improvements in technology - or maybe not

i can remember being told that in victorian times the toilets on trains were just holes that went straight down onto the tracks and you weren't allowed to use the toilet while at a station. well we are over 100 years since the end of victorian times and i had assumed that technology would have improved.

but on wednesday after i had arrived in king's cross and was walking down the platform to head for the tube i noticed a sign saying "please do not flush the train toilets when at a platform as they flush onto the tracks" and i was a bit shocked. i had thought that nowadays when you flushed a train toilet it would be stored somewhere and then discharged somewhere and taken to a sewage plant - but no it just goes onto the tracks!!!!