relaxinghobby Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 The Grimmest toilet on a model railway. This tin shack in the corner of the yard, behind the storage road, represents the height of luxury for the inch high railwaymen. Does any one provide worst conveniences for their miniature staff? The dumb buffer wagon is the coal tender for the 0-4-0 shunter, I don't know why the crew have detached it and gone off leaving it there. Somehow that crate has fallen off of the wooden platform, they better remove it quickly as it is blocking the running line. ~~~~~~ Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Stubby47 Posted August 17, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted August 17, 2011 You provide a loo ?!? That's posh !! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leicester Thumper Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 on my layout, there was a nice open roofed set of gentlemens toilets with a chap in a green suit and matching bowler hat going about his buisiness.... apart from that, my facilities were nice and clean Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
10800 Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 So how are the, er, products removed from what is a portable structure then? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
relaxinghobby Posted August 17, 2011 Author Share Posted August 17, 2011 It's an earth closet, emptying it is a punishment job. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Stubby47 Posted August 17, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted August 17, 2011 So how are the, er, products removed from what is a portable structure then? A bucket ? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium PhilJ W Posted August 17, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted August 17, 2011 It's an earth closet, emptying it is a punishment job. Nice, on a hot summers day. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burkitt Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 Or, you pick up the tin shed, put it over a new hole somewhere else, and fill in the old one. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 It's huge! Multi - Man Squatter? Best, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horsetan Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 Wonder what the carbon footprint is. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenton Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 It's an earth closet, emptying it is a punishment job. Start with the guy who toppled that packing crate onto the line. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Oldddudders Posted August 17, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted August 17, 2011 On the railway that I knew, there would be a lock on that door. The key to that lock would be attached to something very large, like a very big nut (as in bolt) such that no way could you inadvertently take the bloomin' thing home! Said key would hang in the yard office. By this means did you make sure that your staff always had a loo that was in fit condition, because that shower of so-and-so's down at the other end, who were known to be of inferior breeding - if not born out of wedlock - couldn't use it & leave it in a mess! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southernman46 Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 On the railway that I knew, there would be a lock on that door. The key to that lock would be attached to something very large, like a very big nut (as in bolt) such that no way could you inadvertently take the bloomin' thing home! Said key would hang in the yard office. By this means did you make sure that your staff always had a loo that was in fit condition, because that shower of so-and-so's down at the other end, who were known to be of inferior breeding - if not born out of wedlock - couldn't use it & leave it in a mess! That'll have been Slade Green then !!! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Oldddudders Posted August 18, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted August 18, 2011 That'll have been Slade Green then !!! And Stew Lane! It was by no means a Southern speciality, either, as I can recall Gordon Pettit recounting similar arrangements in places he had worked before he came to SR. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
37114 Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 Does any one provide worst conveniences for their miniature staff? These are pretty horrible and form a scenic break on my layout, since finishing them they have gained a man going for a wee! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Natalie Graham Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 I never built one but I used to have drawings for a 'Canadian Pacific 2-hole privy'. I can imagine the real thing was pretty grim, sat lineside in the wilder parts of a Canadian winter. Maybe the 2-hole version was so the occupants could keep each other warm. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Welly Posted August 18, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted August 18, 2011 Not a model but the real thing that was provided at Swindon Works in the late 19th / early 20th century. It was described by Alfred Williams in his book "Life in a Railway Factory" page 39 ( ISBN 0-905-778-316 ) There is not the slightest approach to privacy of any kind, no consideration whatever for those who happen to be imbued with a sense of modesty or refinement of feeling. The convenience consists of a long double row of seats, situate back to back, partly divided by brick walls, the whole constructed above a large pit that contains a foot of water which is changed once or twice a day. The seats themselves are merely an iron rail built upon brickwork, and there is no protection. Several times, I have known men to overbalance and fall into the pit. Everything is bold, daring, and unnatural. On entering, the naked persons of the men sitting may plainly be seen, and the stench is overpowering. The whole concern is gross and objectionable, filthy, disgusting, and degrading. He went on to mention that people avoid using that place and As a result they contract irregularities and complaints of the stomach that remain with them all their lives, and that might easily prove fatal to them. Even a tin shack over a hole in the ground must be an improvement! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ozexpatriate Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 On the railway that I knew, there would be a lock on that door. The key to that lock would be attached to something very large, like a very big nut (as in bolt) such that no way could you inadvertently take the bloomin' thing home! Staff / token working! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SRman Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 My version of the Wills one: I tried to make it look really grotty! Mine is for the public rather than staff! That is a nice bit of modelling you've done, relaxinghobby. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Gwiwer Posted August 19, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted August 19, 2011 The tin shed and the Victorian urinal are both representative parts of our railway heritage. As a young lad it was explained to me why the Gents was always at the end of the station buildings while the Ladies were close to the centre and had their own Waiting Room as well. Apparently we smell. Nothing at all to do with the usually unconfined (though always at least slightly screened) nature of the Gents facilities! I can however cite at least one "railway" example far worse than the tin-shed potty-house. The Penlee Quarry railway which ran from the quarry of that name to the South Pier of Newlyn harbour in Cornwall provided what could be described as basic facilities for their drivers and anyone else such as loading staff on the pier. The enormously stout sea-facing pier wall contained a small recess without door, screen or decency of any kind. This contained a plinth of concrete with a long-drop pipe of about 4" diameter vertically down. At low tide your emissions fell straight onto the rocky foreshore below; at high tide the sea could be seen and heard sloshing at the bottom of this pipe. There was no flush and no plank upon which to rest while performing ones' essential tasks - you sat on cold hard concrete (which was never washed down within my knowledge) or squatted with your dacks around your knees and in view of anyone passing by since this was only a small recess in the pier wall! Stand-up service still had to be aimed down the hole which required leaning forward. And it was strictly bring-your-own paper. You used that as a real last resort and you delayed the train service while doing so as well. Some superb modelling displayed here of essential parts of the railway environment which are too often overlooked. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike morley Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 IIRC the Helston branch had an old loco firebox converted to a loo near the shed at the terminus. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
iL Dottore Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 ..and where, pray, is the 4mm loo roll? (don't laugh, it has been done - I once saw a exquisitely modelled Swiss Carriage Toilet in a Swiss Railwy Modelling mag, which was complete down to the black toilet seat and a roll of scale loo paper) F Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fat Controller Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 I remember being detailed by my father to put shovels of lime down the earth closet at one of his sites- no favourtism for the boss's son with him. The facilities for the grape-pickers were pretty rudimentary at my friends' farm until recently- the toilet was above the former drain from the byre, and had no u-bend. At the beginning of the harvest, you left the door open and whistled or sang to stop being disturbed- at the end, you used the fields instead. Don't bother with a toilet roll- expired Weekly Operating Notices do perfectly well. Why did you think they used to use such thin paper for them? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenton Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 </p>There is not the slightest approach to privacy of any kind, no consideration whatever for those who happen to be imbued with a sense of modesty or refinement of feeling. The convenience consists of a long double row of seats, situate back to back, partly divided by brick walls, the whole constructed above a large pit that contains a foot of water which is changed once or twice a day. The seats themselves are merely an iron rail built upon brickwork, and there is no protection. Several times, I have known men to overbalance and fall into the pit. Everything is bold, daring, and unnatural. On entering, the naked persons of the men sitting may plainly be seen, and the stench is overpowering. The whole concern is gross and objectionable, filthy, disgusting, and degrading.</p></p>Over the last 100years there has grown a real sensitivity about such matters that is almost inexplicable. To the point now that the tear off sheet has become cushioned and scented with the taint of commercialism. As a child an outside privy was a common feature of many houses and were about as private as your father could be bothered making them. I think folk back then were more hardened and considerably less concerned about such things. It is all too easy to compare with horror conditions of now with the way things were then, though at the time I don't recall it to be horrible. You simply got on with it. Don't get me wrong though its not a case of nostalgia. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
R A Watson Posted August 19, 2011 Share Posted August 19, 2011 IIRC the Helston branch had an old loco firebox converted to a loo near the shed at the terminus. I think you mean the Liskeard and Caradon shed "facility" at Moorswater (just off the inland end of the Looe branch), this now resides, I believe, at Bodmin General where it was moved to by the Great Western Society when they occupied Bodmin. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.