Do Crossrail Trains Need Toilets?
ITV have published this web article entitled The £1bn Crossrail where you can’t spend a penny.
It’s a catchy headline, but is the article just knocking copy to get views or rival politicians making a point.
At present, the Class 315 trains that run from Shenfield to Liverpool Street, do not have toilets. The journey takes up to forty three minutes. So does anybody get taken short on a train?
I discussed this with a customer support guy, that I met at Tottenham Court Road. We thought that some Underground journeys would be longer. I’ve just looked up Cockfosters to Heathrow, which is a journey that if I still lived in the area where I grew up, I’d probably do occasionally. It takes ninety minutes.
So if toilets were to be provided on Crossrail Class 345 trains as some journeys will take nearly an hour, they should probably be provided on long distance Underground services.
In my chat at Tottenham Court Road, I was reminded about the version of the iconic tube map that shows the location of toilets. It actually shows, whether toilets at stations are inside or outside the gate line.
Surely, a much better and more affordable solution would be to update the ribbon maps in all Underground and Crossrail trains to show if the station had toilets, in the same way, they show the step free access. Some extra signs on stations showing the status and location of toilets would also be a good idea.
Incidentally on the Essex and Reading legs of Crossrail, several of the stations already have decent toilets. Getting off a train and catching the next one, to have a relaxed toilet break, is probably not a huge delay, due to the high frequency of the trains.
London has a chance to set high standards in this area, without putting toilets on any trains.
Although saying that, Thameslink’s Class 700 trains will have toilets, but then Brighton to Peterborough might take two hours plus.
Perhaps, ITV should stick to reporting the news they do best, like I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here.
It’s Only A Toilet For A Train
Some of the designs that impress me are ones where something is properly redesigned for the twenty-first or even the twenty-second century, often re-using the current outdated infrastructure.
That is why I like some of the architecture in the UK like the British Museum, the Tate Modern and Kings Cross Station have been extended in a modern style.
The UK Rail Industry has several stations on my list of good improvements, but it is also good at updating rolling stock. The stopgap High Speed Trains are still thundering to the extremes of the UK and who would predict, when the last one is retired from active service? If I live to a hundred, I suspect that some of these trains will outlive me! After all they would become a marketing man’s dream on a long tourist route like down to Cornwall, up to the North of Scotland or perhaps across Australia or Argentina, offering unprecedented comfort in a vintage train. We’ve also got the example of the HST’s humble cousins, the Class 455, which scrubbed up so well, some passengers thought they were new trains.
The UK Rail Industry has an expensive road block coming up in 2020, with the Persons of Reduced Mobility (PRM) legislation coming into force. Many older trains like the Class 156 would have to be scrapped and replaced if they couldn’t be updated to meet the new regulations.
But never underestimate the power of good design and engineering and one of the biggest problems of the refurbishment of the Class 156 described here, namely a fully-accessible toilet has been solved.
The new toilet has been designed and built by PCC.eu and they call it a Comfort Zone. I first saw it described in this month’s Modern Railways.
As I travel occasionally on some of the Greater Anglia trains, that have now been updated, I shall be interested to see how it works in practice.
As the floorspace needed is smaller than the traditional PRM toilet and providing decent on-train facilities is not just a UK problem, it looks to me that this is a classic where-there’s-muck-there’s-money design.
It also shows that one of the best ways to make money is to design or invent something.
Do British Trains Do Toilets Well?
I travel on trains a lot and so I tend to use the facilities quite a bit.
I have come across the concessional blocked one on a train, but in the last few months, all have been immaculate.
A lot of the ones I’ve used in stations over the last year, have been immaculate too, like the ones at Southport, Wigan and Lowestoft!
In my travels across Europe, if I give the British toilets say eight out of ten, some countries don’t get above five. And we’re not talking about countries with lower standards of living than the UK.
So perhaps toilets are something that British trains do well?
Train Toilets In Italy
Occasionally, you get a disgusting or failed toilet on a British train.
But not so in Italy!
On the five Italian trains I travelled on, only one had a clean toilet and on that train, it didn’t flush properly. So much to my shame, I left it rather filthy.
But even in the cheaper of the hotels I stayed in, the plumbing was good.
A Problem With Disabled Toilets
I went to the toilet at Gatwick and despite it being a long walk from the Departures Lounge, I had no problems.
But it wasn’t so easy for a guy on two crutches I met, who looked distinctly unhappy. He told me the problem was that as the disabled toilet is the only place where smokers can’t be spotted, they use it as a smoking room. He said that it was particularly disgusting and smelt very strongly of smoke.
I bet those smokers don’t smoke in their own toilets at home!
Wigan On The Up
I went to Wigan to see Ipswich play. These are pictures, I took show the area around the North Western station and the station itself.
Incidentally, the toilets were some of the best and cleanest, that I’d ever found on any railway station. They were free too!
I’m sure if all stations were as clean and tidy as Wigan North Western, then more people would travel by train.
The sun was even shining.
Incidentally, Wikipedia says this about Wigan North Western station.
In 2009 North Western station was identified as one of the ten worst category B interchange stations for mystery shopper assessment of fabric and environment, and was set to receive a share of £50m funding for improvements.
It looks like the money has been well spent, as the description didn’t fit the station I visited.
A Multi-Currency Toilet
On my trip this morning I needed a pit-stop and as I had to surface at Green Park station to find of the maps, I used the excellent toilets there.
A Multi-Currency Toilet
Note how the entrance gate sensibly accepts both pounds and euros. They’ve even put the instructions in a selection of languages.
A Multi-LingualToilet
We need to do more things like this, to make London as tourism-friendly as possible.
The Return From Sheffield
I had decided to come back directly from Sheffield station to St. Pancras International.
Partly, this was because it was without a change and also it would enable me to compare the two companies; East Coast and East Midlands. But mainly, it was because the journey up cost £33.00 and I was able to get back for £19.80, by the simpler route.
It started well enough in that I was able to get easily by the Supertram to the station, with a change at Fitzalan Square. My only query, would be to ask if Sheffield have enough trams, as the tram was crowded both ways and there was a long delay waiting to get one at Meadowhall? I also find it strange, that we have six modern tram systems in the UK; London, Edinburgh, West Midlands, Manchester, Nottingham and Sheffield, and all seem to have different trams and different ticketing systems. For instance, other than London, the only tram system I can use without paying is Sheffield.
If we had a standard UK tram and infrastructure, then anywhere that wanted a system, would be able to cost it very easily. Surely too, a common tram, would reduce inventories for spare parts and reduce costs for staff training.
I have had quite a bit of experience of East Midlands First Class this year, so I took the precaution of going to the usually excellent Marks and Spencer in the station to get a drink. As I’d only had the sandwiches I bought at Meadowhall all day, I thought something to eat might be an idea. But Marks and Spencer were out of gluten-free sandwiches and I couldn’t find any salads at all. There of course, is no restaurant in the station, where anything gluten-free is available. So I would have to wait until St. Pancras.
I did check out the toilets and despite being pretty new, they weren’t in the best of states.
Vandalised Toilets At Sheffield Station
Especially, if you compare them with the exquisite ones I used at Doncaster on the way up. Doncaster’s toilets were also free.
So obviously you don’t pay for what you get!
After the toilets, I thought, I’d check out the First Class Lounge.
First Class Lounge At Sheffield Station
It was shut, just like it was at Derby a couple of weeks ago.
The train left Derby on time and I had a table for four to myself. By the time we got to Leicester, I’d had a cup of instant coffee in a cardboard cup, as opposed to the china cups from a pot on East Coast.
Then disaster struck, as we held at Leicester for forty minutes or so, after staff told us that the overhead lines had been brought down in the Elstree area. To be delayed on an electric train by overhead wire problems is to be expected, but when you’re in an operational Class 222 diesel train, it’s somewhat ironic.
We continued untroubled until Kettering, where we stopped for another twenty minutes, before being ordered off the train and onto another Class 222 heading for St. Pancras. I could just about find enough space to stand up. Luckily the crush didn’t last long, as staff told us that at the next stop at Wellingborough, if we got out and walked to the back of what was two trains coupled together there would be more space.
It now was obvious what East Midlands Trains had done. As to get a single train through the damaged knitting at Elstree, would be much easier than getting two trains through, they coupled two six coach trains together to make a twelve coach one.
Before I had moved to the comfort of the second train, I was talking to someone who worked for Network Rail. He blamed Dr. Beeching for all of the delays, as there hadn’t been any investment in the 1960s and 1970s. As I think the electrification that caused all the trouble was installed in the 1980s, that is quite an amazing conclusion.
As all of the electrification of that era seems to cause trouble, no matter where it is installed, I would think that there must be something wrong with the basic design. I did read something about how the Regional Eurostars used to bash hell out of the wires on the East Coast Main Line and cause failures. So perhaps the new Thameslink Class 377 trains are the problem. But I doubt it, as they’ve been around for some years.
In the end we arrived in London at 22:30, after a four hour journey. Marks and Spencer in St. Pancras was devoid of any suitable food, so I went home in a taxi and had cheese on toast.
I wish I’d gone home the other way via Meadowhall and Doncaster, despite it being twenty minutes slower. After all, I was two hours late into St. Pancras. At least, if there’d had been an overhead line failure, I suspect that I’d have been kept going by all that glorious East Coast tea in First Class.
London’s Best Toilets
I’m indebted to Time Out for this list.
I hadn’t realised that the Hunter S pub, had such novel toilets, which I think are featured in the photo in the article.
I have been to the pub, as it is the nearest to my house. But I’ve not used the toilets as it is probably just as quick to walk back home and use one of my own.
The Anonymous Widower 