Despite what the sign said the public flushed toilets on passenger cars in stations that were enclosed and underground which took away the romance of the old palaces that were train stations in the US and Britain as dirty smelly places in their last days. That because of this some of the public we're glad to see them demolished.
A few pics of a Pullman toilet:
https://link.shutterfly.com/pANNSNLnJqb
Same me, different spelling!
roundstick3@gmail.comDespite what the sign said the public flushed toilets on passenger cars in stations
Well, you're right, they weren't supposed to do that. Just how often it happened is open to speculation.
I WAS on a Norfolk-Southern steam excursion where a passenger did just that! We'd stopped in Appomattox VA and as the passengers were exiting the car there was a WOOOSH! and a SPLAT! as the "stuff" hit the ballast. The car host turned red with embarassment (Poor woman!) and ran back into the car and then we could hear a woman wailing:
"But Mother couldn't wait!"
What are you gonna do?
Remember the man who was riding the Milwaukee mixed in Wisconsin at age ten? He was sticking his head out the window to enjoy the breeze. Suddenly he felt something wet, though there wasn't a cloud in sight. Turns out the brakeman was relieving himself from the open door of the baggage section!
When I was riding Frisco trains as a boy in the '30s and '40s (my Dad was an employee) the conductor would lock the restrooms if we were going to be sitting in a station for any length of time, then unlock them when the train started up. Dad said you had to watch where you stepped if you were out in the country on the line somewhere.
Just imagine riding non-air conditioned coach with the windows open when the carrier picks up water in the tender on the fly.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Opening the windows could be difficult to impossible. I can remember seeing a carman at Randolph Street using a crowbar as a lever to open the windows on South Shore's non-air conditioned coaches on hot summer days.
Balt-ACD: Water-on-the-fly - open window coach:
Usually not a problem with only one baggage, baggage-and-masil. or mail car behinf the tender.
Fr.AlTurns out the brakeman was relieving himself from the open door of the baggage section!
At least the head-end crew had the coal pile in the tender!
WILLIAM O CRAIG When I was riding Frisco trains as a boy in the '30s and '40s (my Dad was an employee) the conductor would lock the restrooms if we were going to be sitting in a station for any length of time, then unlock them when the train started up. Dad said you had to watch where you stepped if you were out in the country on the line somewhere.
Things look different on different platforms. When I'm using my android phone I often have to turn it sideways to read an entire post.
Why?
WILLIAM O CRAIG Why?
I heard a story of a Soo Line Carman getting flushed on while the train was in St. Paul.
Ed Burns
CSSHEGEWISCHSome of us are old and small print is difficult to read.
Some of us aren't THAT old and small print's difficult to read.
Doing the Ben Franklin thing and sliding the glasses to the end of my nose only works to a point!
When riding at open dutch doors I learned to duck back inside when I saw a mist arise from the track under a car ahead.
Well this thread's officially in the toilet...
I don't know, the moderators haven't flushed it yet.
Maybe they don't pay attention to what goes on over here?
I would assume that any renovations of old passengers cars for excursion railroads would have to include a holding tank for waste.
I have not complained earlier. Am at age 90. You weill do me a favor by not requiring me to use both my reading glasses and a nagnefying glass.
Thanks in advance,
BTW, I wonder now how many people hearing that line in the "City of New Orleans" song ("passengers will please refrain...") understand what it means.
One thing I do miss is the pleasant light percussion sound from the trap cover in the toilets of a roomette in a "heritage" sleeper. Very soothing at night.
wjstix BTW, I wonder now how many people hearing that line in the "City of New Orleans" song ("passengers will please refrain...") understand what it means.
Speaking of songs, I just remembered this one!
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/oscar-brand-humoresque-passengers-will-please-refrain-lyrics.html
I'm 90 myself, but fortunately don't have to wear glasses. This discussion has given me a whole new appreciation for railroad track workers. But I rode trains, mostly Frisco, from the 1930s to the '50s and never smelled or saw anything that looked like sewage in any of the stations I was in, including St.Louis, Kansas City, Chicago, the big cities of the East, and my hometown of Springfield, Mo. I think other railroads did what the Frisco did in that time, lock the toilet doors before going into a major stop. My father was a Frisco employee from 1909 to 1958 in the offices at Springfield, but once was sent out on the lines to find errant freight cars, I think in reponse to the car census ordered by the federal government when it took over the carriers during World War I. That was when he learned to step carefully on the tracks out in the countryside and also when he got tired of small town boarding houses with bugs and bad food. He was drafted another time in the 1920s to help clean out boilers in Oklahoma when shop workers were on strike. He said it was tough, dirty work for office workers, and they did not dare go into town where the strikers were hanging out.
Crossing picket lines (scab) may be hazardous to your health.
I got that beat. My dad was a tax attorney for internal revenue during the great depression! I wish I could have talked to him about what it was like. Can you imagine being the "revenuer" that had to foreclose on some unfortunate family's farm? Crossing a picket line sounds tame to me compared to throwing somebody off their land. Don't get me wrong, my dad was no Simon Legree. He would have helped every way he could and I'm sure in ways he wasn't supposed to. But man! Those first tense moments making contact with the new "case number" must have taken guts!
It's easy to understand how the Great Depression thoroughly spooked the generation that lived through it and to a lesser extent the generation that came after. Cataclysm is the best description I can give for it.
CSSHEGEWISCHOpening the windows could be difficult to impossible.
I recall some of the Pullman heavyweight cars I've been in and there was usually a window lifter as standard equipment located in the linen locker. It was a wood lever with a hinged, leather-covered pendulum like affair that rested on the window sill. I believe there was a brass plate with ridges on the "business end" that engaged the finger lift of the sash. I'll see if I can dig up a photo.
I do recall some trainmen locking the annex doors just before arriving in a station. If the layover was going to be a while I recall some cars would get "honey buckets" placed under the waste chutes. I don't know what craft was in charge of the honey buckets, perhaps the least-senior car inspector?
Here are the paragraphs mentioning the windows and the "window Jack":
Pullman by Edmund, on Flickr
In addition to stations, the annex toilets were locked while passing municipal water supply sheds and military bases (?) apparently GIs were sometimes marching along the rights-of-way, perhaps.
Pullman_Toilet by Edmund, on Flickr
The Pullman "Deodorizer Jug" was also a fixture in each car. I just wonder what the recipe was for the deodorizer "juice"?
Regards, Ed
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