Years ago while traveling the crescent the roomettes were different thant todays. It only accomodated one as I recall, the bed folding down over the toilet. Does anyone have any pics of those, what kind of car were they known as? I also remember upgrading from coach to slumbercoach, anyone have info and or pics of these cars?
That was "Heritage" fleet equipment inherited from the private railroads. The railroads had a wide variety of different configurations of sleeping cars, but Amtrak fairly quickly whittled it down and only really kept the "10-6", 10 roomettes, 6 double bedrooms. The main builders of 10-6 sleepers were Pullman-Standard and Budd. I don't know if other builders like ACF built many, if any, sleepers. In fact, Budd building sleeping cars and Pullman requiring exhoribitant fees to operate and staff them is what caused the anti-trust case that broke the Pullman, Inc up into a car building company, Pullman-Standard, and spun the operating division into a separate company, Pullman Company, which was owned by a consortium of railroads. The Pullman Company ceased operations on 12/31/1968, with the railroads themselves taking over operations of the remaining sleeping car lines at that time. Pullman-Standard continued building both freight and passenger cars until the 1981. The original Superliners were the last cars Pullman-Standard built, so in a technical sense, Superliner Is are "Pullmans".
What is now called a "roomette" was only recently named that. When the Superliner fleet was first acquired, and for years afterwards, what is now a "roomette" was the "economy bedroom" (note the class code on Amtrak tickets is still "EB"), and the "Bedroom" was a "Delux Bedroom". Then in the 90's sometime, they renamed the "economy bedroom" to "standard bedroom" and the "delux bedroom" was still a "delux bedroom". Part of the reason, I think, were the charges for economy bedrooms was not exactly "economical". When the Viewliners were acquired, they used the same nomenclature.
The change to the current nominclature was only a few years ago, less than 5 I think. Only then did the "economy/standard bedroom" become a "roomette", and the "delux bedroom" become a "bedroom". I don't consider the economy bedroom to be the equal of the classic roomette, which had bathroom facilities and a bigger bed with a real mattress. Although as a name, "roomette" does make more sense than (not very) economy bedroom. And standard bedroom was confusing with delux bedroom. Roomette and Bedroom are clearer, and Roomette is classic (though relatively recent, from the 1930s) railroad terminology.
Original streamliner equipment is still in service on VIA (from Canadian Pacific's huge 1955 order from Budd to create "The Canadian") . You can experience a "real" roomette on the Canadian, although recently they renamed it "Cabin for 1", but it is a real, honest to god roomette. It still offers sections, too (go watch "Some Like It Hot" if you don't know what a section is).
BTW-you could not get to the toilet (aka "combolette") in a roomette with the bed down. In most roomettes, the bed came down from the wall like a Murphy bed, and the toilet was under the foot of the bed. However, unlike Viewliners, there was a "public" restroom in almost all car types that you could use if nature called.
