A QUARTER of Britain’s rail carriages are still dumping human excrement directly onto tracks, transport union RMT said yesterday.

The union claimed that the government had no idea how much excrement was being dumped.

RMT has been campaigning for regulations to enforce installation of retention tanks on trains so sewage can be disposed of safely, but it said the government was not listening.

Excrement discharged from high-speed trains disintegrates and sprays around tracks causing a serious health hazard for rail workers who maintain the network.

“It is truly appalling as we move into 2015 that this government still cannot even tell us what volume of raw and untreated sewage is being dumped at railway stations and on railway tracks,” said RMT general secretary Mick Cash.

He added that it created “both disgusting conditions and a health risk for staff and the public alike.

“Not only is this a filthy way of disposing of human waste, but it also poses real health risks and dangers for RMT members out there working on the tracks and in the depots.”

Services on the Great Eastern, Great Western, Midland and East Coast main lines are served by trains which dump effluent on the track.

But local and regional services in East Anglia, Wales, Scotland, the East and West midlands, the north and south-west of England are also involved in the practice.

Passengers have complained over excrement dumped on tracks at stations.