superliner toilets, but right under Amfleet toilets. There is only space in the Superliner ceiling and floor for vacuum pipes that extend to tanks at the ends of the car, which are actually above the lower-level toilets. Likewise, in Viewliner I's, multiple toilets distributed along the length of the car cannot each have a retention tank; there is a central tank and vacuum system. I'm not familiar with VII's.

The direct dump toilets lasted a long time after 1960 even the Superliner Is originally used a delayed dump method where the black water was held in tanks and then periodically sprayed out. I remember going through Portland and the conductor always making an announced approaching Vancouver "Attendents, place your cars on 'inhibit'". That inhibited the system from dumping. There was something about the speed of the train (I recall that speed was a factor in when the system decided to dump) and length of time it spent navigating through the Portland suburbs that made it likely the cars would spew in the suburbs if not inhibited.

Dumping on the tracks was not as bad as it sounds. The gravel ballast made a decent septic field for the contents spread out by speed.

The Superliner’s also had macerator’s that liquefied the waste before spraying it out on the tracks.
There were several other “sensitive” locations where crews were instructed to inhibit the system, including the Moffat Tunnel. (They also shut down the A/C blowers, and asked passengers to refrain from passing between cars).

 

[zephyr17]

There were several other “sensitive” locations where crews were instructed to inhibit the system,

Yeah, I know, but for some reason Portland is the only one where I have a clear recollection of the inhibit announcement.

 

[railiner]

Yeah, I know, but for some reason Portland is the only one where I have a clear recollection of the inhibit announcement.

Probably for the same reason I was familiar with the Zephyr route…rode it countless times…

 

[Eric in East County]

There was a movie back in the early 1970s starring Steve McQueen called “The Getaway.” In it, there is a sequence when McQueen’s character is on board a train about to depart from a station, chasing a con man who has ripped off the loot from a bank heist. Trying the door to the bathroom, he finds it locked. A passing conductor tells him that it will be unlocked after the train leaves the station. This probably was a bathroom with a direct dump toilet. (The con man was, in fact, hiding in the bathroom, which he’d gained access to by picking the lock. Unfortunately for him, he scratched the lock while picking it, so Steve knew he was in there.)

 

[Brian Battuello]

As reported above, when the Superliners were first built, they used dump toilets with a valve that only opened after the train reached a certain speed. In those old heady days of railroading, you could stand in the lower vestibule and open the window, getting some fresh Sierra air. One day a conductor said over the intercom, "Don't open the door windows. If you feel a cool mist, it ain't Mountain Dew..."

 

[zephyr17]

There was a movie back in the early 1970s starring Steve McQueen called “The Getaway.” In it, there is a sequence when McQueen’s character is on board a train about to depart from a station, chasing a con man who has ripped off the loot from a bank heist. Trying the door to the bathroom, he finds it locked. A passing conductor tells him that it will be unlocked after the train leaves the station. This probably was a bathroom with a direct dump toilet. (The con man was, in fact, hiding in the bathroom, which he’d gained access to by picking the lock. Unfortunately for him, he scratched the lock while picking it, so Steve knew he was in there.)

That wasn't just a plot device, they did that. No one wanted to have a turd dropped out of a toilet while sitting at the station. There was a reason it was called direct "dump."

"Passengers will please refrain from flushing toilet while the train in standing in the station."