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Rail union RMT wrote to the Minister for Transport yesterday demanding the government pull the chain on the dumping of human sewage from trains direct onto the tracks.
MP Susan Kramer recently told the House of Lords that the practice is "utterly disgusting" but admitted that her government has failed to flush the practice.
The union is also demanding that the minister disclose the precise yearly tonnage of excrement landing on Britain's railways.
Track workers have repeatedly pointed out that some sections of the rail infrastructure are like an open sewer and that the human waste does not simply hit the track bed but it sprays out when trains are traveling at speed.
They say this poses a serious and disgusting health risk to track-based staff.
Rail works have been delayed because staff were confronted with pools of raw sewage, according to the union.
Staff in the train depots are also forced to scrape the excrement from the bottom of carriages.
RMT general secretary Bob Crow demanded the government put an end to the practice.
He said: "There is no point the government politely requesting that the private train companies desist. They are the ones profiting out of this scandal by allowing it to continue in the full knowledge that it is both dangerous and disgusting.
"This rotten practice should be stopped once and for all and the profiteering train companies should be the forced by the government to pay the price for upgrading the trains and employing staff to empty the tanks."
