How do they do it?

Here is something I'll bet no one on any forum, club, or website has ever discussed and I am extremely curious about this subject if for nothing more then to know, "How Do They Do It?"
The other day I was watching a train as it crossed a road I was traveling and as the engine and engineer passed by, it suddenly crossed my mind that engineers and anyone else riding in the engine cabs have to go to the washroom from time to time to relieve themselves right? Well how is this feat accomplished? Do modern day engines come equiped with heads, or lavatories or whatever you call them? If so, how would an engineer use them while the train is in motion? He can't just get up and go since there is a device called the deadman's switch that stops the train when the engineer leaves his seat. And he can't just stop the train in the middle of nowhere just to take a short hop into the trackside bushes. This is not only impractical but dangerous. And he certainly can't wait to get to the yard or town on the route to use the facilities there. And going out the window is impossible. So how does the engineer relieve himself? How Do They Do It?

Yes they do have toilets in modern locos. As a metter of fact, they have been around for quite a long time. Many modern locos have them under the front hood, infront of the opperators area. The toilets are like a RV style with a holding tank for water and waste. When the locos are fueled and serviced, the tanks are dumped, agian similar to an RV.

As for how's the enginer go when the train is under way..... Most class one and smaller roads use at least a two man crew. Even on short locals, its common practice to have an enginer to run the locos, and a conductor in charge of the drop off and pickup of the train cars.

Tony B...
Wasatch Z ClubB)

Hi Matt, Yes, modern diesels all have small toilets. Sort of like airliners. Of course back in the steam era it was relieving one's self down between the engine and tender. Usually for No. 2 they would use a bucket an toss it 'overboard' in a remote stretch. Of course this habit was another reason the yard crew wore gloves at all times! Cheers, Jim CCRR:woohoo:

Modern locos do have Johns. To get my foot in the door at the RR I acceped a job as a laborer. Part of my job was to empty the Loo's. It was definaty THE dirtiest job. Glad I don't have to do that anymore. To answer how do they do that; It's top secret. I could tell ya but I'd have to .....

You know, after reading this topic I'm sorta glad that Z scale is too small to model ALL the details

Well.on German passenger trains.. when you flushed the toilets, a little trap door on the end of a pipe that hung down below the wagon would open up.. when you held your foot on to the flush pedal you could see the ties flying by. It was verboten to use the bathroom in a train station at the time, and one could get fined. And yes it would get COLD on the seat in the winter.
It was kind of a game when you were going fast though a train station without stopping, and you kind of looked over the frosted window where the top kind of cracks open, and timed the flush just right, like you were a bombardier on a B-17 or something. Direct hit on Butzbach!
...Not that I ever did it..I just heard stories..
Most new wagons have airliner type toilets..Still I stand back when I am on the Bahnsteig.

Kelley wrote:

Direct hit on Butzbach!
...Not that I ever did it..I just heard stories..

why do I have a feeling that you're not completly honest here...

...might be that I wasn't any better back then...

Today they have a waste water tank for storage until dumping. Back when the trains weren't that fast, it was doable, but with todays high speed ICE trains...
...better not to imagine where the stuff might end up...

Sung to the tune of Schumann's "Humoresque":

Passengers will please refrain
from flushing toilets when the train
is in the station (I love you)

(The only reason for the "(I love you)" is to complete the musical phrase; there are more lyrics available, but they're not train-related. )

I was on an AMTRAK train several years ago going from California to Chicago. They have those airline toilets also, but there is also a seat that need to be used if one is going to be in the seated position. Well, there was a not so demure woman t hat used the facilities and didn't use the seat and when she flushed, it caused a vacum that she could not get off the unit. All the passengers could hear her calling for help through out the car. The car attendant needed to pry her off and she had a very RED face as she walked down the aisle.

Poor woman.

Robert

Robert:
That is absolutely halarious. I can almost see that in my minds eye. I can also see the news tag line. "Woman Sucked Off By Toilet. Film at eleven." Pardon the pun but it is terrbily funny.

As for the other answers, I can't remember in recent history in watching an engine go by ever seeing more then one person in the cab at any given time. Now that doesn't mean to say the conductor wasn't there. He probably was. Perhaps on the can.

As for flushing passenger car tolilets and watching the ties fly by, I remember that quite well. I remember on a trip to Halifax, using the can and stepping on the pedal that flushed the toilet, and seeing the trap door open and the ties flying by. I also remember seeing a sign that read, "Do not flush toilet while in station."

I often wonder if there were toilets on board engines. Now I know.
Thanks all for this information. At least the answers haven't been poopy!

One of my friends who's an engineer says the conducter is usually sleeping in the back until they get to their destination.

Zac

I hope this picture posts. It is a bathroom in a heavyweight business car.