Dining Car Layouts

[Fuller Road]

I have a question that I have had for a while, and I hope someone has an answer:

On a classic dining car, why is the galley always on the same side of the car?  That is, when you enter the car from the galley end, the galley section is to the right, and the corridor to the dining section is to the left.  I never have seen it different.  Does anyone know why, aside from the fact Pullman did a lot of cookie-cutter layouts?

[KCSfan]

At terminals where the diner was initially stocked, and at stops enroute where it was restocked, the station platform would normally be on the right hand side of the train (looking forward). This enabled food supplies, ice, etc. for the diner to be loaded directly into the galley from baggage carts on the platform. Similarly garbage would be unloaded from the galley directly onto a baggage cart. The galley location you describe enabled this to be done without interference to passengers in the interior passageway which ran alongside the galley.

[Fuller Road]

So the dining section was to the front of the train, and the galley to the rear?  I thought the reverse was true, so sleeping car passengers would not have to squeeze by the galley.

[agentatascadero]

At terminals where the diner was initially stocked, and at stops enroute where it was restocked, the station platform would normally be on the right hand side of the train (looking forward). This enabled food supplies, ice, etc. for the diner to be loaded directly into the galley from baggage carts on the platform. Similarly garbage would be unloaded from the galley directly onto a baggage cart. The galley location you describe enabled this to be done without interference to passengers in the interior passageway which ran alongside the galley.

                 KCSFan, This, while logical and all, works only in one direction....when the train is on the return trip, the station is now on the left side, IF the train is turned at terminals, and nearly all were...in those days.  AA

[Kevin C. Smith]

I seem to recall being told-many years ago-that diners were run with the galley end trailing to keep cooking smells and heat from being drawn into the dining area. While I wouldn't expect this to make much difference for air conditioned equipment, it could have been a valid practice for non a/c cars.

[prbharris]

IF the train is turned at terminals, and nearly all were...in those days.  AA

Wow  ... I had wondered how many long distance trains were turned in the US. Was this done on triangles?

This is completely unknown in the UK - the only two trains that had observation cars had to have special arrangements to put the Observation car on a turntable, like a steam loco. This happened at Waterloo and at Ilfracombe, Devon for the Devon Belle that ran late 1940's to 1960's. All other trains run end-to-end so that direction was and is changed at terminals [or even half way through a journey where through trains go in and out of stub-end terminals like Derby or Gloucester].

Presumably the observation cars on trains like the Lark and Daylight were turned as part of a complete train, then?

Peter Harris

[Anonymous]

I wasn't aware that station platforms had anything to do with it.In the fifties most dining cars had the kitchen end forward. Ive been told that because most trains carried Pullmans on the rear and the diner usually separated the Pullmans from the coaches the Pullman passengers did not have to squeeze along the narrow aisle next to the warm galley.

Having said allof this can anyone think of  regular trains which normally carried the diner with kitchen end to the rear?

  

[Anonymous]

Peter, entire trains were 'wyed' to get them turned around.  At the south end of Chicago Union Station, this was easy as the Pennsylvania tracks headed due south and the Burlington tracks turned west. There was also a connection from the Burlington tracks to the south bound Penssy tracks. So a train would back out onto the Burlington tracks, then head south onto the Pennsy, and then back into the station.  Of course somewhere during these movements, the train would be pulled into a yard, refueled, cleaned, and restocked.

Union in Chicago was one of the VERY few stations that had a platform on both sides of the train, one side for passengers, the other - for baggage and mail carts with a ramp leading down into the depot's basement.  

Art

 

   

[BR60103]

Peter: at Toronto, both railroads had reverse loops. I remember the CNR one as it lasted longer. It ran around the back of the roundhouse and seemed to have two different coach yards inside it.The Canadian was backed around it every day for years, then they found two parallel divisions that went around a lake 60 miles north and the train was just run straight through the station. (Imagine the Flying Scotsman continuing through Waverley station and the joining the LNER southbound at Newcastle).

[daveklepper]

Sunnyside Yard in Queens New York has a loop working today and still used by Amtrak.   Nearly all trains from the south and west use the loop, even mu trains that don't need it.  Exceptions might be Jersey Transit push-pulls with AEM-7's but I have no direct experience with these trains.