Regulator must clamp down on lack of toilet facilities
Her Majesty’s Railway Inspectorate, now under the guise of the Office of Rail and Road has achieved many things for the rail industry over its illustrious history.
But as times change, so the emphasis also needs to change, especially as different issues come to the fore. One of these immediately springs to mind: toilet provision.
This has been growing in significance ever since the requirement to provide disabled facilities became the norm.
As a result, toilet provision on new trains was either scrapped (Class 376) or significantly reduced (Class 220-222). More recently, the most significant developments have been the halving of toilet facilities on Mk 4 sets, no toilets on Classes 345/707/710, and now Class
745s which have just five toilets on a 12-coach train.
Consider that a four-car
Voyager has three toilets (this is often not enough to meet demand), and it can be seen that the provision on a Class 745 is inadequate for an inter-city train.
The lack of provision on a Class 345 is particularly worrying as there are some long journeys that people will be undertaking, with the most basic of human needs not being catered for.
If we look back at the Lewisham incident on March 2 2018, where ten trains became stranded by inclement weather, one of the main issues raised was the lack of toilets on some of the trains involved. As a result, people decided to self-evacuate.
Would this have happened had toilets been provided on the trains?
Here in the West Midlands the trains do have toilets, but they are often out of use due to faults or poor maintenance. Most of the stations in the area have no toilets or they are only available when there are staff on duty.
With many public toilets near to railway stations also closed, it becomes more important that we as an industry provide for our passengers. And one of these essentials is toilet provision.
If train operators won’t provide sufficiently, then it is up to the ORR to step in to ensure health and safety needs are met with at least a minimum provision.
There is both a monetary and capacity cost of providing toilets and they can lead to complaints if they are not maintained properly. Network Rail has provided an enlightened approach by scrapping charges for using toilets at stations. Train operators, on the other hand, seem to think that they are a problem and therefore scrap them!
In Victorian times the Railway Inspectorate of the day had to insist on carriage roofs to provide the most basic of facilities for passengers. Now, 150 years later, we need the ORR to insist on a minimum provision for toilet facilities.