Pooping On The Train

[Dreadnaught]

January 15, 2013

Man Is Fatally Struck by Subway Train, Police Say

By MATT FLEGENHEIMER

After initial reports that a man had been struck and killed by a train after a confrontation on a platform at East 125th Street in Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon, the police said that in fact the man had been killed and another was injured in separate episodes near the station.

The man who was killed had been on a train, defecating between two cars, when he fell on the tracks and was struck by the train, said Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman.

In an unrelated episode, Mr. Browne said, a bloodied man with a broken pelvis emerged from the tracks at the 125th Street station just before the fatal accident. Mr. Browne said the man told investigators that he did not know what had happened to him. The Fire Department said the man was in serious but stable condition at Harlem Hospital Center.

The names of those involved were not immediately released.

Earlier on Tuesday, the police had said that two men had been involved in a fight on the platform that resulted in both tumbling to the tracks. Mr. Browne said Tuesday evening that the initial information provided by the Police Department had been wrong.

Joseph Goldstein contributed reporting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/16/ny...y-station.html

How the hell could all this insanity happen around the same station at the same time?

Maybe the guy being pulled out of the tracks delayed the train, which led to the guy having to crap between cars, but then falling over when the train started again.

This actually sorta settles a long-running bet with a friend of mine.

[RandBlade]

1: Eew
2: WTF?
3: Please explain that bet.

[Dreadnaught]

Peeing between cars when drunk late at night is one thing, and arguably risky if you're really drunk. Then one day one of us ended up being drunk and puking between cars. Which led to a discussion of how far that could really get. We disagreed over whether crapping between cars was inherently riskier because of the squatting involved. I argued it could be difficult to keep your balance (even using your hands) with your pants between your legs preventing you from keeping a wide stance while also remaining low enough to the ground to remain unseen by people inside the train car.

My friend argued that it would be best to just take your pants off or wear a skirt.

Basically everyone lost and won the bet.

[Flixy]

It's New York, I expected people to poop IN the cars.

[RandBlade]

How about getting toilets installed in some of the cars?

[wiggin]

On the subway? Are you nuts?

[RandBlade]

Well no not on the subway sorry on normal trains. On the subway you're what 5 minutes from a toilet at any stage?

[Dreadnaught]

Five minutes...because you can go between cars? The stations don't have toilets. NY is really bad about public restroom access.

[RandBlade]

Wow stations don't have toilets? That IS terrible and shocking. Every Underground station AFAIK has plenty of public toilets - you need to pay 20p (may have since changed) for some of them but that's not much.

Toilets should be available in EVERY station.

[Timbuk2]

Naw, the majority of Underground stations don't.

Up to date map of underground stations with toilets: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/toilets-map.pdf

Even then, I seem to find many of the ones that do have toilets seem to be locked indefinitely.

The toilets on most trains are fairly good though. At least in the London area.

[RandBlade]

If there's no toilets at the stations there should be at least one car with them on then.

[Timbuk2]

Not sure how practical that'd be, tube trains are generally crowded, and absolutely crushed at rush hour, as most metros are in major cities around the world.

Toilets on tube trains would get dirty very quickly, new continuous maintenance/cleaning regimes would need to be put in place to keep them clean. Tube trains can run continuously from 6am to 11pm, and are only cleaned once at end of day so far as I can tell (they're generally clean in the mornings, littered and dirtier in the evenings).

It's not like your normal trains, which are cleaned by station staff at terminus where the train waits for a period of time, then turn around and return and cleaned at the other terminus.

There's a reason why metro/underground trains just don't have toilets, and it's the impracticality of it.

[RandBlade]

That's why my preference would be for the stations to have it. To not have it in either is bizarre though.

[Timbuk2]

Agreed, I'd prefer the majority of stations to be well equipped toilet-wise.

[wiggin]

*shrugs* Honestly, I'm not troubled that restrooms are uncommon in metro stations - certainly that was my experience in Chicago. Restrooms are expensive to maintain in high-traffic areas, and present a challenging law enforcement/security problem. I was more annoyed with London's dearth of trash cans, though I recognize the security reasons for their lack.

[Flixy]

The lack of trashcans annoyed me, and public ashtrays.

[RandBlade]

It's not just London much of the UK has a lack of them for the same good reason

[Flixy]

I never realised that, so I will complain less!

over here most stations have one or more self locking toilets, you pay and it unlocks, and after a set time it automatically opens and after you leave, it locks again. Think it's pretty safe.

A friend of mine once accidentally went in one just as someone left it, not realising how it workd, so as he sat down it went dark and it started cleaning. He got out quickly, very annoyed, and then lit a cigarette fivr meters from where it's allowed and got a fine. He was not having a good day

[Dreadnaught]

Interestingly, the NY subway system is experimenting with completely removing trash cans from stations. Their believe (supposedly backed by some data) is that this leads to less refuse because people are eventually conditioned not to bring trash into the subway at all and end up throwing less into the tracks.

This logic doesn't really make sense to me at all, but we'll see.