Coaches tend to have the most basic chemical toilets on board. They are improving - those offered in National Express' Levante-bodied coaches are a vast improvement on anything offered before. I spoke with NX's Engineering Director last year and he told me how he'd personally been involved with the design of the washroom area on these vehicles.
Trains fair a little better, as do planes. I'm always impressed with the mini judder just after the flush handle/button has been pushed/pressed, which is then followed by an almighty sucking action as, well you can imagine, cleanliness prevails.
Which is why I laughed at a piece in today's Daily Mail, which reported how a chap in France managed to get his arm trapped between the waste flap and bowl of the toilet on the TGV train in which he was travelling:
A passenger on a French train had to be rescued by firemen after having his arm sucked down the on-board toilet. The 26-year-old victim was trapped when he tried to fish out his mobile phone, which had fallen into the toilet bowl, and fell foul of the suction system.The high-speed TGV train had to stop for two hours while firemen cut through the train's pipework. Firemen had to cut through pipework on a TGV train after a man had his arm sucked down the on-board toilet.
The man was carried away by emergency services, with the toilet still attached to his arm. 'He came out on a stretcher, with his hand still jammed in the toilet bowl, which they had to saw clean off,' said Benoit Gigou, a witness to the man's plight.
The shame of it all - especially to be walked to the awaiting ambulance with the bowl still attached! I cannot believe that anyone would even attempt to thrust their arm merrily down the waste pipe, especially after the almighty sucking sound generated immediately before the bowl is emptied!
