Difference between "hertitage" and current sleeper cars?

[NorthCoastHiawatha]

That is correct, old roomettes only slept one.

But the remarkable thing is that when the duplex (or slumbercoach) design came about, a remarkable 40 single roomettes were put into one sleeper car. Due to the high number of sleepers the prices were very affordble and each roomette had a sink and a toilet. I believe those cars also had two double bedrooms. I understand that this design was dropped as Amtrak didn't want steps in the hall that led to the upper level roomettes.

I have explored quite a few "Heritage" sleepers of all different types but only in museums. Some of the heritge sleepers have bedrooms that look like todays Amtrak bedroom. The double roomette may be an Amtrak invention. The Pullman open section was discontinued many years ago.

Via still has sections on the Canadian and the few other trains using Budd sleepers.

IIRC, Avalon Railcar is rebuilding many of Via's Budd sleepers to eliminate the berths to provide more private accomodation land cruise customers expect.

Removing the sections would be a bummer, good thing I have a trip booked in an upper in 3 days.

 

[Gord]

The invention of the word "heritage" seems to make people think that there is one specific kind of car called Heritage. That is not. It is an arbitrary name Amtrak coined to designate those old cars it wanted to keep and to have Head End Power.

It is just that Amtrak whittled down its inherited sleeping cars to use the type which had 10 roomettes and 6 double bedrooms. This makes people think that all cars before Amtrak were of this configuration.

Not so. There were eight or nine different kinds of rooms in the old cars with many different floor plans. Keep in mind that there were many railroads operating many passenger trains in the past. So do not expect the kind of uniformity on a national scale that we have today on Amtrak. The whole world of sleepers, diners, lounges,etc was quite different from today. Much diversity.

The old cars which VIA kept had, when built in 1954, four sections, four roomettes, five double bedrooms and one compartment. They have been reworked to have three sections, four roomettes and six double bedrooms, though they call them by other names. There is another floor plan on the Canadian but not sure from memory what it is, and cannot look it up because I am on my way out to dinner.

Comfort is a different thing to different people but I, old enough to remember the old days, do not think there was much difference.

All the major builders participated. Budd, American Car and Foundry and Pullman Standard. The VIA equipment is all or most Budd. Budd was the best.

One biggie that Amtrak has over the past is the use of showers. The old trains had very few showers. It was mostly just one room in one car of one train that had a shower, and that room was normally known as a Master Room.

Another is the coffee, orange juice, etc the old trains did not have that in the sleepers.

Many trains were made of stainless steel. The word usage you note is an advertising ploy, not an exact designation. All of the Canadian's equipment is stainless steel. That was a big deal when stainless steel was new.

Thee was no such things as accessible rooms in the past. all of society has improved in those ways.

Having slept on pretty much every type of sleeper on CN, CP, Via and later Amtrak, starting in the late 1950's, I'd be hard pressed to agree that Budd made the best sleepers, at least as far as space and ride quality were concerned. Generally, I found that the Pullmans, CC&F and ACF cars rode slightly better. Don't get me wrong, Budd made an excellent product which due to stainless steel construction is still in use pretty much daily somewhere on Via, on tourist railroads or as private cars. Oldtimers claimed that the 6 wheel truck heavyweight sleepers rode better than anything made in the streamlined era which reminds us that sleeping cars were around long,long before Amtrak's Heritage sleepers going right back to the wood car era.

Gord

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

IIRC, Amtrak converted some 10 and 6's to accomodate ADA patrons by pulling the wall out between two roomettes at the end of the car; this was shortly before the Viewliners showed up. Does anyone remember this or am I in a fog bank again? hboy:

I do not remember it but that does not mean it is not true.

 

[railiner]

That is correct, old roomettes only slept one.

But the remarkable thing is that when the duplex (or slumbercoach) design came about, a remarkable 40 single roomettes were put into one sleeper car. Due to the high number of sleepers the prices were very affordble and each roomette had a sink and a toilet. I believe those cars also had two double bedrooms. I understand that this design was dropped as Amtrak didn't want steps in the hall that led to the upper level roomettes.

I have explored quite a few "Heritage" sleepers of all different types but only in museums. Some of the heritge sleepers have bedrooms that look like todays Amtrak bedroom. The double roomette may be an Amtrak invention. The Pullman open section was discontinued many years ago.

As Bill mentioned, the Slumbercoaches has 24 roommettes and 8 Double Bedrooms with a capacity of 40. 6 section, 6 Roomette, 4DBR sleepers lasted until Amtrak started. The SCL- L&N Jacksonville - New Orleans tri weekly Gulf Wind carried one and the UP Butte Special from Butte to Salt Lake City carried one.

I remember enjoying slumbercoach accommodations on the California Zephyr (Amtrak) between Denver and Chicago, on the Broadway Limited (Amtrak), and the Lake Shore Limited. If memory serves me correctly, the extra fare for a slumbercoach in the 70s was only around $8 to $9 more than coach from Chicago to New York. So it was a great buy and although the rooms were small and the beds narrow, because the beds were so narrow, you could use the toilet without putting up the bed..

I think that slumbercoaches ran on Amtrak's Crescent and Montrealer for a time (and I think I may even have been on a Montrealer slumbercoach), but I'm not sure about that.

I also recall that there were a handful of 16/10 slumbercoaches (16 singles, 10 doubles) in addition to the more "common" 24/8 slumbercoaches. The quirky 16/10 cars I think were rebuilt NYC cars with an odd look to them and if you had one of the middle 2 or 4 rooms, they were larger than the other ones.

I used to enjoy those 16/10 Slumbers. The reason those 4 rooms were larger, was that they were originally designed to be a double, but then the marketing department calculated that they would sell better as additional singles. So they were built with only a single bed. The bed was no larger than the ones in the single rooms, but the floor space was great, plus it had the much larger window of the double rooms.

There was no ADA requirements years ago, but for seriously handicapped or ill passengers, there was usually a way to easily remove the windows of certain rooms to load a passenger on a stretcher.

One amenity the heritage sleepers had that the modern ones do not, is in addition to a temperature control, they had a a fan near the ceiling that you could control. Definitely a plus in those situations where the car air-conditioning may have issues.

In general, IMHO, the older cars had better quality hardware--little details like door latches, light switches, etc. They had a feel of solidity, that they were 'built-to-last'.

 

[George Harris]

Section sleepers tended to survive on lines where there were commonly people traveling on US government TO's (Travel Orders) A TO was good for a lower berth in a section. Given Ft. Campbell, Ft. Knox, Eglin AFB, and a few other places on-line, it made sense for the L&N, NC, C&EI to keep running cars with sections.

(For a railroad empoloyee traveling overnight, you were allowed an upper, so you did not even get a window at night.)

CorTen Steel: ASTM A449 if I remember correctly, from the get-go was not supposed to be used in areas subject to salt water or salt water spray, or in areas where it would be immersed in water. Properly used, it was a good material, but it was not a cure-all. It has performed quite well in areas where the usage and climate were appropriate. It was a two-fer for some users, as it has higher strength than the commonly used basic A36 steel, and did not need painting.

The additional tensile strength is a real advantage. In areas where it is better that the steel be painted, my understanding is that the paint has better adhesion and lasts longer before repainting is needed. As an example, the WMATA bridge that parallels the 14th Street bridge across the Patomac River between DC and Virginia is built with A449 steel, and is painted. Unpainted with rust stains on the piers was unacceptable aesthetically. Wheter the Patomac that far inland has any salt content, I do not know, but it is tidal there.

(It was neither the designers nor the builders of the Titanic that called it unsinkable - they knew better - but the promoters and advertizers. To save money some of the features used in steel ships build earlier that would have improved survivability of the vessel were not used in the Titanic.)

 

[AlanB]

IIRC, Amtrak converted some 10 and 6's to accomodate ADA patrons by pulling the wall out between two roomettes at the end of the car; this was shortly before the Viewliners showed up. Does anyone remember this or am I in a fog bank again? hboy:

I do not remember it but that does not mean it is not true.

You remember correctly Jay, take a look at the car diagrams from Friends of Amtrak located here. Room #10 is the H room in that diagram. Room #9 was taken out and converted to a shower.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

The Viewliner roomette has the amenities of the old roomette with an upper bunk added so to that extent, it is a newer development.

Gord

The Viewliner Roomette is a modernized Double Slumbercoach with first class status on your ticket. Period. No innovation, except the upper window.

 

[the_traveler]

The slumbercoach was also used on Amtrak's Silver trains in the 1970's. I remember my first sleeper trip was in a single slumbercoach from NYP to TPA. They were indeed not very much more than coach, but they also did not include meals in the fare.

I wish Amtrak could bring back something similar to them, as a middle ground between coach and a roomette/bedroom. Meals would not be included, but you would have private space and a flat bed.

EDIT: My bad with the date!

 

[GlobalistPotato]

The Viewliner roomette has the amenities of the old roomette with an upper bunk added so to that extent, it is a newer development.

Gord

The Viewliner Roomette is a modernized Double Slumbercoach with first class status on your ticket. Period. No innovation, except the upper window.

To be quite frank, the upper window on a Viewliner Rommette is quite a perk, especially in comparison to the Superliner. Still, I know that you do like the Viewliners, and perhaps not much innovation is needed when Amtrak is improving upon an already good product?

The reason why I started this thread was because I was thinking about including a ride on VIA's Canadian as part of a cross-continental train journey. And generally I was wondering if the sleepers on the Canadian are a better deal (in terms of VIA's price and the comfort/perks of a sleeper) than the sleepers on the LSL and Empire Builder.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

That would be like asking If a four seasons is a better deal then a holiday Inn. Depends on your own price/luxury equation. I would take a berth for the experience of it. Your opportunity to do so will not be forever.