On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 11:34 AM, Malini Aisola <malini.ais...@gmail.com>wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 1:45 AM, Suresh Ramasubramanian > <sur...@hserus.net>wrote: > > > > > I guess the guy doing it would just have to hope nobody was using the > train > > toilets at the time .. indian train toilets basically having a hole at > the > > bottom that drops it all onto the tracks. > > > > I wonder, with such an extensive train system and lengthy circuits what are > the chances of diving face-first into an old load of crap between the > tracks? > Ah, I *knew* this crap question was going to come up sooner rather than later, because a. this is the silk list, and b. because that was the first thing that occurred to me. I politely thought "Let me not talk about the crap question" and I also thought," Surely someone else will bring it up" (Er, sorry, wrong words to use!) The fantastic-design open toilets on Indian trains deposit the,er, liquid and solid waste, not *in between* the tracks, but on the sides. I too was under this misapprehension, until, recently, I happened to be standing near a (bad pun) stationary train, and saw where the waste was actually going. But...I don't know about the clearance between the ...er....bottom of the train and the tracks, and I certainly wouldn't like to take a chance....! Does anyone know who cleans the tracks? Do we have the equivalent of scavengers/nightsoil workers? We must have, otherwise tracks and stations would be stinking by now. When will we find enough money to design proper closed (septic) toilets on the Railways? Come to it, what is the system on aircraft? Not even the all-detail Arthur Hailey has talked about this.... Cheers, Deepa.
