Transit and bathroom facilities, historical and modern

It was my turn to play Daddy this week so I combined my railfanning with taking my ladyfreinds kid shopping...we drove over to Cleveland and hopped on the Shaker Rapid on the waterfront en route to Van Aken. I managed to get a shot of a NS work train near the stadium. We hopped the light rail Brenda Cars which twisted and turned more times over the bridge then Chubby Checkers the twist thru the flats. We go thru the subway under Cleveland and past the trolley repair shops( for a system that is only 15 miles long there is some huge shops) and I shot the Deisal Switcher doing some work.
So up and over like a roller coaster and then over a way overbuilt bridge from 1910 or so. So far preety uneventfull untill....
DADDY I GOT TO PEE!!!!!!
Uh honey can you wait?
NO!
Feeling a need myself after having a Miller Light with my Bacon and Eggs for breakfastI went to the driver and asked if she could do something. To my surprise she stopped at Shaker Square and gave us a courtesy reboard transfer so we could get back on again without repaying. I found Shaker Square to be quite the place anyway and we had lunch there and saw a movie as well. ( I still dont feel right taking my kid to the mens room unless I clear it out)
Which this reminds me of a topis I saw here quite a ways back. Interurban Vs Commuter Rail desinations. Most Commuter Rail trains have bathrooms on board while light and heavy rail do not. SEPTA R Trains if I recall do not have Bathrooms and I have had to sneek a pee off the platform at Reading Station risking possible arrest. I forgot if South Shore cars had onboard toilets but I suspect that older cars do not have them. Metro North has bathrooms in every 4th car and NJ transit its hit or miss. Baltimore LRT end to end is a long ride so I have had to take a break and find a tree somewhere. In the old days of long distance interurbans that went city to city how did they deal with Natures Call?? Somewhere there probaly is a old septia or black and white of a dozen passengers in turn of the century garb lined up next to a interurban watering the vines so to speak.

Moderator's Note: title edited from "Stop The Train Daddy I need to Pee!!!", 8/13/2011

Ummm.....yeah.

Many homes had holes out back in a wooden shack with a crescent moon carved into the door. Even as late as Amtrak's "heritage" equipment era, although porcelain bowls and thrones were used, it all went out the bottom of the train right onto the tracks.

Moderator's Note: Thread reopened by request. Let's stick to the topic of "what on-board facilities were offered by historical companies, and what facilities are offered now". I'll be watching carefully for off-topic posts.

SEPTA's rt 100 Norristown line, when opened in 1907 as the Philadelphia and Western, 69th St Upper Darby to Strafford, had lavatories on its cars. When the Buckingham Valley Trolley Association acquired original car 446, or 46, in the late 1970's it still had a stained glass windowpane where the toilet was.
As far as I know the subsequent Strafford and Bullet cars did not have restrooms.

Just came from Chataqua County NY Historical Soceity Meeting and looked over Jamestown and Westfield Interurban Swivel Car chair cars. No bathroom in First Class on these that I could see.
On a diffrent mode and time period I do remember using the Bathrooms at Coney Island Subway Station in NY. Bathrooms in Subways seem to be a rare thing.

Awaiting restoration in the Minnesota Streetcar Museum's collection is a Niles-built interurban, from Mesaba Railways in northern Minnesota. It has a restroom on board - obviously no holding tank though. I suspect that's why you don't see restrooms offered aboard subways either, since aside from the inconvenience and the short travel times between station restrooms, they're in tunnels that would be mighty ripe after using a non-retention toilet.

Not sure when commuter trains started to offer on-board facilities, or when some agencies (SEPTA for instance) removed bathrooms. Anyone care to comment?

As far as I know facilities were provided from the very beginning. I know that in the 1940's there were dry hoppers in commuter cars that were far from new even then. Once something more than a dry hopper was wanted there was more of a tendency to get rid of restrooms altogether. I know that sometime around the 1960's the restrooms on the PRR MP54's (the red cars) were lettered "equipment locker" and kept locked. As far as SEPTA is concerned, I don't know about the Reading side, but by 1983, when SEPTA took over the operation, restrooms on the Penn side were a distant memory, unless they somehow survived on the St. Louis Silverliners.

By Dry Hopper would that be a tin tank with no water or disenfentant "Blue" solution? When I hear that I think of the sh*t hitting the tin bottom and going thud and clunk and a hot stinking bathroom in a 110 degree heat and freezing your fanny to the seat like in "A Christmas Story" in the winter.

gearhead wrote:By Dry Hopper would that be a tin tank with no water or disenfentant "Blue" solution? When I hear that I think of the sh*t hitting the tin bottom and going thud and clunk and a hot stinking bathroom in a 110 degree heat and freezing your fanny to the seat like in "A Christmas Story" in the winter.

A dry hopper was a vertical cylinder open at both ends, with a porcelain throne on top and nature's realm at the bottom. The sh*t hit nothing until it reached the ballast, except that sometimes it hit the truck on the way down, making things very disagreeable for car inspectors later.

The thought of my family jewels and bare derrirer on a cold seat with the tracks going under me at 80 mph in sub zero weather make me appreaciate the worst Amtrak Restroom possible.

gearhead wrote:The thought of my family jewels and bare derrirer on a cold seat with the tracks going under me at 80 mph in sub zero weather make me appreaciate the worst Amtrak Restroom possible.

Remember, we're talking about commuter trains, which don't go 80 mph. Also, in those days the average commuting distance was much shorter than it is today, so most people had no trouble managing not to need to go on the train (I suspect that toilets on commuter trains were used mostly in emergencies -- maybe only in dire emergencies). Longer-distance trains had flush toilets from very early days.

hence the sign no flushing of toilets at stations....But people did that anyway so stations that had indoor platforms must have been a smelly mess as Rochester Union Station oral historys memorys often recall the smell of the station.