Stainless Steel Toilets

During the 1970's the U.S. federal government nationalized most all passenger rail service in the United States, forming Amtrak. The resulting trains are nice inside, and along the East Coast they keep to useful schedules. These, however, are from The Cardinal, which links Chicago and Washington loosely approximating a three-times-weekly schedule. At least the stainless toilets are fairly nice!

This stainless steel toilet is part of a largely stainless bathroom suite on board a MARC (Maryland Rail Commuter Service) train between Washington and Baltimore on the east coast of the US.

Yes, Greyhound buses in the U.S. have on-board toilets. They have a holding tank with the traditional blue juice. I was surprised to see that the design is just a straight drop down a wide shaft into the tank. I would think that the toilet could get awfully smelly on a long hot trip. There is a small air vent directly to the exterior just to the right of your head if you were sitting on the seat.

The toilet compartment occupies the right half of what would be a full-width rear bench seat and what would be the pair of seats just in front of that on the right side of the aisle.

Note to self — do not sit in the back two rows of a Greyhound bus, where the door to the toilet is directly across the aisle.

Megabus, one of Greyhound's competitors, connects major cities with luxury buses that you can board without venturing into the always dicey Greyhound terminal.

Really, Greyhound's market seems partially based on brand loyalty based on fond memories of rides home from prison.

Anyway, the buses are quite nice, and they include an on-board lavatory. But as you see here, they're very similar to the Greyhound ones.

There are only so many things you can do with the design of a long-haul bus toilet.

The Staten Island Ferry provides free rides from the lower tip of Manhattan (New York, USA), past the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, to Staten Island, and back.

If you need to go before you board, at left is an all-stainless-steel model in the Manhattan terminal.

At right is one of the heads on board the ferry itself.

Also see the Toilets at Sea page if you are interested in that category.

At Venice Beach in Los Angeles, California, and in need of a public toilet? This is what you'll find.

Walking along the Avon River path between Bristol and Bath in the UK, and interested in a public toilet rather than secluded bushes? At right, this is what you'll find.

See the British Toilet page for more from the U.K.

A sturdy all-steel toilet at The Tron pub, in Edinburgh, Scotland.

See the British Toilet page for more from the U.K.

British pub toilets tend toward the large, steel, and utilitarian, like this example from the Prince of Teck pub in Earl's Court, London.

See the British Toilet page for more from the U.K.

As I was saying, large, steel, and utilitarian. This is from another Earl's Court pub.

See the British Toilet page for more from the U.K.

The ice-cooled stainless steel urinals downstairs and the stainless steel men's room upstairs in Harry's Chocolate Shop (actually a bar) in West Lafayette, Indiana.

Also see the Ice-Cooled Urinals page.

Nothing says class like large sheets of stainless steel.

The picture that is sadly missing from here is the all-metal toilet I encountered in the Syrian Arab Airlines Tupolev Tu-154m I took from Damascus via Aleppo to İstanbul. It must have been aluminum, but it looked like stainless steel.

Rose George's The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters is a fascinating description of sanitation conditions around the world. "2.6 billion people don't have sanitation. [....] Four in ten people have no access to any latrine, toilet, bucket, or box. [....] Poor sanitation, bad hygiene, and unsafe water — usually unsafe because it has fecal particles in it — cause one in ten of the world's illnesses. [....] Diarrhea — nearly 90 percent of which is caused by fecally contaminated food or water — kills a child every fifteen seconds. The number of children who have died from diarrhea in the last decade [1998-2008] exceeds the total number of people killed by armed conflict since the Second World War.

In September 2009, Morna Gregory and Sian James published a book titled Toilets of the World. It's pretty much the same theme that you find here — photographs and commentary on other people's plumbing.

The Porcelain God: A Social History of the Toilet, by Julie Horan, contends that civilization began with the toilet.

Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing, edited by Laura Noren and Harvey Molotch, has essays by anthropologists, sociologists, and architects on the importance of the toilet, especially for urban dwellers.

Latrinae Et Foricae: Toilets in the Roman World describes the toilets of the Roman Empire from Iberia to Syria, and from North Africa to Hadrian's Wall in Britannia.

Toilets, Bathtubs, Sinks, and Sewers: A History of the Bathroom, explains the history of personal cleanliness and hygiene to children in grades 5-8.

If you're not bored yet, you might be interested in (or at least tolerate):

• Travel suggestions
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