Someone in my party has medical issues and before I purchase my train tickets, I wanted to confirm whether both the Intercidades and Alfa Pendular trains have washrooms on-board. If so, are the washrooms located in every train car? Any information would be very much appreciated. Thank you.
Posted by
Portland, Oregon
5687 posts
I'm sure all the trains have washrooms.
Last year, I took both regional trains and the IC trains, and they all had washrooms. I did not take the AP trains, but as the most expensive I'm pretty much positive they would have them as well. Which train cars have them? Not sure. But you can never tell when one might be out of order - so I'm not sure I would spend a lot of time trying to plan on being in a car that has a washroom.
If trains aren't full, you can move around - if the person in your party needs to be near a washroom, I think moving to another car if the one you are in does not have one is probably easy enough to do. That person could just sit in an empty seat nearby if need be or even stand for a while if that's physically possible for him/her.
Posted by
New York, NY, USA
11294 posts
I just want to emphasize Andrew's point about how restrooms can be out of order. I was just on a New Jersey Transit train with a bathroom, but the toilet was completely clogged up (don't ask with what) and could not be used. That train does not have bathrooms in every car, and it wasn't an emergency, so I just waited until I disembarked to find a bathroom, but it it had been urgent, I would have been in trouble. Other kinds of trains do have bathrooms in every car (sometimes two), so it's easier to just move to a car with a working one.
I don't know details about Portuguese trains and their bathrooms, alas.
Posted by
7662 posts
We took the train from Porto to Lisbon. It was a nice, but a bit worn high speed train (130 KPH) that had clean and working toilets.
Posted by
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
8293 posts
Ah, at last. Someone using the word “toilet” instead of washroom, bathroom, rest room. It is not a curse word, it is not a dirty word. It is a perfectly good word. TOILET.
Posted by
Massachusetts
847 posts
Most of the trains (other than the regional) I've been on in Portugal and the rest of Europe have toilets. But it's not at all uncommon for them to be out of order or locked (for whatever reason). Usually there is at least one somewhere on the train that is usable but you can't absolutely count on it. Of course in a car you might have to go quite a ways/quite a long time to find a toilet as well so any kind of travel can be problematic if needing a toilet very frequently or urgently is an issue.