Makeshift Facilities & coded terms for peeing

[Alfresco 11,631]

Has anyone ever set up a makeshift facility to use as a toilet - either on a short term or long term basis?

I work as a volunteer at an open air museum. One of the attractions that I regularly drive is a miniature steam railway and the station is quite remote from the main museum building. This poses a difficulty when a driver needs to pee because usually during the operating period, which is 5 hours long, there is always a queue of people and it is not possible to leave the train for 15 minutes to head up to the main building. Firstly the public would be dissapointed and secondly the miniature engines don't like being left for too long without attention to the fire or water level. If I were to go behind the engine shed or a tree, it would be very obvious what I was doing and not appropriate in front of the public. Therefore, I constructed a urinal in the back corner of the engine shed. I built a wooden "seat", which is a rectangular bench about 18" wide by 12" deep fixed to the interior wall, It has a hole cut in it with the edge nicely rounded off using a router and a funnel attached underneath that feeds into a pipe that goes outside and terminates under ground in a soakaway made from large stones. The "seat" is designed so males can use it as a standard urinal, but females can also use it. My wife and daughter are the only females that I know to have used it, but certainly the male drivers of the railway use it regularly. There is a corrugated steel panel next to the makeshift urinal, so you can't be seen from the station even if the shed doors are wide open. It just takes a couple of minutes to pop in the shed rather than traipsing up to the other end of the site.

If there are more than one of us at the station, we have code words/phrass which indicate our intention. "I just need to get an 18mm spanner" is the usual one. That is because an 18mm spanner is not something that we actually use on the railway but is something that a casual observer wouldn't question.

My wife and daughter tend to go up to the main building if they need to go, but they have used it sometimes. I certainly enjoy seeing my wife using it. All I need to do now is work out how I can get female visitors to use it for my viewing pleasure! It has never happened yet, but I guess if a woman was desperate for a pee and asked me if there were any facilities then I might explain the availability and say that they can only go in the engine shed if they are escorted :sneaky:. I did once catch a woman peeing behind the shed. She had sneaked over the fence and I guessed what she was doing so I circled round the shed and came on her from behind. I apologised for catching her and she apologised for being there but said she was really desperate and didn't want to lose her place in the queue. I said it was no problem to me and that us drivers often peed outside. It was a long enough conversation to allow me to get a good view of her pee flowing out from under her raised skirt (she hid all her body with the skirt, but the pee stream was in evidence). About 15 minutes later when she boarded the train, I said that I hoped she hadn't minded me catching her out earlier and she just laughed it off.

Anyone else done anything similar with makeshift facilities or have code words to let people know they are going to the toilet without others realising?

[PeeOutside 67]

When I was a kid, my friend and I had a urinal in our fort. It was just a little dugout trough next to the wall, with a small trench dug under the wall and out into a hole, covered by a piece of plywood. We would pee against the wood wall and the pee would run into the trough, under the wall and out into the hole. We peed in there many times, and occasionally the neighbor girl would watch when we were peeing, but she never went in it herself.

[Epic Jess 28]

You could say "I need to check on the engine" or something like that.

[Alfresco 11,631]

That wouldn't really work as the engine is in the station platform........

[pwpj 462]

A locomotive driver could conceivably be some way away from facilities on some of the more remote parts of the network. I seem to remember reading that B.R. fitted some diesel locomotives with urinals for this reason, although they just discharged onto the permanent way.

[bpb 788]

Over here in the US the diesel locomotives have a toilet in the front of the engine. The crew enters thru a door at the front of the locomotive and somehow climbs up into the cab. The toilet is in this area. It has been this way for many years.

[uniloo 98]

If the locomotive's toilet is in front of the engine, how does the driver keep a lookout of the track ahead (and other things involved with driving the train) while he, or she, leaves the cab to use the toilet? Or can the toilet only be used either when the train is stationary or there is more than one crew member in the cab?

[bpb 788]

The toilet is at a considerable lower level than the cab floor. It is under the hood of the locomotive and the engineer (train driver) looks out over the hood. The toilet is self contained and it has to be clean out at the end of the run. I think that I have seen words about the toilet not being in the best shape when the train crew takes over. It is my opinion that it can be used while in motion, as long as someone is tending the controls of the locomotive.

[Alfresco 11,631]

In my story above, it was a miniature loco, so no room for a toilet on board. I do also drive full size locos on a preserved railway and have done on several railways. There have been many situations where it has been difficult to get to a toilet whilst looking after the loco - either too far away from the toilet or can't leave the engine for long enough. On one railway in the North East of England, we used to have to run the engine round the train - i.e. when we got to one end of the line we had to uncouple the loco, run forward into the headshunt, then run back past the train on a parallel line, then come forward again onto the other end of the carriages. The running around involved one crew member driving the loco and the other operating the points from the platform. It was customary that if either crew member needed a pee then they would drive the loco and when it was at the furtherst point from the carriages they would stop whilst the points were changed and they would jump down to the track and pee behind the loco.

On the same railway, we had a lady fireman and she didn't like that idea as she felt too exposed. The way she dealt with it was that at one intermediary station there was a water tower, which was an enclosed stone built building with a large tank on the top for replenishing the steam engine. She would go into the building and squat and pee on the floor over the drain that was there as it was completely enclosed and the entrance was trackside next to the loco, so public couldn't get to it.

Also on the same railway, I'd once been left to bring a diesel train back from the end of the line after doing some track work. I was the only person on the train, so I set the controls, opened the cab door and peed out of the door whilst the train was doing about 15mph.

On the railway where I work now, I know that several people nip behind the loco shed for a pee rather than walking to the station to use the facilities. I have also had a guard come and tell me that he needed to inspect the track by the loco - meaning he needed to go down on the track behind the loco to relieve himself!

Going back to real railway - as in national network railways - I know several people who used to be drivers/firemen in the days of steam and they said it was common to either pee in the coal on the tender or in a bucket which then got emptied over the side. On the high profile long distance express trains they had a connecting corridor through the tender of the loco which allowed the crew to get back to the carriages and thus use the toilet in the carriages - but as it only emptied onto the track anyway, it didn't make that much difference except that privacy was afforded.

[Alfresco 11,631]

I thought that this was funny:

http://wind-sand-and-stars.blogspot.co.uk/2007/05/train-drivers-wee-perk.html

Drivers complained that they had to pee out of the window, so rather provide something to avoid the need to pee out of the window, the railway accepted the practice and modified the chair to make it easier to pee out of the window! Not sure what happens if you a lady driver through.

For USA locomotives - the following includes answers from USA locomotive crew confirming that they do have toilets in the locos, but also that they still prefer to pee out of the door:

https://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070618214315AAxBmiy

[uniloo 98]

I thought that this was funny:

http://wind-sand-and-stars.blogspot.co.uk/2007/05/train-drivers-wee-perk.html

Drivers complained that they had to pee out of the window, so rather provide something to avoid the need to pee out of the window, the railway accepted the practice and modified the chair to make it easier to pee out of the window! Not sure what happens if you a lady driver through.

Imagining standing beside a railway line and as a train passes, seeing a female derrière framed by the side window of the cab, with a jet of piss pouring from her lower lips.

[CrissyP 790]

A guy that I date works in management for a short-line railroad. He told me all of the locomotives they have are used and pretty beat up. None of them have working toilets. It's up to the crew to "do what they need to do". They have no female crew members. He told me that other small railroads do have female crew members, and they just stop the train and head for the bushes or carry a bucket in the cab. If they squat behind the control stand, there's a bit of privacy. There's a Federal law that they must have a working toilet, unless the locomotive is used for switching only. Sometimes the switching takes place in remote areas away from any facilities.