Showers

Advertise with us
shop deals on amazon
Shop deals on ebay
Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum

Help Support Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Status
Not open for further replies.
There is no way I would use a coin operated shower in a train station. That just is too much of an ICK factor for me. I suspect that there are many pax out there that have the same opinion as I do.
 
Rail Freak said:
The Davy Crockett said:
They do. They are called hotels... :lol: :lol: :lol:
Click to expand...
I think the Key Word is "Coin"!!! :lol:
Click to expand...
Well some of those hotels charge many "Coins"!
mosking.gif
(Some of them gold coins!
ohmy.gif
)
 
Well, therein lies my question. Many truck strips have vert nice pay showers. If I have been on the Texas Eagle for 3 days, I don't think I can make it to a reasonably priced hotel in Chicago in time for my connection to the Cardinal just to freshen up. You are right. If there were free showers, I can expect them to be nasty. But how about a BILL shower? $10 for up to 15 minutes of pressurized, heated bliss. The cost covers an attendant, and $10 is certainly cheaper than a sleeper or hotel. I don't mind coach, but prefer to stay clean. This up coming trip is going to have two sleepers, but there its no way if it weren't AGR points that I would be able to afford three sleepers.

I would prefer the train over flying when time is available. But I'd rather spend less and fly to arrive clean.
 
amamba said:
There is no way I would use a coin operated shower in a train station. That just is too much of an ICK factor for me. I suspect that there are many pax out there that have the same opinion as I do.
Click to expand...
If they are taken care of in the same manner those at big truck stops are, there shouldn't be any problem with them being clean and ready to go.
 
amamba said:
There is no way I would use a coin operated shower in a train station. That just is too much of an ICK factor for me. I suspect that there are many pax out there that have the same opinion as I do.
Click to expand...
Assuming that many people agree with you is a common psychological error, called false consensus bias.

I'd be happy to use a well-maintained pay shower in a railway station (or airport, if I'm unfortunate to be stuck in one). A nice, hot shower can be quite a relief from the stress that can often accompany travel- especially on our, shall we say, idiosyncratic national rail system.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Well I wouldn't use a shower in a truck/rest stop either, so I suspect that I am not the target audience for these supposed showers anyway.
 
I find it odd, if not downright amazing, that someone could find pay showers less appealing than simply not bathing at all. Which, lets face it, is a very real and very common complication faced by millions of coach passengers each and every year. I also find the assumption that pay showers must be universally disgusting almost as interesting as the implied correlative assumption that non-pay showers are somehow inherently clean. Truly fascinating. :mellow:
 
I have seen showers in some European train stations, they were quite nice. Along with pay-toilets, the whole thing is set up like a small spa with a front desk and all. Seems like it could work in the US if you have the right business plan...
 
Or we could just add shower bathrooms to superliner coaches as they go in for refurb. You could offset the costs by slightly increasing coach fares.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
RCrierie said:
Or we could just add shower bathrooms to superliner coaches as they go in for refurb. You could offset the costs by slightly increasing coach fares.
Click to expand...
I'd be happy with pay showers on-board as well. I know a lot of campgrounds and such where coin-op showers are common, to encourage conservation and defray the costs of water delivery/infrastructure. Might be something for Amtrak to consider.

Of course, in the early years of a program like that, you're going to have a lot of consists with one refurbed coach and a few hundred smelly coach pax trying to get a shower in.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Years back private railroads had pay showers at larger station. St. Louis Union Station was one that had them. They were located in the same area that showere for Railroad workers were. They were well maintained. Back then very few trains even the best had showers so a nice shower in between trains in St. Louis which was a major railroad gateway with only one station was great. I use public showers at the gym and other places. They are usually inspected by Public Health Authorities so they have to be maintained. I am sure if major train stations had them, they would be inpsected. I think its a great idea!
 
jphjaxfl said:
Years back private railroads had pay showers at larger station. St. Louis Union Station was one that had them. They were located in the same area that showere for Railroad workers were. They were well maintained. Back then very few trains even the best had showers so a nice shower in between trains in St. Louis which was a major railroad gateway with only one station was great. I use public showers at the gym and other places. They are usually inspected by Public Health Authorities so they have to be maintained. I am sure if major train stations had them, they would be inpsected. I think its a great idea!
Click to expand...
Very true. And yet a substantial portion of the membership inexplicably continues to believe that most passengers had no intention of showering on even the longest cross country journeys prior to the advent on on-board shower facilities. :wacko:
 
nordo said:
I have seen showers in some European train stations, they were quite nice. Along with pay-toilets, the whole thing is set up like a small spa with a front desk and all. Seems like it could work in the US if you have the right business plan...
Click to expand...
Well I actually WOULD use something if it was that nice. But I just have a hard time figuring out how something would be that nice and clean based on my own personal experience of the cleanliness of some public restrooms. But if someone is smart enough to solve that problem, I would definitely be a customer.
 
Some European stations (Stuttgart, for example) have "day hotels" that can be rented for a few hours (no, they're not "that kind" of hotels...) for a relatively low charge, somewhere on the order of 20-30 euros for up to 8 hours, which gives access to a shower, bed, etc., which can be very handy for longish layovers...
 
jphjaxfl said:
Years back private railroads had pay showers at larger station. St. Louis Union Station was one that had them. They were located in the same area that showere for Railroad workers were. They were well maintained. Back then very few trains even the best had showers so a nice shower in between trains in St. Louis which was a major railroad gateway with only one station was great. I use public showers at the gym and other places. They are usually inspected by Public Health Authorities so they have to be maintained. I am sure if major train stations had them, they would be inpsected. I think its a great idea!
Click to expand...
I always drool when I think about St. Louis Union Station.

It was my first ever destination out of the Southeast or Southwest.

Some of the places you go could go, beyond present day Chicago, Kansas City, Texas Points and Los Angeles were:

San Francisco, Seattle, Portland,Twin Cities, Denver,Memphis, New Orleans, Nashville,Chattanooga, Atlanta,Birmingham,New Orleans,Jacksonville, Miami, Detroit,Baltimore, Washington, New York,Mexico City, Mobile,additional routes to the places we have today, no telling what else, this is no meant to be a complete list,just some thrown together memories.

Clearly there must have been a significant need for showers with trips like the above to consider.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
ScottC4746 said:
Ewww! Gross!

I wouldn't want one here in LAX --- it is already a homeless incampment already.
Click to expand...
Yeah, heaven forbid a homeless person take a shower.

Nevertheless the easy way around that from a logistical standpoint is to require a same-day ticket

stub to use the showers. Or simply put in place a price-point that would discourage usage by

marginalized people.

However, I'd guess that the capital needed to install showers, plumbing, and associated facilities

would make this an extremely difficult project to enact. If you further add a salaried employee to monitor/

clean the facilities, this becomes an even higher bar to clear in terms of convincing the money-counters.

It would take years for these showers to pay for themselves, if ever. That said, I'd probably use them if

the price was right.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
It would be interesting to see what sort of cost rent and development would be, how much space one could carve out a dozen or so showers, and what the demand would be. At Chicago's Union Station, there are nearly 14 arrivals and departures daily. Ridership is almost 9,000 people per day. Now, I don't know if they count connections twice, so I don't know the number of unique passengers that pass through the station. Not to mention METRA passengers and folks transferring from METRA to Amtrak and vice versa.

As a business owner, I wouldn't care if my patron was a homeless man or a Wall Street executive. If you have the $10 to get get a quick shower, you're invited. A paid, tipped attendant would ensure that the facility was clean prior to and after each use. Perhaps a deposit would discourage vandalism.

I would love to see these at major connection points that cater to folks that could potentially be transferring from one 3-day ride to another. IE: LAX, CHI, NYP, WAS.

I think it would be a terrific service to coach passengers, and I would imagine that many many folks who can't afford a sleeper would be quite inclined to partake.

Note that this isn't any sort of unique idea. Perhaps the venue would prove to be the difficult portion. But pay showers are quite common. In addition to the aforementioned truck stop scenario, there are also many private businesses that offer showers just outside National Parks to campers (National parks tend to have much more in the way of primitive camping without shower facilities than many state parks in my personal experience).
 
I don't think a for-pay public shower needs to be bad, scary, or unsanitary. In this day and age of airlines charging for everything but cabin air, I think a $5 shower with soap and a clean towel would find a ready audience.

I collect vending machines as a hobby and I have seen an old soap-and-a-clean-towel vending machine! The towel must have been very small. There were toilet paper vending machines too, but let's not go there. Talk about having you over a barrel!

Ironically, I am reasonably certain the former public showers still exist in Chicago Union Station. My sister and her husband, the pushy jerk, took Amtrak across the country about ten years ago. In CUS he managed, with a great degree of difficulty, to buffalo some employee into taking him there and letting them shower. She said they looked like they were the first people to use them in a long time!
 
guest said:
Some European stations (Stuttgart, for example) have "day hotels" that can be rented for a few hours (no, they're not "that kind" of hotels...) for a relatively low charge, somewhere on the order of 20-30 euros for up to 8 hours, which gives access to a shower, bed, etc., which can be very handy for longish layovers...
Click to expand...
I was also thinking about the Japanese "capsule hotels"- just enough room to sleep, a little TV, wi-fi, and showers and restrooms down the hall. They run from ~$25-$50 US. Might be a good idea for rail stations, airports, etc.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest posts

Back
Top