This from the Shadow Minister for Transport...
A bus pretending to be a train. & not one of @alextrentbarton's classy ones. But its warm ta @northernrailorg #pacer pic.twitter.com/r4Emt9FoIn
— Lilian Greenwood (@LilianGreenwood) November 15, 2013
This was just asking for trouble.
Earlier this week Transport Minister Baroness Kramer observed that dumping raw effluent on the tracks was "utterly disgusting".
Quite so.
So what are we to make of this from the BBC...
The Rail Delivery Group, which represents the train companies and
Network Rail, said the issue did not come up in a bi-annual national
passenger survey and it was not often raised as an issue by staff.
Hmmm...
This from the RMT:
RMT has also completely refuted suggestions from within the industry
that the issue has either never, or rarely, been raised as the union has
been campaigning on the scandal for at least decade and passengers have
now launched their own petition to get it stamped out.
Track
workers have repeatedly pointed out that some sections of the rail
infrastructure are like an open sewer and that the human waste doesn’t
simply hit the track bed, it sprays out when trains are travelling at
speed posing a serious and disgusting health risk to track-based staff.
Rail works have been delayed because staff have been confronted with
pools of raw sewage.
Either the RDG has a very short memory or none at all.
UPDATE: This from Captain Deltic...
And not just track workers are at risk.
Changing brake pads is a really sh*tt* job when the bogies have been covered by an aerosol of excrement.
And do passengers opening slam doors on Mk 3 stock realise that the external handles have received the same treatment.?
Didn't Angel propose a major IC125 upgrade which included retrofitting retention tank toilets almost a decade ago?
A shame DfT decided it wasn't worthwhile because the trains wouldn't be in service much longer.
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