Duplex Roomettes may provide more room?

[dlagrua]

I've just seen them in magazines but there are some old configurations of sleeper coaches ( from the 1950's) that seem to offer higher efficency that the modern day Viewliner sleeper cars. In the Summer 2008 edition of Classic Trains magazine they ran an entire issue on Pullman and on sleeper cars in general. All configurations of sleeper cars were discussed but the one that caught my eye were the cars with what they called Single bedrooms and Duplex Roomettes. These rooms or roomettes were staggered one high and one low, such that part of each room was below or above an adjacent one. Maximum space utilization was achieved and I believe that each room had a comode/sink. . These were single high cars like on the Viewliners but they did feature high and low rooms with a few steps to reach the upper rooms. In some NYC slumber coaches up to 26 of these could be put in one lightweight car. I just wonder why this old configuration was abandoned in favor of what we now have today.

 

[Hytec]

I've just seen them in magazines but there are some old configurations of sleeper coaches ( from the 1950's) that seem to offer higher efficency that the modern day Viewliner sleeper cars. In the Summer 2008 edition of Classic Trains magazine they ran an entire issue on Pullman and on sleeper cars in general. All configurations of sleeper cars were discussed but the one that caught my eye were the cars with what they called Single bedrooms and Duplex Roomettes. These rooms or roomettes were staggered one high and one low, such that part of each room was below or above an adjacent one. Maximum space utilization was achieved and I believe that each room had a comode/sink. . These were single high cars like on the Viewliners but they did feature high and low rooms with a few steps to reach the upper rooms. In some NYC slumber coaches up to 26 of these could be put in one lightweight car. I just wonder why this old configuration was abandoned in favor of what we now have today.

The Crescent used Slumbercoaches 25-30 years ago. My brother and sister-in-law rode in one overnight from NYP to NOL and said it was similar to old Pullman heavyweights with upper and lower berths at night, and coach-like seating during the day. They had paid for a bedroom, but due to a hurricane-caused service interruption and equipment shortage, the Heritage sleeper to which they were assigned had been replaced with a Slumbercoach. They felt short-changed because the berths were very cramped for dressing/undressing, daytime seating had no privacy, and they were offered no re-imbursement. It was about this same time that Amtrak got rid of Slumbercoaches.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

I've just seen them in magazines but there are some old configurations of sleeper coaches ( from the 1950's) that seem to offer higher efficency that the modern day Viewliner sleeper cars. In the Summer 2008 edition of Classic Trains magazine they ran an entire issue on Pullman and on sleeper cars in general. All configurations of sleeper cars were discussed but the one that caught my eye were the cars with what they called Single bedrooms and Duplex Roomettes. These rooms or roomettes were staggered one high and one low, such that part of each room was below or above an adjacent one. Maximum space utilization was achieved and I believe that each room had a comode/sink. . These were single high cars like on the Viewliners but they did feature high and low rooms with a few steps to reach the upper rooms. In some NYC slumber coaches up to 26 of these could be put in one lightweight car. I just wonder why this old configuration was abandoned in favor of what we now have today.

The Crescent used Slumbercoaches 25-30 years ago. My brother and sister-in-law rode in one overnight from NYP to NOL and said it was similar to old Pullman heavyweights with upper and lower berths at night, and coach-like seating during the day. They had paid for a bedroom, but due to a hurricane-caused service interruption and equipment shortage, the Heritage sleeper to which they were assigned had been replaced with a Slumbercoach. They felt short-changed because the berths were very cramped for dressing/undressing, daytime seating had no privacy, and they were offered no re-imbursement. It was about this same time that Amtrak got rid of Slumbercoaches.

My one quick thought as I rush out the door is that the big problem is that they did not get a reimbursement. I think something fell through the cracks. They were supposed to be reimbursed.

As to being cramped, well, yes that is sort of the point. It offered broom closet space but-----at broom closet prices. That is meant to make it compensate.

Slumbercoaches lasted sometime after that, on into the Amtrak era. Many people did like them, at least if they delberately chose to ride in a small space but at a small cost.

Again,they should have been compensated just as I was last summer when all the sleepers bummed out and I had to ride coach on the Crescent from ATL to WAS.

 

[had8ley]

I've just seen them in magazines but there are some old configurations of sleeper coaches ( from the 1950's) that seem to offer higher efficency that the modern day Viewliner sleeper cars. In the Summer 2008 edition of Classic Trains magazine they ran an entire issue on Pullman and on sleeper cars in general. All configurations of sleeper cars were discussed but the one that caught my eye were the cars with what they called Single bedrooms and Duplex Roomettes. These rooms or roomettes were staggered one high and one low, such that part of each room was below or above an adjacent one. Maximum space utilization was achieved and I believe that each room had a comode/sink. . These were single high cars like on the Viewliners but they did feature high and low rooms with a few steps to reach the upper rooms. In some NYC slumber coaches up to 26 of these could be put in one lightweight car. I just wonder why this old configuration was abandoned in favor of what we now have today.

The Crescent used Slumbercoaches 25-30 years ago. My brother and sister-in-law rode in one overnight from NYP to NOL and said it was similar to old Pullman heavyweights with upper and lower berths at night, and coach-like seating during the day. They had paid for a bedroom, but due to a hurricane-caused service interruption and equipment shortage, the Heritage sleeper to which they were assigned had been replaced with a Slumbercoach. They felt short-changed because the berths were very cramped for dressing/undressing, daytime seating had no privacy, and they were offered no re-imbursement. It was about this same time that Amtrak got rid of Slumbercoaches.

My one quick thought as I rush out the door is that the big problem is that they did not get a reimbursement. I think something fell through the cracks. They were supposed to be reimbursed.

As to being cramped, well, yes that is sort of the point. It offered broom closet space but-----at broom closet prices. That is meant to make it compensate.

Slumbercoaches lasted sometime after that, on into the Amtrak era. Many people did like them, at least if they delberately chose to ride in a small space but at a small cost.

Again,they should have been compensated just as I was last summer when all the sleepers bummed out and I had to ride coach on the Crescent from ATL to WAS.

Bill;

That's a long way to ride in coach when you have a sleeper ticket in your wallet. Just how much did they compensate you? Just curious 'cause we're going to NYP this week-end hopefully in the 10 car.

 

[printman2000]

They have two or three of Amtrak's old slumbercoaches at Dallas' Train Museum. Unfortunately, they were not open. I would love to see inside. I have never seen an image of how those rooms are laid out.

 

[Madbuster]

I slept in a duplex single bedroom on The Canadian two years ago. Mine was the lower room that had my bed roll out from under the room in front/above me. These rooms are smaller than a Amtrak roomette and the day chair is not as soft or comfortable. The in room toilet sticks out in front of you restricting your sitting leg room. However, the bed was MUCH softer and had an actual mattress. Putting away your bed is much easier since you just undo a couple of latches and slide it forward under the room in front of you. I believe their bed pulls down from the wall.

http://www.viarail.ca/en/about-via-rail/ou...au-sleeping-car

Scroll down this link for a day/night configuration diagram.

 

[zephyr17]

I slept in a duplex single bedroom on The Canadian two years ago. Mine was the lower room that had my bed roll out from under the room in front/above me. These rooms are smaller than a Amtrak roomette and the day chair is not as soft or comfortable. The in room toilet sticks out in front of you restricting your sitting leg room. However, the bed was MUCH softer and had an actual mattress. Putting away your bed is much easier since you just undo a couple of latches and slide it forward under the room in front of you. I believe their bed pulls down from the wall.



http://www.viarail.ca/en/about-via-rail/ou...au-sleeping-car

Scroll down this link for a day/night configuration diagram.

A VIA duplex single bedroom was a "duplex roomette" in tradition railroad accomodation terms and is not the same as a duplex slumbercoach. The duplex roomette was a full first class accomodation and was roomier with better bedding than a duplex slumbercoach room. The duplex just denotes the staggered arrangement of the accomodations.

 

[dlagrua]

I slept in a duplex single bedroom on The Canadian two years ago. Mine was the lower room that had my bed roll out from under the room in front/above me. These rooms are smaller than a Amtrak roomette and the day chair is not as soft or comfortable. The in room toilet sticks out in front of you restricting your sitting leg room. However, the bed was MUCH softer and had an actual mattress. Putting away your bed is much easier since you just undo a couple of latches and slide it forward under the room in front of you. I believe their bed pulls down from the wall.

http://www.viarail.ca/en/about-via-rail/ou...au-sleeping-car

Scroll down this link for a day/night configuration diagram.

Yes that website shows the room arrangements that I am refering to. I can only guess that the reason that they are not used today is for the two or three steps up to the upper roomettes. The pictures seem to suggest that there is more room in these than in todays liner roomettes. If I am not mistaken the duplex arrangement (hi-low) made it possible for roomettes to have the same width as the bedrooms. Perhaps they were more cramped but as noted before, the purpose was to offer more sleeping accomodations at attractive prices. The thing that I like most is that the lower roomettes had beds that can be pulled out or pushed back as many times as one wished to do it. Sit in the chair, get tired lie down for an hour or two and then use the chair again. I am wondering what Amtrak is proposing on the next generation of sleepers? They will obviously need to be made by foreigners as without thinking we put Budd and Pullman out of business. Last I read Amtrak was thinking of contracting out to a Spanish company.

 

[Ryan]

You should read the fleet strategy that Amtrak published recently and was extensively discussed here. Many of your questions will be answered.

 

[Bootman4U]

Duplex Roomettes remain in use on VIA #1 and 2 The Canadian..they are in the "Chateau" sleeping car series. Yes, one bed folds down from the wall the way a conventional roomette operates and the other rolls out from underneath as described above. Personally I prefer the non-duplex models which are found in the "Manor" sleeping car series and fortunately there are more of those on the Canadian trains than there are duplexes.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

I've just seen them in magazines but there are some old configurations of sleeper coaches ( from the 1950's) that seem to offer higher efficency that the modern day Viewliner sleeper cars. In the Summer 2008 edition of Classic Trains magazine they ran an entire issue on Pullman and on sleeper cars in general. All configurations of sleeper cars were discussed but the one that caught my eye were the cars with what they called Single bedrooms and Duplex Roomettes. These rooms or roomettes were staggered one high and one low, such that part of each room was below or above an adjacent one. Maximum space utilization was achieved and I believe that each room had a comode/sink. . These were single high cars like on the Viewliners but they did feature high and low rooms with a few steps to reach the upper rooms. In some NYC slumber coaches up to 26 of these could be put in one lightweight car. I just wonder why this old configuration was abandoned in favor of what we now have today.

The Crescent used Slumbercoaches 25-30 years ago. My brother and sister-in-law rode in one overnight from NYP to NOL and said it was similar to old Pullman heavyweights with upper and lower berths at night, and coach-like seating during the day. They had paid for a bedroom, but due to a hurricane-caused service interruption and equipment shortage, the Heritage sleeper to which they were assigned had been replaced with a Slumbercoach. They felt short-changed because the berths were very cramped for dressing/undressing, daytime seating had no privacy, and they were offered no re-imbursement. It was about this same time that Amtrak got rid of Slumbercoaches.

My one quick thought as I rush out the door is that the big problem is that they did not get a reimbursement. I think something fell through the cracks. They were supposed to be reimbursed.

As to being cramped, well, yes that is sort of the point. It offered broom closet space but-----at broom closet prices. That is meant to make it compensate.

Slumbercoaches lasted sometime after that, on into the Amtrak era. Many people did like them, at least if they delberately chose to ride in a small space but at a small cost.

Again,they should have been compensated just as I was last summer when all the sleepers bummed out and I had to ride coach on the Crescent from ATL to WAS.

I have had time to think about this. First, maybe there was no compensation since it was an "act of God" rather than an equipment malfunction.

Secondly, I am begining to wonder if it was an old section sleeper rather than a slumbercoach since there was no privacy (slumbercoaches do have doors). Since you are talking about Southern RR operation rather than Amtrak, I think. The Southern would never on a regular basis used a heavyweight section sleeper on that train. But yet it could have plenty of them in storage for just such an emergency as this

One thing about the old roads, they often did have much more standby equipment than today, though sometimes of dubious qualiy.

 

[Hytec]

I have had time to think about this. First, maybe there was no compensation since it was an "act of God" rather than an equipment malfunction.
Secondly, I am begining to wonder if it was an old section sleeper rather than a slumbercoach since there was no privacy (slumbercoaches do have doors). Since you are talking about Southern RR operation rather than Amtrak, I think. The Southern would never on a regular basis used a heavyweight section sleeper on that train. But yet it could have plenty of them in storage for just such an emergency as this

One thing about the old roads, they often did have much more standby equipment than today, though sometimes of dubious qualiy.

I agree that an "Act of God" caused the problem, Hurricane Gloria specifically. My Brother and sister-in-law were delayed by one day between BOS and NYP by Amtrak having to operate the NEC as Dark Territory by Track Warrant, so Amtrak was hard-pressed to accomodate east coast passengers during those 3-5 days following the storm. I wasn't berating Amtrak, I was only attempting to describe what I remembered how my Sister-in-Law described her night in a Slumbercoach.

BTW, by 1986, Southern had long since gotten out of the passenger service business. The Slumbercoaches assigned to the Crescent were those that Amtrak had inherited from the Santa Fe and had had in storage for many years.

 

[jis]

A VIA duplex single bedroom was a "duplex roomette" in tradition railroad accomodation terms and is not the same as a duplex slumbercoach. The duplex roomette was a full first class accomodation and was roomier with better bedding than a duplex slumbercoach room. The duplex just denotes the staggered arrangement of the accomodations.

That's right. VIA has duplex singles in their Chateau cars. They also have "simplex" singles in their Manor cars. For reasons that I have not been able to articulate even to myself, I prefer the single roomettes (simplex singles) in the Manor cars.

But, I prefer the Amtrak Viewliner Roomettes to either of those two.

 

[zephyr17]

A VIA duplex single bedroom was a "duplex roomette" in tradition railroad accomodation terms and is not the same as a duplex slumbercoach. The duplex roomette was a full first class accomodation and was roomier with better bedding than a duplex slumbercoach room. The duplex just denotes the staggered arrangement of the accomodations.

That's right. VIA has duplex singles in their Chateau cars. They also have "simplex" singles in their Manor cars. For reasons that I have not been able to articulate even to myself, I prefer the single roomettes (simplex singles) in the Manor cars.

But, I prefer the Amtrak Viewliner Roomettes to either of those two.

I've only ridden the Viewliners a couple of times some years ago, so I can't really comment. But I vastly prefer the traditional RR simple roomette on the Manor cars to Superliner economy bedrooms (aka "roomette"). The bed is bigger and has a much better mattress, the mattress is at window level, so you can look straight out while lying in bed at night, instead of up and out like in a superliner. There is more room for luggage, too.

 

[Cho Cho Charlie]

Wow, this is all really interesting. I will have to admit, while on a LD train, I have often killed the hours by tinkering with various accommodation designs, attempting to come up with one that is clearly better than what Amtrak offers today. I have yet to come up with anything that has a clear advantage (same passenger capacity, but with more personal space). My #1 target is to reduce the amount of sq footage used by the hallways (especially by eliminating the "jogs").

However, I don't see how these high/low duplex roomettes are more efficient than a Viewliner roomette. Two of the duplex roomettes appear to take up more car sq footage, than one Viewliner roomette. No?

 

[dlagrua]

Wow, this is all really interesting. I will have to admit, while on a LD train, I have often killed the hours by tinkering with various accommodation designs, attempting to come up with one that is clearly better than what Amtrak offers today. I have yet to come up with anything that has a clear advantage (same passenger capacity, but with more personal space). My #1 target is to reduce the amount of sq footage used by the hallways (especially by eliminating the "jogs").
However, I don't see how these high/low duplex roomettes are more efficient than a Viewliner roomette. Two of the duplex roomettes appear to take up more car sq footage, than one Viewliner roomette. No?

According to what I have read 50's and 60's era sleeper cars had 24 or 26 of these duplex roomettes per car. The NYC redesigned the cars and increaaed the sleeper capacity so that they could offermore afordable prices. The hi/low configuration was on both sides of the car and it did simplify bed storage for the lower room. Part of each room was under the other. The bedjust slid in under the upper room. I hope to see one of these one day and find out more but very few remain, Regardless we will probably never see this room configuration used again.

Throughtout the years sleeping cars have used 1. the Original Pullman Section (the seats that convert to beds with a curtain), 2. the duplex roomette (both sides bed parallel) , 3. duplex single room (one side only bed crossways) , 4.the double bedroom (types A. B. and C.) 5. The compartment (dates from the heavyweight era. similar to todays bedroom but larger)) and 6. the drawing room (the deluxe accomodation on the section car for up to 3 people)). Today five styles are used Bedroom, Roomette, roomette w toilet (Viewliner only), family bedroom and handicapped bedroom.

 

[zephyr17]

Wow, this is all really interesting. I will have to admit, while on a LD train, I have often killed the hours by tinkering with various accommodation designs, attempting to come up with one that is clearly better than what Amtrak offers today. I have yet to come up with anything that has a clear advantage (same passenger capacity, but with more personal space). My #1 target is to reduce the amount of sq footage used by the hallways (especially by eliminating the "jogs").
However, I don't see how these high/low duplex roomettes are more efficient than a Viewliner roomette. Two of the duplex roomettes appear to take up more car sq footage, than one Viewliner roomette. No?

They serve different purposes and were designed with different objectives. Traditional "roomettes" of either stripe (regular or duplex) were designed as private, first class sleeping accomodations for SINGLE travelers. The duplex design was to create more of these private, single traveller spaces in the same amount of room, not to provide the same capacity as having a 2 person accomodation in the same footprint as a roomette. The smallest private accomodation for two travelers in those days was a "Double Bedroom" which is similiar to an Superliner delux bedroom, but a little smaller. The Superliner delux bedroom is somewhere between a Double Bedroom and a Compartment in size. Again, cannot speak authoritatively about Viewliners.

Traditional roomettes were designed and marketed primarily to single business travelers, a market that no longer exists for overnight services in any meaningful sense. Hence, no more single capacity rooms.

If you want your ideas jump started, get hold of the Classic Trains Pullman edition of a couple of years ago. In it they describe all the various sleeping accomodations provided by pullman (sections, roomettes, duplex roomettes, single bedrooms, double bedrooms of the "A,B,C,D" varieties, compartments, drawing rooms).

 

[zephyr17]

Wow, this is all really interesting. I will have to admit, while on a LD train, I have often killed the hours by tinkering with various accommodation designs, attempting to come up with one that is clearly better than what Amtrak offers today. I have yet to come up with anything that has a clear advantage (same passenger capacity, but with more personal space). My #1 target is to reduce the amount of sq footage used by the hallways (especially by eliminating the "jogs").
However, I don't see how these high/low duplex roomettes are more efficient than a Viewliner roomette. Two of the duplex roomettes appear to take up more car sq footage, than one Viewliner roomette. No?

According to what I have read 50's and 60's era sleeper cars had 24 or 26 of these duplex roomettes per car. The NYC redesigned the cars and increaaed the sleeper capacity so that they could offermore afordable prices. The hi/low configuration was on both sides of the car and it did simplify bed storage for the lower room. Part of each room was under the other. The bedjust slid in under the upper room. I hope to see one of these one day and find out more but very few remain, Regardless we will probably never see this room configuration used again.

Throughtout the years sleeping cars have used 1. the Original Pullman Section (the seats that convert to beds with a curtain), 2. the duplex roomette (both sides bed parallel) , 3. duplex single room (one side only bed crossways) , 4.the double bedroom (types A. B. and C.) 5. The compartment (dates from the heavyweight era. similar to todays bedroom but larger)) and 6. the drawing room (the deluxe accomodation on the section car for up to 3 people)). Today five styles are used Bedroom, Roomette, roomette w toilet (Viewliner only), family bedroom and handicapped bedroom.

Drawing rooms were not limited to section cars only. Many postwar all private room car configurations included drawing rooms.

Oh, and I guess we are forgetting the Master Rooms of the Southern and the Pennsy(?).

 

[Long Train Runnin']

Wow, this is all really interesting. I will have to admit, while on a LD train, I have often killed the hours by tinkering with various accommodation designs, attempting to come up with one that is clearly better than what Amtrak offers today. I have yet to come up with anything that has a clear advantage (same passenger capacity, but with more personal space). My #1 target is to reduce the amount of sq footage used by the hallways (especially by eliminating the "jogs").
However, I don't see how these high/low duplex roomettes are more efficient than a Viewliner roomette. Two of the duplex roomettes appear to take up more car sq footage, than one Viewliner roomette. No?

:lol: and Pullman had teams working day and night trying to solve these problems. Its an interesting question, What makes the perfect sleeping car? From a passenger stand point its the room offer the most space and amenities for the lowest price. The railroad (or Pullman) had to create a happy medium where they could offer amenities, but fit the maximum number of rooms or compartments in the car.

IMHO the Viewliner rommette is more more comfortable then the Superliner.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

Wow, this is all really interesting. I will have to admit, while on a LD train, I have often killed the hours by tinkering with various accommodation designs, attempting to come up with one that is clearly better than what Amtrak offers today. I have yet to come up with anything that has a clear advantage (same passenger capacity, but with more personal space). My #1 target is to reduce the amount of sq footage used by the hallways (especially by eliminating the "jogs").
However, I don't see how these high/low duplex roomettes are more efficient than a Viewliner roomette. Two of the duplex roomettes appear to take up more car sq footage, than one Viewliner roomette. No?

According to what I have read 50's and 60's era sleeper cars had 24 or 26 of these duplex roomettes per car. The NYC redesigned the cars and increaaed the sleeper capacity so that they could offermore afordable prices. The hi/low configuration was on both sides of the car and it did simplify bed storage for the lower room. Part of each room was under the other. The bedjust slid in under the upper room. I hope to see one of these one day and find out more but very few remain, Regardless we will probably never see this room configuration used again.

Throughtout the years sleeping cars have used 1. the Original Pullman Section (the seats that convert to beds with a curtain), 2. the duplex roomette (both sides bed parallel) , 3. duplex single room (one side only bed crossways) , 4.the double bedroom (types A. B. and C.) 5. The compartment (dates from the heavyweight era. similar to todays bedroom but larger)) and 6. the drawing room (the deluxe accomodation on the section car for up to 3 people)). Today five styles are used Bedroom, Roomette, roomette w toilet (Viewliner only), family bedroom and handicapped bedroom.

One very rare bird you are missing from pre Amtrak days is the master room. three people and a shower. there were very few showers on trains back then. The one in the master room was for those passengers in that room only.

Also you mention the drawing room as being in the same car as the sections. Actually there were many,many floor plans, such as 8 section 5 DBR, 10 sec 1 compt dr, 6 compart 5 drawing room,the list and the possible combinations goes on and on and on.

 

[Gingee]

Speaking of different train accomodations, has anyone seen the old I Love Lucy movie where they are going on a train? Looks like there is a long walking area (wide) and just bunk like beds with curtains. Has anyone ever been on a train like that or is it mainly a Hollywood type train?

 

[MrFSS]

Speaking of different train accommodations, has anyone seen the old I Love Lucy movie where they are going on a train? Looks like there is a long walking area (wide) and just bunk like beds with curtains. Has anyone ever been on a train like that or is it mainly a Hollywood type train?

Those are sections, or lower and upper berths. Only The Canadian still has them on their train.

 

[dlagrua]

Its nice to reminisce about the evolution of sleeping cars and how the advent of air travel has influenced the changes. Its seems today Amtrak is content to standardize mainly on two basic types of accomodations; the bedroom and the roomette. I just hope that on the next generation of sleepers we still have all of the amenitites and conveniences that we do today. For instance the toilet and sink in the Viewliner roomettes is a real convenience, especillay when you have to go in the middle of the night. The shower in the bedrooms is also a convenience and we always use it, preferring to arrive fresh and dresssed for the day. We appreciate the extra privacy of the bedrooms as you need not wear clothes when exiting the shower and can get dressed sitting on the sofa in the room.

As to how rail travel will change when the next generation of sleepers is bought and delivered we don't know but we can only hope that the accomodations will still be reasonably comfortable and not be downgraded. Does anyone know if any plans for the next generation sleeper cars exist?

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

I've just seen them in magazines but there are some old configurations of sleeper coaches ( from the 1950's) that seem to offer higher efficency that the modern day Viewliner sleeper cars. In the Summer 2008 edition of Classic Trains magazine they ran an entire issue on Pullman and on sleeper cars in general. All configurations of sleeper cars were discussed but the one that caught my eye were the cars with what they called Single bedrooms and Duplex Roomettes. These rooms or roomettes were staggered one high and one low, such that part of each room was below or above an adjacent one. Maximum space utilization was achieved and I believe that each room had a comode/sink. . These were single high cars like on the Viewliners but they did feature high and low rooms with a few steps to reach the upper rooms. In some NYC slumber coaches up to 26 of these could be put in one lightweight car. I just wonder why this old configuration was abandoned in favor of what we now have today.

The Crescent used Slumbercoaches 25-30 years ago. My brother and sister-in-law rode in one overnight from NYP to NOL and said it was similar to old Pullman heavyweights with upper and lower berths at night, and coach-like seating during the day. They had paid for a bedroom, but due to a hurricane-caused service interruption and equipment shortage, the Heritage sleeper to which they were assigned had been replaced with a Slumbercoach. They felt short-changed because the berths were very cramped for dressing/undressing, daytime seating had no privacy, and they were offered no re-imbursement. It was about this same time that Amtrak got rid of Slumbercoaches.

My one quick thought as I rush out the door is that the big problem is that they did not get a reimbursement. I think something fell through the cracks. They were supposed to be reimbursed.

As to being cramped, well, yes that is sort of the point. It offered broom closet space but-----at broom closet prices. That is meant to make it compensate.

Slumbercoaches lasted sometime after that, on into the Amtrak era. Many people did like them, at least if they delberately chose to ride in a small space but at a small cost.

Again,they should have been compensated just as I was last summer when all the sleepers bummed out and I had to ride coach on the Crescent from ATL to WAS.

Bill;

That's a long way to ride in coach when you have a sleeper ticket in your wallet. Just how much did they compensate you? Just curious 'cause we're going to NYP this week-end hopefully in the 10 car.

Sorry Jay .your question got lost in the responses. What J got was a voucher for the difference between coach and sleeper. Have long since applied it. I do not remember if I was offered anything else, such as cash back.

 

[Hytec]

Speaking of different train accomodations, has anyone seen the old I Love Lucy movie where they are going on a train? Looks like there is a long walking area (wide) and just bunk like beds with curtains. Has anyone ever been on a train like that or is it mainly a Hollywood type train?

Yes, what you saw was a real pre-WWII heavyweight Pullman sleeping car, I remember them well. The car had open opposed seating during the day, and upper and lower berths separated by heavy curtains at night for sleeping. The lower berths were formed by rolling the opposing seats down and flat to form a mattress. The upper berths were folded down from the ceiling wall area above the windows.

This link shows a Pullman Sleeper from the early 1900s in its daytime configuration. You can see the upper berths folded up against the ceiling/wall area above the windows. I rode overnight in several Pullman Sleepers as a child and remember them with mixed feelings...1) they were comfortable for sitting and sleeping, but 2) the upper berths were very cramped for putting on your clothes the next morning.