A prior post here by a young man with some specific questions about train travel in 1937 got me to thinking. I have a million questions, several hundred thousand of which have probably been answered here or similar posts, but just a couple that intrigue me are below.
In 1937, how likely is it that the "name" train or kind of through trains you mentioned would have had air-conditioning? Would some public areas like diners have had air-conditioning before it became the norm for coaches? For that matter, were Pullman cars in this era (l-d service) more likely to have had air-conditioning than the coaches?
Was there a big shift to air-conditioned coaches between 1937 and 1942, by which time [I'm only guessing] manfacture of passenger coaches was restricted or curtailed by the War Effort? I'm asking because I've seen pictures taken at North Platte, NE during the canteen effort during WWII of solidiers during WWII -- some portray the soldiers accepting coffee and donuts thru open train windows but IIRC I've seen other photos taken there that depicted coaches with sealed windows. That was about five or more years later, though. Would the major carriers have made much of a shift from non-air-conditioned coaches to the air-conditioned time in the five years between 1937 then? Were the western lines ahead of the eastern lines in terms of this implementation?
BTW did the shift to air-conditioning necessitate the changing of exterior window arrangement in coaches from one window + shade per row to a more contemporary standard of one window with one shade for every two tows. I'm guessing at that because whenever I see pictures of sealed train windows, they have the every-two-row arrangement but when I see the window-per-row congifuration, they seem to have openable windows. E.g., in December at the NC State Rwy Museum in Spencer, we passsengers on the round-the-park tour had the choice of one of two coaches: the one with single, openable windows was built in 1923, they told us; and the one with sealed windows, one to every two rows, entered service in 1937 -- and it was air-conditioned. they said.
Years ago I remember some older friends' reminiscing about a train on PRR during the Forties called "The Pacemaker," which I believe ran from NY/Penna to Chicago. It was an all-coach train, and my friends, one of whom was a pass-ridign PRR employee, said he preferred it to the more typical sleeper + diner + coaches train because the food-and-beverage cars were more attunded to the needs of coach travelers than the Pullman set. He said some of those trains would not let coach passengers into the formal, white-linen diner! Was there much of that kind of discrimination?
If an upper berth was the very cheapest kind of Pullman travel available, and the lower second-cheapest, how much did a section cost in relation to the single-passenger rooms of that time (did they already have "roomettes" pre World War II?)
As always, references to other sites and books are much appreciated.
Wow! That's enuf for now!
al smalling
I will take a stab at some of your questions. All streamlined trains were AC in 1937 and by the outbreak of WW II on December 7, 1941 many of the older heavyweight cars particularly Pullmans and Dining cars had received AC. Certain areas of the country were slower to receive AC than others. The Southeast and New England were among the last to have fully AC equipped trains. The former AC equipped many of their trains due to the weather while the latter was slower to equip their trains with AC due also to the weather. The majority of AC equipped cars at the outbreak of WW II were Ice activated except for the streamlined cars.
Trains like the PRR coach streamliner were fully AC equipped as were the B&O Columbian and other all Coach streamliners in the east and were commonly referred to as economy trains as was the Challengerand Scout in the west to name two. These trains in the west not only carried coaches but also tourist sleeping cars 14 section or 16 section sleeping cars owned and operated by the Pullman Company but carried the names of those particular trains. The cars were all AC equipped in those trains and as demand for those Western trains grew more and more cars were AC equippped and added to them. Even streamlined cars were added and many of those western trains ran in multiple sections. Give the people a taste of comfort along with AC and they rode the trains. The larger roads AC equipped their heavyweight trains faster than the smaller roads or those roads that had just recovered from the Great depression.
Many regulary scheduled trains did not receive AC equipped cars until after WW II as AC was not considered a necessity by the War Department.
Hope this helps.
al-in-chgo wrote: BTW did the shift to air-conditioning necessitate the changing of exterior window arrangement in coaches from one window + shade per row to a more contemporary standard of one window with one shade for every two tows. No, it was not necessary. When heavyweight cars received A/C they often retained their former window arrangement. Others which were modernized to include reclining seats in addition to A/C frequently received wider windows as well. Years ago I remember some older friends' reminiscing about a train on PRR during the Forties called "The Pacemaker," which I believe ran from NY/Penna to Chicago. It was an all-coach train, and my friends, one of whom was a pass-ridign PRR employee, said he preferred it to the more typical sleeper + diner + coaches train because the food-and-beverage cars were more attunded to the needs of coach travelers than the Pullman set. He said some of those trains would not let coach passengers into the formal, white-linen diner! Was there much of that kind of discrimination? Trains which carried say 5, 6 or more Pullmans plus coaches often had two diners. One would be located in the midst of the Pullmans and by its location would primarily serve the Pullman passengers. The other would be located among the coaches. If the train carried only one diner it would usually be located between the coaches and the Pullmans and would serve both coach and first class passengers. If an upper berth was the very cheapest kind of Pullman travel available, and the lower second-cheapest, how much did a section cost in relation to the single-passenger rooms of that time (did they already have "roomettes" pre World War II?)Open sections referred to the upper and lower berths which at night had only a heavy curtain to provide privacy and enclose them from the center aisle of the car. Prior to the advent of roomettes there were no single passenger rooms. All of the Pullman accomodations other than the open sections (double bedrooms, compartments and drawing rooms) had berths for at least two passengers. IIRC the Pullman charge for a double bedroom was about the same as the charge for two open section lowers. The Pullman fare for a compartment was higher than for a DBR and even more for a drawing room. Of course each Pullman passenger also had to have a first class railroad ticket. A single passenger occupying a DBR, compartment or drawing room may have needed two first class rail tickets; I just don't recall the specifics on this point.I believe that some of the pre-WW II streamlined Pullmans had roomettes but I'm not sure of this. I know that none of the heavyweight Pullman cars had them.By the way fares on tourist sleepers were lower than those on standard Pullmans. One of the last trains to regularly carry such cars was the Milw Road's Columbian whose consist included a tourist sleeper until the mid-1950's. Even after that time tourist sleepers were used occasionally in economy services such as Boy Scout Specials, etc.Mark
BTW did the shift to air-conditioning necessitate the changing of exterior window arrangement in coaches from one window + shade per row to a more contemporary standard of one window with one shade for every two tows.
No, it was not necessary. When heavyweight cars received A/C they often retained their former window arrangement. Others which were modernized to include reclining seats in addition to A/C frequently received wider windows as well.
Trains which carried say 5, 6 or more Pullmans plus coaches often had two diners. One would be located in the midst of the Pullmans and by its location would primarily serve the Pullman passengers. The other would be located among the coaches. If the train carried only one diner it would usually be located between the coaches and the Pullmans and would serve both coach and first class passengers.
Open sections referred to the upper and lower berths which at night had only a heavy curtain to provide privacy and enclose them from the center aisle of the car. Prior to the advent of roomettes there were no single passenger rooms. All of the Pullman accomodations other than the open sections (double bedrooms, compartments and drawing rooms) had berths for at least two passengers. IIRC the Pullman charge for a double bedroom was about the same as the charge for two open section lowers. The Pullman fare for a compartment was higher than for a DBR and even more for a drawing room. Of course each Pullman passenger also had to have a first class railroad ticket. A single passenger occupying a DBR, compartment or drawing room may have needed two first class rail tickets; I just don't recall the specifics on this point.
I believe that some of the pre-WW II streamlined Pullmans had roomettes but I'm not sure of this. I know that none of the heavyweight Pullman cars had them.
By the way fares on tourist sleepers were lower than those on standard Pullmans. One of the last trains to regularly carry such cars was the Milw Road's Columbian whose consist included a tourist sleeper until the mid-1950's. Even after that time tourist sleepers were used occasionally in economy services such as Boy Scout Specials, etc.
Mark
Ice-activated A/C goes back to the 1920's if not earlier, but generally it wasn't until mechanical A/C came in around 1930 that there was a real push to add air conditioning to existing cars. (As someone noted, the new streamliners of the '30's were all air-conditioned as built.) I just finished reading a book on the NYC's 20th Century Ltd., the author noted in the captions to the pics at one point about how in a picture of the train in 1930 there are no air-conditioned cars (none of the heavyweights have the raised roofs indicating A/C duct work), but when you look at pics just before the train was streamlined in 1938, most all the cars had A/C. Generally the only exterior changes were to the roof, the windows would remain the same.
As for the dining car, it depends on the railroad. Generally railroads used the dining car as a buffer, a typical train might be Baggage-Coach-Coach-Diner-Pullman-Pullman-Observation. Often coach passengers would be restricted to the coaches and diner, keeping them separate from the First Class passengers in the Pullmans (who had paid considerably more fare). However, some roads restricted the dining car to first-class passengers, and had a cafe-lounge car or something similar for the coach passengers. I'm sure part of it was just practical, a passenger staying overnight on the train in Pullman accomodations would be more likely to want a full course dinner or breakfast, whereas a 'shorthaul' coach passenger who might only be on the train for 5-6 hours would maybe just want a sandwich and coffee.
BTW it was the same with parlor cars, lounge cars or observation cars, some roads let anyone use them, some reserved them for first-class passengers only.
al-in-chgo wrote: Would some public areas like diners have had air-conditioning before it became the norm for coaches? For that matter, were Pullman cars in this era (l-d service) more likely to have had air-conditioning than the coaches?
Keep in mind what was happening with passenger trains overall in the late 1920's-late 1930's. American Railroads were seeing declining passenger traffic starting in the mid-1920's because of increasing use of automobiles for short trips. After the stock market crash in 1929 and the resulting Great Depression, passenger traffic levels declined even further. Air-conditioning was seen as a tool to make passenger train travel more desirable again for those who could afford to travel. Since capital dollars were scarce, most railroads initially focused on air conditioning "feature" cars, such as dining cars and lounge cars, since revenues that these cars produced were made during the actual trip, as opposed to coaches and sleeping cars, where revenues were made before the service was provided. The assumption was that offering AC diners and lounges were an enticement for passengers to visit them and spend money in them. Pullman started a systematic program to install AC equipment in sleeping cars and the railroads started installing AC in coaches as capital became available.
Another factor for installing AC in coaches was the trend to focus on the coach passenger with upgraded coach accomodations and all-coach trains in the 1930's. Before this, the coach trade was tolerated, resulting in what can be described as a basic service of a place to sit and bathroom accomodations. With the coming of the stock market crash and economic depression, a lot of coach traffic disappeared. Also a lot of Pullman traffic shifted down to coach accomodations because of cost. In the mid-1930's railroads found out that providing upgraded coach accomodations, schedules and amentities for the coach passenger proved to be very profitable. As a result, you saw the slew of all-coach economy trains across the country. Offering AC coaches became a requirement to appeal to the coach passenger.
al-in-chgo wrote:BTW did the shift to air-conditioning necessitate the changing of exterior window arrangement in coaches from one window + shade per row to a more contemporary standard of one window with one shade for every two tows.
Acutally, the shift to air-conditioning ALLOWED larger coach windows. This was seen by some railroads as an enhancement in coach accomodations. Although most railroads utlized coaches with the 2-seat-row-per-window arrangement, some railroads, notably the Milwaukee Road and Union Pacific, stuck with the one-window-per-seat arrangement for their streamlined equipment.
al-in-chgo wrote:Years ago I remember some older friends' reminiscing about a train on PRR during the Forties called "The Pacemaker," which I believe ran from NY/Penna to Chicago. It was an all-coach train, and my friends, one of whom was a pass-ridign PRR employee, said he preferred it to the more typical sleeper + diner + coaches train because the food-and-beverage cars were more attunded to the needs of coach travelers than the Pullman set. He said some of those trains would not let coach passengers into the formal, white-linen diner! Was there much of that kind of discrimination?
Actually, the train was called the Trail Blazer. The Pacemaker was the NYC's all coach NY-Chicago train.
As for the coach passenger discrimination in the dining car, don't forget that all of the deluxe trains that existed up to 1930 were all-Pullman and had accomodations that appealed to that class of passenger. If you saw the film Titanic, you saw the economic and social stratification of the passengers. If you bought "first-class" passage, you paid more but in return you got "first-class" accomodations and amenities in a "first-class" environment. The same occured with second-class and steerage - they each had their own type of accomodations and environment. The same principle applied with passenger train travel. This class and social stratification on passenger trains began breaking down with the onset of the Great Depression. In the ecomonic reality of the times, railroads needed revenue from any type of passenger. Of course, the stratification did not disappear overnight, and lasted up to Amtrak on certain trains (i.e. the Super Chief), but the practice of excluding coach passengers from diners was a reflection of the times.
KCSfan wrote: Open sections referred to the upper and lower berths which at night had only a heavy curtain to provide privacy and enclose them from the center aisle of the car. Prior to the advent of roomettes there were no single passenger rooms. I believe that some of the pre-WW II streamlined Pullmans had roomettes but I'm not sure of this. I know that none of the heavyweight Pullman cars had them.
Not true, there are examples of heavyweight Pullmans having single room accomodations. Three examples are:
- a 14 Single Bedroom car,
- a 2 Compartment, 3 Single Bedroom, 1 Drawing Room with Sun Room car,
- a 16 Duplex Single Room car.
Admittedly, the single bedroom accomodation was not that common, but they did exist.
As for the roomette, this type of accomodation was introduced in 1937 and a number of prewar sleepers did have this room type.
After WWII, a couple of heavyweight sleepers were rebuilt with roomette accomodations, but since Pullman ridership was decreasing and there was enough lightweight sleeping cars available, the number of heavyweight sleepers having roomette accomodations are small.
A few corrections, please:
The Pacemaker was a New York Central NY - Chi. overnight coach streamliner, on a 17 hour schedule. The competitive train on the Pennsy was the Trail Blazer. I rode the Trail Blazer several times and avoided the Pacemaker, because the 44-seat Juniata-built coaches on the Pennsy were more comfortable and reclined more toward a bed than the 52 and 54 seat Budd NYC coaches on the Pacemaker. Sometime after the Pacemaker was discontinued, long before the Century was discontinued, and its coach equipment combined into another train, possibly the Commodore Vanderbilt or whatever, coach and sleeper, the Pacemaker name was revised for a fast 24 hour merchandize freight train between Manhattan and Chicago.
Ice air conditioning was introduced in a major effort on Pullman cars in the 20's and some railroads, like the C&O at some time later, adapted it for heavyweight passenger cars. The earliest form of ice air conditioning on Pullmans did not result in any appreciable difference externally. The ice bunkers were under the cars, at the edge where they could be refulled, ducts near cleristory openings brought air to blowers and air was returned to the sections and rooms by other narrow ducts. In addition, each room and section had a small fan at the outlet of the duct, and this could be adjusted either in steps or in some installation a continuous "volume control". When the local fan wasn't activated, the cooling was only slight. By the 1930's I believe all Pullman cars had at least this form of primitive air conditioning. At least all first class Pullmans as opposed to tourist sleepers. On the typical heavyweight limited train of the 30's, the sleepers and diners and lounge car were air-conditioned. but not the coaches. The B&O and C&O were pioneers in introducing air conditioning to coaches. The "American Flyers", the 8200 series lightweight coaches of around 1936 brought coach air-conditioning to the New Haven, and this embarrased the New York Central into air-condidtioning some heavyweights on long distance trains at the same time as building and buying its first air-conditioned streamliners. As the old Pennsy P-70's were rebuilt and modernized, they were air conditioned, and during WWII most NY - Wshington trains had a mixture of air-conditioned and non-air-conditioned coaches.
ZephyrOverland wrote: KCSfan wrote: Open sections referred to the upper and lower berths which at night had only a heavy curtain to provide privacy and enclose them from the center aisle of the car. Prior to the advent of roomettes there were no single passenger rooms. I believe that some of the pre-WW II streamlined Pullmans had roomettes but I'm not sure of this. I know that none of the heavyweight Pullman cars had them.Not true, there are examples of heavyweight Pullmans having single room accomodations. Three examples are:- a 14 Single Bedroom car,- a 2 Compartment, 3 Single Bedroom, 1 Drawing Room with Sun Room car, - a 16 Duplex Single Room car.Admittedly, the single bedroom accomodation was not that common, but they did exist. As for the roomette, this type of accomodation was introduced in 1937 and a number of prewar sleepers did have this room type.After WWII, a couple of heavyweight sleepers were rebuilt with roomette accomodations, but since Pullman ridership was decreasing and there was enough lightweight sleeping cars available, the number of heavyweight sleepers having roomette accomodations are small.
Of course you are right and thanks for the correction Zephyr. I was thinking only of the Pullmans I had actually ridden in and completely overlooked the all room cars that ran on trains such as the Broadway, 20th Century and Panama Limiteds, the Orange Blossom Special, etc. That's one of the troubles with reaching my advanced age, I've forgotten half of what I once knew.
One thing to remember is that steam engines produce a fine cloud of coal dust that gets on everything. Last fall we rode behind Milwaukee 261 and the CP Royal Hudson along the Mississippi River. A couple of times I went to the open-door baggage cars and stuck my head out and took some video. In just 5-10 minutes my glasses (and face) were noticeably covered with fine black powder. When riding in a non-AC passenger car on a warm day, everyone would get covered with that dirty black coal dust. (As one old ballplayer once said, staying in a Pullman berth in the summer you had the choice of roasting or opening the window and waking up covered in soot.) So AC not only made it more comfortable on a hot day, but eliminated the soot problem...which was another draw for potential riders.
About the class thing, keep in mind the larger railroads in particular had different trains that catered to different customers. NYC's 20th-Century Ltd. was an extra-fare train that catered to NY and Chicago businessmen with all Pullman service, excellent dining facilities etc. Someone with less money and/or not on a company expense account had a choice of several cheaper trains that had good accomodations but were maybe a little slower, made more stops, and had a mix of coach seating and sleeping cars.
BTW It's hard now to fathom the number of trains around in 1937; IIRC I read that around that time Grand Central Terminal in NY served 500 trains a day - not sure if that was counting commuter trains or not.
The ball player was either speaking about an exceptionally hot day when the primitive ice air conditioning could not keep up, and there were many of those days, or perhaps the ball players' special train did not get the ice servicing that was required. (Like putting new ice into the bunkers on NY - Florida trains in Florence (ACL) and Hamlet (SAL). Usually Pollmans were OK. As for coaches, depended to some extent on the type of coal used:
Miss Snow alights, her frock still white, she took the road of anthracite. (Phoebe Snow)
The Lackawanna use hard, anthrecite, coal, while other northeast railroads used betuminous, soft coal.
Dave, I think he was referring to the days when even Pullmans were not air conditioned - the time even prior to ice cooled cars. Imagine how sweltering it must have been on a hot summer night in an upper berth where you didn't even have a window to open.
"Said Phoebe Snow about to go upon a trip to Buffalo, my gown stays white both day and night upon the road of anthracite."
KCSfan wrote: Dave, I think he was referring to the days when even Pullmans were not air conditioned - the time even prior to ice cooled cars. Imagine how sweltering it must have been on a hot summer night in an upper berth where you didn't even have a window to open."Said Phoebe Snow about to go upon a trip to Buffalo, my gown stays white both day and night upon the road of anthracite."Mark
Slight variation:
"I won my fame and wide acclaim / for Lackawanna's splendid name /
by keeping bright and snowy white / upon the road of anthracite."
(Poem attributed to Phoebe Snow, fictional mascot of Lackawanna, ca. 1910 IIRC.)
I can personally vouch for the soot incursions.
In late August 1945, on leave from the U.S. Army Air Corps. I boarded a train at midnight from Oakland to Chicago, enroute to New York. I as wearing my suntan uniform. On arival in Chicago, I was soot from head to foot. I transferred the the NYC and sat down next to a gorgeous young lady. When the train pulled out I went to the men's room and washed, shaved and changed into a clean uniform anticipating a wonderful new acquaintenship. I had just goten back into my seat when the conductor hollered Next stop Gary, Gary, Indiana. She got up and got off at Gary. At least I had the two seats to myself all the way to GCT.
Two weeks later, I boarded a PRR P-70 coach at Penn station enroute to Biloxi, MS. I woke up the next morning on the Albany, West Point and Georgia RR somewhere in Kentucky. No girl this time, but soot from head to foot.
An even better way to get your soot and ash was to ride the engine. In December of '70, the Southern moved its two Consolidations (722 & 630) from Atlanta to Birmingham so they could be shopped during the winter. The Atlanta chapter of the NRHS sponsored a roundtrip excursion (the cars returned to Atlanta on the Southern Crescent). Several other members of the Birmingham chapter and I went over to Atlanta the day before on the Southern Crescent. On the way, I was talking with the engineer who was to run the lead engine, and asked him about my riding with him. He told me that he was not the one to decide.
The next day, we stopped in Anniston (65 miles out from Birmingham) to take coal and water. The engineer saw me on the ground by the engine, and motioned to me to come on up. Needless to say, I joined the group in the cab--the engineer, two firemen, and the wife of Southern's man in charge of the steam program, who was sitting on the fireman's box. The man in charge (right now, I cannot recall his name) stood in the gangway all the way into Birmingham. I commented, favorably, on the lady's tan makeup, and she got back at me when we arrived in Birmingham--"Your mother wouldn't recognize you."
The engineer did look out for all on the engine just before we went into the Cook Springs tunnel--he closed the throttle, and reopened it after we had passed through.
Johnny
One final point. The all coach PRR train was the Trail Blazer. The Pacemaker was the all coach New York Central train. The PRR train was introduced about the time the all Pullman Broadway (and the NYC 20th Century) were introduced. The NYC train may have been a heavyweight already in operation that did not get streamlined until after WWII. I am unsure of this. After the Pacemaker was consolidated into the Commodore Vanderbilt, which had both coaches and sleepers, the Pacemaker name was used for a 24hour fast freight New YOrk Chicago via the NYC, and specially lettered Pacemaker boxcars were introduced.
And there were certain runs where ice was simply not available for the ice airconditioning Pullmans, and those runs only had limited forced air, not very comfortable in the hot summer.
daveklepper wrote: The ball player was either speaking about an exceptionally hot day when the primitive ice air conditioning could not keep up, and there were many of those days, or perhaps the ball players' special train did not get the ice servicing that was required. (Like putting new ice into the bunkers on NY - Florida trains in Florence (ACL) and Hamlet (SAL). Usually Pollmans were OK. As for coaches, depended to some extent on the type of coal used:Miss Snow alights, her frock still white, she took the road of anthracite. (Phoebe Snow)The Lackawanna use hard, anthrecite, coal, while other northeast railroads used betuminous, soft coal.
The ballplayer in question retired before A/C was used on passenger trains...it's from "The Glory of Their Times" by Lawrence Ritter who interviewed ballplayers who had played as far back as the 1890's. Also, teams travelled on regular trains, not on specials.
p.s. it's "anthracite" and "bituminous". FWIW the disease anthrax comes from the same root word as anthracite, because the sores the illness causes on the body resemble lumps of black coal.
Incidentally there was a horse named Anthracite. Didn't run far but he walked for blocks.
Login, or register today to interact in our online community, comment on articles, receive our newsletter, manage your account online and more!
Get the Classic Trains twice-monthly newsletter