Metropark 'stink' on 4/10/04

While doin' some train watchin' here on Saturday afternoon, observed two 10-car MU sets arrive - one westbound and one eastbound - and BOTH departed the station leaving an unmistakeable odor and and a trail of 'residue' on the tracks behind them !!! Some patrons were obviously in distress as they left the platforms to head down to street level.

I kinda thought/assumed the toilets on all NJT Arrows ( and Comets for that matter ) were equiped with holding tanks in this day and age and waste could not be flushed to the tracks....am I wrong? Or is posible that these two separate trains had malfunctioning holding tanks?

I thought the days of posted 'please do not flush within station areas' signs on trains had long ago gone the way of the Lackawanna Edison MUs!

Am afraid to ask how regular an occurance this is on NJT....

The toilet systems get quite full and overflow quickly when the same consists trains run non stop on the weekends, doing a round trip every three hours, with 1000's of people on the trains.

And if your lucky enough to find a toilet on the train that is not at the brink, bring your own TP, becuase that ran out long ago, or else some clown thought it would be fun to soak half the roll in the sink, thereby rendering it useless...............

Yikes. JT, when do the sets get cleaned and holding tanks emptied? Is this something that is done once a week, month, year, decade?

Jt -

So I gather this is a frequent occurance on weekend NEC trains ?

Brother, this was pretty bad on Saturday there at Metropark. The Amtrak trains arrived/departed with no such 'symptoms' of potential problems.

Complementary clothes pins or tissues soaked in Aqua Velva may be an idea for NJT to pass out to riders on the weekends over the NEC !

The only odors i recall from the Arrow IIIs were cooking breakshoes.
Maybe the odor could have been from those rooftop toasters (dissipation bank for the dynamic/electro breaking). If this was indeed a sanitary issue then shame on NJT. That would be awfully foul !

Block-

Don't you mean electrIC BRAKing?

I seem to recall the A2s having a nice braking smell.

And btw, Metropark stinks period. Some part of that station stinks already without any help from trains with sewage problems.

In my prior post I was referring to electo-breaking.

A few riders and conductors should chip in and get a few jugs of Clorox bleach (5% NaOCl) to remedy these sanitary issues. The industrial grade
@ 12.5-15% conc. would offer a big knockout punch, LOL !!!!

I guess I just have to accept the fact that young'uns like to re-invent the language just to tick off their elders-

However, it is BRAKing, as in BRAKE; I'm sure you will find it spelled that way in any dictionary.

I don't really know much about the toilet systems, but I always thought that that the tanks aren't so much drained of the "waste" but rather they use microorganisims to eat adn breakdown the waste.

When the toilets are heavily used, the microorganisims can't eat everything in time and fast enough, and they start to get clogged and full. Again, from how I understand it, more microorganisims should be added at this point, but sometimes, they do add very strong bleach instead, which someone told me does the absoulte worst thing in that it kills the microorganisms, so then nothing works, and burns the hell out of everyone in that car's nose..

Thumbs Up for them micro-organism critters....a tough job but somebody has to do it !

Pardon the pun but they were definately in over their heads last Saturday there at Metropark !

Tri-State Tom wrote:Thumbs Up for them micro-organism critters....a tough job but somebody has to do it !

Pardon the pun but they were definately in over their heads last Saturday there at Metropark !

Micro-organisms- the true backbone of NJT's sanitation department. Probably the hardest working living beings on NJT. They work 24/7!

I wonder if they have a union ?

A course for them this is like tackling only the best cuisine day after day after day....

Hey, do they ever get time off ? Like are there temp micro-organisms in case a crew calls in sick or somethin' ?

Geezes, did maybe a micro crew get fired on account of last Saturday ?

Tri-State Tom wrote:I wonder if they have a union ?

A course for them this is like tackling only the best cuisine day after day after day....

Hey, do they ever get time off ? Like are there temp micro-organisms in case a crew calls in sick or somethin' ?

Geezes, did maybe a micro crew get fired on account of last Saturday ?

I hope they get benefits!

Methinks we should quit while we're behind. :D

we're behind

You just HAD TO...didn't you???

Couldn't resist the word choice huh??? hahahahahhahhahaha :D