Oh dear, flushing a lavatory in an older train problem!

There are quite a few versions, here's a short UK one. ;)

While the train is in the Station,
Please refrain from urination,
Have respect for railway property,
A railway worker underneath,
Might get the lot right in his teeth,
He wouldn't like it,
How the hell would you.
 
Hi everybody
I did not realise we had such great musical composers on this forum there lyrics also reminds me of the old saying " he's a poet and don't know it". Anyway to go back to the wonderful smells passengers encountered on the early HSTs especially first 125 version, the smell of discharge from the toilet onto the underside of the carriages was not the only smell that was encountered on those journeys. To recall a earlier posting by Mason Taylor:-

masontaylor said:
On the subject of 'stinking' HSTs, another early olefactory issue was the smell of the brakes, the
pungent-acrid reek of whose resin was very efficiently distributed throughout the interior thanks to the air-conditioning. Worst when applied quickly at high speed - a not uncommon occurrence in the early days when very high speeds were commonplace. (I travelled between Reading and London daily for much of the late seventies and early eighties, usually returning on the 23.00 ex-Paddington, a particularly fast run where the hasty application of the brakes was far from rare: I can still recall the resultant reek.) **
Click to expand...

Well, although very much reduced you can on one stage of the journey between London Paddington and Bristol still get the smell of the brakes in the carriages when they are applied hard. On passing through chippinham in Wiltshire it isn't long before the HSTs enter the box Tunnel which is I think is about 3 miles long and has a fairly steep gradient running down towards the Bradford-on-Avon junction.

The HSTs always seem to pick up quite a bit of extra speed while passing through the tunnel and seem to exit at what must be close to their 120 mph limit (I am not sure if that is the maximum speed on that section of the track but it certainly feels that way). They then always brake hard on approach to the Bradford junction and the run into the city of Bath. It is then that you still get the smell of the very hot resin brake shoes coming up into the carriages. I personally do not find it too unpleasant but I have always been well aware that other passengers do.

What I find is more unpleasant is as mentioned in an earlier posting on this thread the HSTs still have slam door carriages which these days you have to open the windows on from the inside to get to an outside handle to open the door (inside handles having been removed because of accidents). The windows are left open very often by passengers leaving the train and therefore while passing through the box Tunnel you get the smell of all the wet and damp in the tunnel entering the passenger carriages. That along with the smell of the brakes on exit from the tunnel can make the air in the carriages even these days pretty pungent. It's probably the reason why so many passengers always seem to leave the train at Bath ,haha

Better still can you imagine when the HST sets were first introduced and the toilets flushed onto the line you would have got the smell of all that sewage in the tunnel along with the smell of the damp and then the smell of the brakes all added together just to make the eating of your ham sandwich which you had just purchased in the buffet car as pleasant as possible (lol).

However, it is what makes travelling on the HSTs so different to any other travel and why so many have such affection for them and the memories they have.

Bill
 
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Hehe good one, Ed.

I agree with MT. Poor Antonin must be rolling around now. Or maybe he's rolling around laughing because he used to travel cross country by train in his day.

John
 
wholbr said:
Hi everybody
I did not realise we had such great musical composers on this forum there lyrics also reminds me of the old saying " he's a poet and don't know it". Anyway to go back to the wonderful smells passengers encountered on the early HSTs especially first 125 version, the smell of discharge from the toilet onto the underside of the carriages was not the only smell that was encountered on those journeys. To recall a earlier posting by Mason Taylor:-



Well, although very much reduced you can on one stage of the journey between London Paddington and Bristol still get the smell of the brakes in the carriages when they are applied hard. On passing through chippinham in Wiltshire it isn't long before the HSTs enter the box Tunnel which is I think is about 3 miles long and has a fairly steep gradient running down towards the Bradford-on-Avon junction.

The HSTs always seem to pick up quite a bit of extra speed while passing through the tunnel and seem to exit at what must be close to their 120 mph limit (I am not sure if that is the maximum speed on that section of the track but it certainly feels that way). They then always brake hard on approach to the Bradford junction and the run into the city of Bath. It is then that you still get the smell of the very hot resin brake shoes coming up into the carriages. I personally do not find it too unpleasant but I have always been well aware that other passengers do.

What I find is more unpleasant is as mentioned in an earlier posting on this thread the HSTs still have slam door carriages which these days you have to open the windows on from the inside to get to an outside handle to open the door (inside handles having been removed because of accidents). The windows are left open very often by passengers leaving the train and therefore while passing through the box Tunnel you get the smell of all the wet and damp in the tunnel entering the passenger carriages. That along with the smell of the brakes on exit from the tunnel can make the air in the carriages even these days pretty pungent. It's probably the reason why so many passengers always seem to leave the train at Bath ,haha

Better still can you imagine when the HST sets were first introduced and the toilets flushed onto the line you would have got the smell of all that sewage in the tunnel along with the smell of the damp and then the smell of the brakes all added together just to make the eating of your ham sandwich which you had just purchased in the buffet car as pleasant as possible (lol).

However, it is what makes travelling on the HSTs so different to any other travel and why so many have such affection for them and the memories they have.

Bill
Click to expand...

Very interesting and something I would never have thought of since I mostly traveled on local trains with our trips being only an hour or less between my house and Boston. On some trains there were toilets, but I was told never to use them. I did much later on a trip to Florida and remember the sign regarding not flushing while in the stations.

I agree the brakepad smell is not that bad, but the additional acrid aroma probably made people's eyes run. I suppose this is no worse than Boston's subway system where the vagrants and drunks like to... Well you know... make the stations and tunnels smell so bad your eyes will run if you wait too long for the trolley at Park Street.

John
 
Actually Ed, the version I remember went like this:

"Passengers will please refrain from flushing in the station main, oh my darling how I love you so."

I know it sounds a bit incongruous, but hey, that's why peeps remember it. :)

Cheers

AJ
 
AJ_Fox said:
Actually Ed, the version I remember went like this:

"Passengers will please refrain from flushing in the station main, oh my darling how I love you so."

I know it sounds a bit incongruous, but hey, that's why peeps remember it. :)

Cheers

AJ
Click to expand...

Google respectfully disagreed with you. I'm sure, as been has pointed out already that there are more than a couple versions floating around!
 
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