Already one in between the ladies and the gents in the Temple Meads subway. Very slow flow and nearer to warm than lukewarm. Not recommended. The fountains I encountered in Rome last week, in even more arid conditions, were cold clear and with a good strong flow. The plastic bottle merchants between the Vic Em monument and the Colloseum had very very few takers.
Is that the/a water fountain trumpeted by Network Rail last month, or a predecessor tap?
https://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/news/passengers-take-on-plastic-with-refill-revolution - press release dated 18th June 2019.
Passengers at Britain’s biggest and busiest stations have helped save the equivalent of one million plastic bottles* by embracing the ‘refill revolution’.
Introduced last year, Network Rail’s free drinking water fountains are now saving over 100,000 water bottles from landfill every month with the help of station users. Stacked end to end, the bottles would stretch the distance between London and Cardiff (235km) or fill a total of 833 rubbish trucks.
Many people travelling by train are choosing to do so, rather than by car, for environmental reasons, and are also very switched on to the "plastic-free" message. However few if any stations have a tap where people can easily fill up a water bottle. It would be great if each station had an easily accessible tap for drinking water. It doesn't need to be a complicated fountain, just an outside tap, and if there is concern about water wastage, staff could turn the supply off overnight.
Welcome to the forum, Johnp1234 .
Chuffed's answer above starts to answer you (and show some thought has been given to this) for the very largest 20 or so stations in Great Britain. But the other 2500 or so are under the management of franchised train operating companies, all of which (except Cross Country) manage the stations at which they're the predominant or only operator.
In our own neck of the woods,
GWR▸ operate 207 stations and they too are aware of the desire to reuse bottles - at the recent Community Rail conference they were handing the out, and indeed I have one on my desk as I write. However, there's a considerable issue in actually providing suitable water to fill the bottles at many stations.
As an example, there is no water main onto the platform at my home station of Melksham. As and when safety briefed volunteers look after the planters there, they tend to have to carry water with them when they come to the station, or beg water from a couple of the local businesses which neighbour the station. Speaking with others right across Great Britain, this is a far from unique situation - indeed, I suspect it applies to the majority of stations. I would suspect, though, that the smaller stations are worse off.
Carrying on with my example, there's a building that the Melksham Rail User Group would very much like to see in use as a cafe and with toilets, information, etc - owned by Wiltshire Council and just across from the station. However, even there, there's an issue because the water supply into the building is through old lead pipes and the lead content in the water is (I'm
lead to understand) some eight time what is acceptable. Fine for the loos, but not for a cafe or to drink. I don't know if our problem is unique - but so much railway infrastructure dates back to the age of lead pipes and even where the old station has been demolished and something else put on top, the problem still exists.
Staff turning a tap off at night ... are you looking at staffed stations, and then ones that are staffed up into the evening
- but having asked that, I would suggest that a vandal proof (next problem!) tap which is spring loaded and only supplied water when pressed would be the answer.
OK - that's my penneth - anyone one else with thoughts??
Click on the map to explore geographics
