£10M TO FIT TOILET TANKS? NR SEEKS THE CASH…

Toilet tanks. The time is now looming when charters will be the last trains to drop waste onto the track; other than in our little world, from the end of 2019 people will be able to forget why you don’t flush while a train is in a station. Yet with special trains using Mk 1 and Mk 2 stock, and often not calling at depots but remote sidings during layovers, it’s not so easy. There’s the installation of the tanks – or more properly ‘Controlled Emissions Toilets’ – then there’s the ongoing logistics of emptying them.

Perhaps above all though, there’s the cost of all this – Network Rail says it’s estimated that fitting CETs “to the charter vehicle fleet currently in use” will cost “approximately £10m.”

In railway terms that’s actually not so much cash – but in our bit it certainly is. After all, you could have a couple of new Gresley ‘Mikados’ for that. Network Rail acknowledges this – and so in August it was itself “investigating the funding options available”.

That’s because, as Head of Freight Policy and Customer Relationship Management Rachel Gilliland told me in July, the stated aim of ideally eradicating the discharge of effluent onto the network from the end of next year is “quite a bold statement and logistically it would be extremely challenging to achieve that.” As Rachel continued, the “difficulty is the logistics of actually completing the fitment, and obviously the question of ‘who’s funding it?’ So we’re having those kind of senior level discussions at the moment…”

l STOP PRESS: On August 8, Network Rail confirmed that it was looking at CET regulations being enforced under Network Change, which may include remuneration for operators.