Passengers are furious after a train company admitted dozens of toilets on services running in Sussex are out of order.

Travellers face the spending up to two hours on Southern trains unable to use broken lavatories.

One pregnant woman is considering demanding compensation for the distress and embarrassment.

A Southern Trains spokesman said the company was not legally obliged to provide train toilets but would deal with compensation claims on a case-by-case basis. He blamed the problems on design faults.

Passengers said Southern should have dealt with the problems on the four-year-old trains, which cost £1 million per carriage, much faster.

Andria Allan Rudy, 36, of Shirley Street, Hove, is eight months pregnant and commutes to London for work.

She said toilets were often out of order, including the disabled one.

She said: "I have to go to the toilet every 45 minutes and for some pregnant women it is every ten minutes. The breakdowns are happening on a regular basis, even on a 7.30am train from Hove. If they can't get toilets working at that time of the morning there's no hope."

She wants compensation for the £37.80 journey.

Katharine Rabson, 30, works at Kings College London and commutes from her home in Lansdowne Street, Hove. She said: "I don't use the toilets on Southern trains. They are often not working and are too elaborate in design to work properly."

A spokeswoman for the Rail Passengers' Council said a survey revealed toilets were the worst thing about Southern trains.

She said: "Only 42 per cent were satisfied with toilets, the lowest rating by far. It's bad news for passengers."

The Southern spokesman blamed design faults on automatic toilet doors and waste pipes prone to blockages. He said trains needed to be taken out of service for full repairs but this would affect timetables. He was unable to say when they would all be fixed.