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On March 7 we took the Silver Star from WPB to DC, having a Viewliner 2 roomette. Our SCA was great. Concerned that the conductor never came, while waiting for one of the two restrooms I did meet her when she came out and asked about her seeing our ticket (knowing from Amtrak Unlimited...

Our sleeper on the Texas Eagle was close to the locomotive until San Antonio and I noticed lots of horn blowing, including for a private driveway that was narrow and perhaps gravel. What owners would want horn blowing for that?! But at San Antonio our sleeper and one coach (the two cars through...

Baggage cars, mail and/or railway express cars, followed by coaches, dining car, and sleeping cars (always with a lounge in half or most of the car) constituted trains traditionally. Locomotive horns or steam whistles were a long way out front. I meant a lounge in at least one sleeping car. The...

Are the travel market's "needs and expectations" truly different than when there were trains renowned for their consists and service? Today the few long-distance trains can mean both paying more and taking a lot more time, so why would anybody prefer lower ceilings, narrower beds, going down a...

Let's hope single-level does get dome cars. I wish Amtrak never had entertained the idea of bi-levels because the upper berths are so cramped and at least in roomettes they're more claustrophobia-inducing and have such minimal luggage space. For coach travel they are nice, although for all...

I wish (non-full-length) dome cars would be built. (In full-length only the seats toward the front allow good forward viewing and often not even that because the height or angle isn't adequate.) Despite any non-dome car's design, there's only side-viewing. That can mean either limited viewing...

I remember when, as Trains magazine decades ago casually put it, first-class-only lounges are expected and required. There were many exceptions such as for one-sleeper trains which often had no diner either. Some used "lunchroom style" station stops (Brookings, SD on the C&NW and Fort Dodge, IA...

In my experience roomettes initially required opening the door to raise the bed to use the toilet and thus all had zipper curtains (on the aisle side). Later the cut-away bed style meant no curtains were needed because there was space to stand and raise the bed (it was not difficult to raise or...

I have a reprint of the January 1930 Guide, bought a few decades ago & claimed to be the largest ever, I guess in number of pages (1,760) and somehow years ago I came by the September 1944 Guide (1,440). Both have passenger service to SD end-of-the-line CMSTP&P branches serving Faith, Isabel...

The Pullman Company should not have focused so much on the 12 Section with 1 Drawing Room car because as the cartoon illustrates, they were not very good. How the porters ever made up all those beds and then had to change them back to facing seats in the morning I cannot fathom. For a long time...

These photos are great. Thank you. They remind me of why we prefer single-level cars much more than double, such as the greater distance between the upper bed and the ceiling. But why bedrooms leave so little space between the lower bed and sink is a mystery. If one person is using the sink, the...

Even with airports, their maintenance, and 72,000 FAA-related salaries taxpayer-funded, airlines simply can't make money on service to places other than big metropolitan areas, so there either are no flights or few and high-priced ones, which themselves often are locally subsidized. E.g. the U...

I'm very glad for this discussion because Friday night, March 1 we arrive after 10 pm by SWA from MO and the hotel shuttle to Fairfield Inn will meet us but Saturday morning we need to leave on the 8:50 Brightline, so I called the hotel & (right while I waited) they checked by radio with their...

The restrooms are big and the adjoining hallways. I'm not sure whether & how the cars may vary, but our experience on the River Runner (across MO) was: 1) boarded in Kirkwood and half the seats face forward and half backward, with the forward-facing mostly full, so we went to the next coach and...

Re a train barber shop, the few routes out west that had those ran on smooth track even though it was not continuous welded rail. The maintenance of course was excellent. Besides NY Central, other roads such as the B&O also had all-Pullman (The Capitol Limited) and all-coach (The Columbian)...

I meant to add that bedrooms varied much. Some had a sofa with a smallish window because on the outer wall next to the window were the toilet & sink above it, so if the wall between rooms was fan-folded back toward the doors you had two toilets & two sinks next to each other and two sofas facing...

Drawing Rooms had two windows (although the one in the Canadian observation-dome-cars has one lengthier window). The 2 Master Rooms in the PRR observation car had 3 chairs. They had the only showers on the train, and 2 two lower beds (one across & one sideways as in Drawing Rooms, but no upper...

The Kirkwood [MO] Train Station Foundation, to which we (though not Kirkwood residents) and many others contribute is a splendid example of support for major preservation and longer-range enhancement projects. For years the garden club has helped provide flower beds, window boxes and also huge...

Have a blanket or long coat for warmth if needed (coach may be chilly for some of us any time of year). Decades back, pillows often were provided free (or for a small fee) to coach passengers. I don't use a pillow in bed but at least a small one in coach may be helpful to bring along. Consider...

I can't imagine how Pullman porters made up all the 32 beds in a 16-section car or the 27 in those countless 12-section plus drawing room cars. With their coats, ties, and caps and no air conditioning (at least for initial decades) plus long hours must have been very taxing (Googling "Pullman...