septadude wrote:Let's not forget some (all?) Silverliner IIs had bathrooms and SEPTA removed them to become crew closets.
To be precise, all the Silverliner III's, and the 201-219 series of Silverliner II's at one time had bathrooms. All were inoperable by the time the commuter tunnel opened in 1984 and all were removed when most of those cars got overhauled (only some of the 200-series Silverliner II's did not get the general overhaul in 1988-1989). Those that still had restrooms had the equipment removed like the rest of the 201-219 group and are used to store destination signs and sometimes crew members will put their belongings there. In the case of 232-239, the bathroom enclosure was completely removed and extra luggage racks were added, signifying their former steady assignments to the Airport Line.
Going up and down the Northeast, Boston's MBTA is the only other agency where most of the fleet is NOT restroom-equipped. Currently, only their 900-series Kawasaki bilevels (20+ cars, IIRC) and their 1500 and 500-series MBB cars (67 cars including any now out of service) are restroom-equipped. And that is a very small percentage of the fleet, my friends. There are plenty of trains up there running without either an MBB or 900-series car in them, and the MBB's are close to retirement.
ex Budd man wrote:One of the reasons that all rail lines end at Suburban Station is to skirt the rule mandating toilet facilities on board Septa trains. If the run is continous toilets are required due to the overall length (e.g. Doylestown to Downingtown) of travel between end points. By terminating at Suburban, changing destination signs, and continuing on the rule is circumvented.
But the through trains do not terminate, nor change signs; they start with their final destination signs in place (except for the Airport Line trains, which signage is covered by division notice to put Center City signs in the holders, and then change them to their final destination before arriving in Center City. Each individual Regional Rail line is considered a separate line by SEPTA tariff number, with distance measured from Suburban Station. And even the longest continuous SEPTA run is much less than 100 miles, so the rule mandating toilet facilities doesn't even come into play.
It all comes down to maintenance and money. SEPTA has no facilities to service on-board restrooms, nor do they want to incur the cost of maintenance. Only three or four of the Bombardier cab cars have working restrooms (2402, 2404, 2406 being three of them IIRC) and they were only installed to accomodate riders of the annual "SEPTA Goes To Harrisburg To Beg For Money" charters back in the 90's. They are kept locked during regular revenue service. I would not be surprised if the bathrooms are still in place on Comet cab cars 2460 and 2461, but just locked.
I believe it would take some kind of legal action to force SEPTA to design restrooms onto one car of each Silverliner IV pair when that fleet goes out to design. But bear in mind that because of ADA regulations, it would likely eat up another 12 seats, and force SEPTA to go back to the dreaded 3-2 configuration to make up the difference in seating capacity.