SEPTA train bathrooms

ryanov wrote:

septadude wrote:I don't know what you're talking about -- the bathrooms at Suburban are disgusting. Usually there's a homeless guy in there smoking which makes it even worse.

I used them Friday night -- they were fine.

Perhaps we are not talking about the same bathrooms for the same gender. I am talking about the male bathrooms in the back right corner, closest to Track 7. I don't find them acceptably clean... but let's not argue over bathrooms!

cpontani wrote:Since Septa has many single-units, do they put them in each car, each pair, or one per trainset? The way Septa shuffles EMU's around, can they build them with restrooms, too?

NJ Transit's Arrow III EMUs have bathrooms in like one out of every 2 or 3 cars on average. And the Arrow III's get shuffled around all the time, considering there's constantly a need to repair this or that on a few of them every day.

Of course they aren't ADA compliant, being built a while ago, but they do the trick.

I recall a trip around X-mas a few years ago to visit someone I was seeing in Quakertown. She said she would pick me up in Colmar. Wherever the hell that is! lol Anyway I had a couple X-mas ales at Bridgewaters (supporting local economy) then boarded the train. With all the stops I thought I was going to piss myself by the time I got there! Instead of a hot/nice greeting I was asking where the nearest gas station was so I could go. F-SEPTA was all I could think of at this time!!! Too long a ride!!! They have to do something!!!

septadude wrote:Perhaps we are not talking about the same bathrooms for the same gender. I am talking about the male bathrooms in the back right corner, closest to Track 7. I don't find them acceptably clean... but let's not argue over bathrooms!

If you mean Suburban Station, I've been in that bathroom recently, and while not great, it is a major improvement over what had been there previously.

Still, I suspect SEPTA has some paranoid reason as to why they don't want restrooms in the trains.

I doubt that it's paranoia, I think their reasons are money and effort. All the other stories I've heard seem to be excuses.

i have first hand knowledge of some seriously nasty things happening in the public bathrooms. I have seen drug deals on several occasions, homeless people washing their feet in the toilets (yuck) and some other really nasty things up to and including the rest rooms becoming a working girl's workplace. Frankford has had 2 OD Deaths in the bathrooms IIRC.

It is a shame because so many real customers use the rooms, but it is a dirtbag magnet.

I agree, lefty.

By the way, since there have been Silverliners IIs with restrooms, where were they maintained? I guess it wouldn't be way too difficult for SEPTA to reactivate these facilities, right?

I'd assume they did bathroom maintenance the same place they did any other maintenance. However I'm pretty sure the Silverliner 2 toilets were the old fashioned kind that discharged to the tracks, so the only daily maintenance would have been to refill the water and restock the paper and soap.

Since discharging toilets to the tracks is out of favor nowadays they'd have to have someplace to hook up to a septic system. I doubt SEPTA yards or shops have anything like that. So they'd probably have to use trucks, the industry nickname is honey wagon.

The toilet facilities on the RDG and PRR MUs were dry hoppers, no moving parts, as I recall, except maybe the seat.

gardendance wrote:I'd assume they did bathroom maintenance the same place they did any other maintenance. However I'm pretty sure the Silverliner 2 toilets were the old fashioned kind that discharged to the tracks, so the only daily maintenance would have been to refill the water and restock the paper and soap.

Since discharging toilets to the tracks is out of favor nowadays they'd have to have someplace to hook up to a septic system. I doubt SEPTA yards or shops have anything like that. So they'd probably have to use trucks, the industry nickname is honey wagon.

I have to confess to some train ignorance here and admit that something I heard an Amtrak conductor say 30 years ago that I thought was a joke may not have been a joke after all. I haven't taken many Amtrak trips outside the Northeast Corridor, but I took the Coast Starlight between Los Angeles and San Francisco (actually Oakland, with a bus across the "other" Bay Bridge; "the Bay Bridge" to me is on a stretch of road that is still known as U.S. 50) on October 9, 1979. At one of the stops, the conductor said something about not using the toilet during the stop because he would be standing under it and would get hit with our output. He must have really meant it!

westernfalls wrote:The toilet facilities on the RDG and PRR MUs were dry hoppers, no moving parts, as I recall, except maybe the seat.

This may be totally unrelated, but I've noticed something that looks like a filler cap (or removal cap) to the left of the B-end doors on the S-IVs. I've often wondered whether that had something to do with bathrooms, but I was also under the impression that only S-II and IIIs had bathrooms.

Anyone know what that cap is?

What about installing those Boston style public restrooms that are self sanitizing in the stations? You put a quarter in, use the bathroom and then it cleans itself. If you stay inside, your subject to boiling hot water and chlorine bleach. I believe it also notifies a central location if someone attempts to remain inside during cleaning.

Onboard, a conductor should have control of his train to know if a homeless is in the bathroom. Local police or Septa can then remove him. Cities like Baltimore and DC, which have a huge homeless population, have bathrooms on MARC trains.

Though I doubt it would be as much of a problem in the Philadelphia area, Seattle had automatic bathrooms but had to sell them. The homeless druggies used them as their own little drug houses where they could shoot up. Seattle, though, has a different homeless population with different drug problems.

gprimr1 wrote:What about installing those Boston style public restrooms that are self sanitizing in the stations? You put a quarter in, use the bathroom and then it cleans itself. If you stay inside, your subject to boiling hot water and chlorine bleach. I believe it also notifies a central location if someone attempts to remain inside during cleaning.

Onboard, a conductor should have control of his train to know if a homeless is in the bathroom. Local police or Septa can then remove him. Cities like Baltimore and DC, which have a huge homeless population, have bathrooms on MARC trains.

They have one of those in Dilworth Plaza by City Hall, actually. I'm not sure where you would place it in the stations though, unless you are talking about bathroom facilities open after the station is closed.

The self-cleaning bathroom at City Hall (which was actually on the northeast corner, not in Dilworth Plaza) was a trial program. It was only on that corner for a few months.