I'm interested in what the various heritage railroads are successfully using for on-train toilet facilities.

Locomotive toilets (stainless steel, lever-operated) with a built-in retention tank in base seem to be commonly used; Strasburg and others use them. Then there are the water-activated fixtures, and Microphor bio-toilets, usually used in high-end PV cars.

Ease of use by passengers who've probably never seen anything like that, ease of maintenance, overall robustness, ability to easily freeze-proof the things (it gets COLD here) and drain any water after operating day, all are important factors in our choice.

Not interested in: incinolets, portable plastic RV potties, for various reasons.

These will be going into existing small toilet rooms in coaches and in a baggage car (purpose-built new room).

60-80 minutes is our longest time away from our station or destination(s), so that huge retention tanks are not a necessity.

Thanks,

Howard P.

Railroad Museum of New England
Naugatuck Railroad
Thomaston, CT.

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When we were still running excursions, we were considering restroom upgrades using RV toilets and small retention tanks. There were quite a few options available then and I would imagine there are better solutions nowadays. Might be worth a look.

We are installing "Headhunter" brand flush toilets in our CNJ coaches. These are primarily sold for marine use. We needed to have water tanks and holding tanks fabricated as the CNJ cars had no running water system of any kind. The water tanks are pressurized off the trainline air pretty much the same as old style water raising systems.

Since we have running water, we added a small corner sink.

Once everything is trimmed out, the result is a nice clean and functional restroom facility that passengers seem to appreciate.

http://www.headhunterinc.com

- Alan Maples
Everett Railroad

We have an RV dumper in one coach, with a holding tank about the same size as the one posted above, fed from a large H2O tank next to it. It has a detachable hose in a pipe mounted underneath the car and you manually dump the tank.
I usually make a point of running on Saturdays, as we do the weekend dump into the underground holding tank at the 'barn' door at the end of the final Sunday run.

Over 5 years ago, Niles Canyon Railway switched to Niagara 0.8 GPF (gallons per flush) toilets (see website link below). We have two of the "Original single-flush" toilets onboard our generator/snackbar/restroom car (S.P. 6719, class 66-B-2, a 66' "economy" baggage car built 1962). The toilets are supplied by a 250 gallon water tank with a small low-pressure pump. The toilets drain into a 250 gallon holding tank. This is more than enough warer and holding tank capacity for a holiday-season "Train of Lights": ~450 passengers onboard for ~2 hours.

These toilets have seen a LOT of use. They have been trouble-free. They save a lot of water and disposal fees.

Niagara now has dual-flush versions, where the user can choose 0.5 GPF or 0.8 GPF. Niagara toilets are sold by Ace Hardware, Home Depot, Loew's, etc. Prices of various versions are roughly $164 to $257.

- Doug Debs

https://niagaracorp.com/our-products/toilets/?utm_term=toilet%20niagara&utm_campaign=Niagara_US_GGL_Brand_Exact_Search&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_acc=8145841048&hsa_cam=1675420682&hsa_grp=97062809988&hsa_ad=492500980014&hsa_src=g&hsa_tgt=kwd-335076380302&hsa_kw=toilet%20niagara&hsa_mt=b&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gclid=CjwKCAjw3riIBhAwEiwAzD3TicbXQoyzQQhevucI2VyzWUOkNOzlSe0z0R0xxSTlC6Xq8PskaiH8kBoCAXYQAvD_BwE

Alan,

Did these cars have a bathroom or did you add them? If it did have a bathroom did it originally have a sink that was missing or did you "upgrade" a bathroom that was essentially a hole in the floor and nothing else?

The CNJ coaches had the basic "dry hopper" arrangement without a sink. We essentially started over and salvaged only the restroom door and door frame.

- Alan Maples
Everett Railroad

Some of CNJ's de luxe cars (used on the Scranton, Allentown, Harrisburg, Phila. and Atlantic City trains) had running water, washstands and flush toilets. They dumped onto the right of way, much to the dismay of the Track Dept.

Most CNJ and RDG cars (and all RDG old MU's) had dry hoppers. This was a commode with a seat and a wide chute that was supposed to dump direct onto the right of way with no water and no flush. This was even more to the dismay of the Track Dept.

RDG later painted "Electric Locker" on the doors of its dry hoppers.

Phil Mulligan

Microphor sequencing valve - tooling up to build replacements and likely I will offer individual items like caps/bodies if entire unit not required. Will not be fragile/delicate like originals. Please email your interest/needs and/or comments thanks john@dalt.us

Doug Debs: I've been in your SP 6719 and saw the arrangement. My question is-- how do you protect the water tanks and piping from freezing?

Alan Maples: Your CNJ coach application looks to be the usual high quality of Everett Railroad work. The corner sink is a particularly nice touch. What is your arrangement for protection of all this against freeze damage?

Users of locomotive style toilets: what have been the problems in their use? Do they break in use? Does the civilian population not know how to use them properly? Did you eventually replace them with something else, and if so, why?

Howard P.

If I may answer,
Interesting question because the location of the Niles Canyon Ry is in California's coastal region and near to San Francisco Bay. The temperature seldom drops to freezing. I looked up temperatures for the two ends of the railway: average minimum temp in January and February is in the low 40s and rarely gets below 35 degrees

No need to worry about freezing in this region of California.

We were looking at electric heat tracing and insulated pipe wrap over top. We only had Santa trains a few weekends in the cold months so when not operating, the system would have been drained. Operating all the time, you could set up for shore power over night. Just a thought - needs to be fleshed out a bit.

It takes a lot of power but incendiary toilets leave little to no mess and there is nothing to freeze.

In the late seventies/ early eighties I often received copies of the UTU and BLE union newspapers (around 6 pages or so) from Santa Fe employees and I recall one or the other with a story about how degrading it was of N&W (who didn't want to pay for retention toilets or to empty them) to install that burner thing in locomotive cabs, due to the horrible stench. N&W/NS's next cheapo move was to supply a sort of frame with a toilet seat and removable baggies the crew was supposed to seal and put in the trash (sort of like the film Borat). When the crews retaliated by tossing the full baggies in people's yards NS required them to check out numbered baggies each trip and return them later, empty or full. I'm not sure how much more degrading NS could have gone, but after the Conrail split when they had much more track in Pennsylvania, a state with a retention toilet law, they finally relented and converted all of their locomotives to retention toilets.