Unfortunately, this is something that affects me quite a bit. Ever since this started in late November, it's been a bit of a gamble as to if i'll be able to access a toilet onboard when the need arises. Unfortunately, said need can come up rather suddenly and require urgent attention - as much as go before you travel is sound advice, there's a significant group of people who reply upon functional onboard facilities. With long journeys, large distances between stations and limited station facility opening hours on the mainline routes this indeed poses a significant issue. It's a bit difficult to 'hold it' when the next station is 20 minutes away, and you're not even sure if the station will have open or functional facilities.
There's two parts to this too - both having functional facilities onboard and at stations, but also timely information as to what trains have working facilities and where on the train. It's not much use finding out that the only working toilet is in Coach 2 if i'm in Coach 12 during the peak after all - it's not particularly easy to move through, especially on a busy peak time 375/9. Alas, whilst some guards are pretty good at announcing as to the location of working facilities, some aren't. For example, the guard I asked last night alas didn't even know at all - which if they genuinely didn't know (and I don't doubt that) is fair enough on their part, but again it's problematic for passengers and shows again how SouthEastern are struggling to disseminate this information both to staff and passengers. Additionally, it seems incredibly rare for information on toilet availability to be either put on the train facilities updates section of SouthEastern's site, on social media, or on Departure Boards. I
occasionally see information about toilet availability on departure boards outside of London, but never at any of the SouthEastern London termini.
I've tried my best to raise both parts with SouthEastern over the last few months, but to no avail. I've tried via Customer Services, i've tried a formal complaint and i've tried an escalation of that formal complaint, but alas all I received back was that my comments would be "passed on" and sympathies. No information as to when it might be resolved, no alternative arrangements, no updates after their initial reply despite promising to do so. So with the issue still ongoing, affecting me and others severely, and with no end in sight i've now had to take it up to Transport Focus. It's not really a step I want to have to have taken (and indeed i've never ever had to do this before!) but i've been left feeling utterly hopeless having gone through all of the formal procedures of talking to customer services, complaints, complaint escalations etc before taking it up to Transport Focus.
Earlier today, I did see via another person share via social media SouthEastern's response to their more recent complaint, saying that modifications to CET emptying facilities at the depots has now been complete in all depots with the exception of Gillingham. This does line up with my experiences of the 465/466 fleet being more affected by this (certainly I can't remember I last saw a working toilet on a 465/466!), but the 375 fleet is still very much affected by this as of this week which isn't exactly inspiring confidence about this issue being fixed in the long run
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