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Millions of Canadians will relieve themselves on railway tracks this year -- splattering the occasional rail worker in the process -- because of Via Rail's long-held practice of dumping human waste from speeding trains.

It's a practice Canada's two main railway companies are begging the passenger rail service to stop. However, Via says it can't do anything about it without millions more dollars from the federal government.

Both Canadian National and Canadian Pacific say the environment is being despoiled and workers are demeaned and put at risk of disease.

"Often our employees are working on a track, or under a bridge . . . and are sprayed with human excrement," said CN's Mark Hallman. "I don't think anybody deserves that experience."

Several CN employees have complained to management about human waste and debris -- including urine, feces, needles, toiletries and female hygiene products -- being discharged from passing trains.

Gary House, international vice-president of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, figures that two-thirds of his union's 10,000 members in Canada have had to work on sites polluted by human waste. He himself experienced it several years ago.

"We were doing some track work [in Northern British Columbia] and there were fresh deposits everywhere. We either had to avoid them while we were working, or shovel them out of the way.

"That's not in our job description. Our work areas are being polluted by people flushing their toilets on them."

Mr. House said track workers have been raising the issue since the 1980s and believed it was about to be resolved until the federal government slashed Via's funding during the deficit-fighting years of the past decade. That funding has never been restored, and it would cost about $40-million to upgrade Via's trains and equip them with holding tanks for their washrooms.

CN and CP say the waste also presents an environmental hazard, since trains often dump while going over bridges, meaning the discharge ends up in rivers and creeks. Environmentalists say national parks -- including the pristine Jasper National Park in the Rocky Mountains -- are also being polluted by the practice.

But Via says that while expelling human waste from its rail cars "is a less than esthetically pleasing" policy, it's not dangerous and is perfectly legal.

Via spokeswoman Catherine Kaloutsky said the world-renowned Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta studied the issue and found there was no risk to employees or the general public.

"We've advised the railways that we do take their concerns seriously," she said. "We are working on this on a priority basis . . . however, it takes money. In the past decade we haven't had any money to purchase new equipment."

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