At the outset I'll state that this message refers only to straight-back coach travel on long distance not commuter trains. My first ride on a long distance train was taken in 1942 (or maybe '43) and over the years that followed I rode many trains on many different roads. Fortunately the vast majority of my coach trips were in streamlined lightweight or at least moderized heavyweight cars with reclining seats. However, on three occasions I had the dubious "pleasure" of riding in old coaches with straight-back seats upholstered in IIRC mohair.
The first and longest of these trips was around 1949 when I rode the ACL's local from Jacksonville to Tampa. I had come from Chicago on one of the three Florida streaminers which arrived too late in Jacksonville for the ACL to hold the West Coast Champion which I had expected to ride on to Tampa. This left me no choice but to ride the local train which consisted of a few head end cars and two old straight-back coaches. The trip took most of the day and my lunch was a stale ham and cheese sandwich washed down with a coke purchased from a "news butcher" who went through the train during its rather long station stop in Orlando. This was definitely a trip to be remembered only because of its duration and discomfort.
My next and shortest trip in a straight-back coach was on the IC from Champaign to Chicago around 1954. Back in those days the IC ran special trains for Univ.of Illinois students at the Christmas holidays, spring breaks and at the end of the school year and also for Chicagoans going to Uof I home football games. As I recall the train consisted of about 10 old straight-back coaches which smelled musty because they likely spent most of their days stored in some coach yard and were called into service only for such special runs. Fortunately the trip took only a little over two hours because the specials ran pretty fast and stopped only at Kankakee before reaching Chicago.
My last such trip was on the SL-SF in the winter of 1955 from Ft. Leonard Wood, MO to St. Louis. The Frisco ran a special train of old coaches on the branch from Ft. Leonard Wood for GI's going on Christmas leave. At Newburg the cars were coupled to the daily local train that ran from there to St. Louis. The trip took the better part of six hours and was I ever glad to get to StL in time to catch the IC's streamlined Daylight at 4:45 pm and travel on to Chicago in comfort. Once on board the Daylight I headed straight to the observation lounge before hitting the diner and had a couple of stiff drinks to help forget the ordeal of spending the better part of the day's ride In a straight-back seat.
I hope some of you will share some of your similar experiences.
Mark
Mark...great stuff.
My worst trip in a straight back seat was on Missouri-Kansas-Texas #5, The Katy Flyer, from Kansas City to Muskogee, OK in 1962. This took FOREVER and , of course, the car was filthy and the bathroom didn't work.
But I'd trade that any day for Amtrak.
Mark, I had five rides that I know of in coaches with the walkover seatbacks. The first one came when I was two years old, and I remember nothing at all of it but my mother told me, many years later, that I screamed from Plant City (where we boarded) to Lakeland. I say that it was in such a coach because I doubt that the ACL used reclining seat cars on its Tampa-Jacksonville local in 1938. Probably, the next three trains also had the old coaches--Southern 24 from Jacksonville to Columbia and from Columbia to Rock Hill, and Southern 117 from Rock Hill to Heath Springs; indeed, the timetable just mentions "coaches".
The first one I remember was overnight from Atlanta to Birmingham on Southern #11 in 1951 (when I next rode this train, in 1957, it had reclining seat coaches). Both my brother and I were able to sit in seats that faced other seats and were able to put our legs up on the facing seats. On the same trip, we rode Southern #43 from Birmingham to New Orleans (day trip, so it was not as bad as a night trip), and spent much time standing at the rear of the car, seeing where we had been. (When we went through Eutaw, Alabama, I thought the spelling to be interesting, not knowing that the town was name for Eutaw Springs, S. C., where Nathaniel Greene had defeated the British in battle [Eutaw is the seat of Greene county]) On the same trip, we rode Southern #136 from Atlanta to Charlotte and when we boarded, my brother immediately staked out the long seat at the end of the seat section and stretched out all night; I spent the night much as I had from Atlanta to Birmingham.
My last experience in such a coach came in 1953, when I rode Southern #36 (#136 had just been abolished) from Atlanta to Charlotte. I am sure that revenue passengers had reclining seats, but I, riding on a pass, was relegated to the older car--and I took the end seat. This may well have been more comfortable than a coach seat on El Capitan.
As to worst trip overnight, it is a tossup between in an unheated washroom in a Frisco coach from Jesup to Atlanta on New Year's night 1961 (the night before I had two facing reclining seats to myself, possibly in the same car) and overnight from Providence to Wilmington in an Amtrak coach that had no real footrest and seatbacks that reclined very little.
Johnny
Many many trips in such coaches, and somehow, I always managed to enjoy the trip despite the discomfort. After all, I always was a railfan. Very few times that I was able to spend at least some time standing in the rear vestibule. I remember with most joy the Marie Kleibolt Colorado trips. Lucius Beebe may have enjoyed the parlor car comfort of the San Juan betwen Alamosa and Dorango, but I thoroughly enjoyed three round trips, 1960, 1961, and 1962, in the usual D&RGW naroow gauge coaches, some that supposedly had been "modernized" with seats from scrapped Denver local transit buses. Would any of us do it again? You bet! 14 hours each way, too! Stil, I appreciated the roomettes on the standard gauge portions of these trips to and from Chicago.
Sounds like DaveK remembers the "Three A's": Attitude can turn Adversity into an Adventure!
Firelock76 Sounds like DaveK remembers the "Three A's": Attitude can turn Adversity into an Adventure!
More info: Most people associate the D&RGW narrow gauge with wood open platform coaches, because that is the general make-up of today's tourist oeprations. But the D&RGW did have some wood closed-vestibule coaches, possibly equipped with diaphragms. Durijng or before WWII, several were truly modernized with reclining seats, a row of one on one side and two on the other.
The San Juan usually carried one or two for longer distance riders, located directly ahead of the buffet, parlor, obs car, which coach passengers could use for meals. After the San Juan was discontinued, these were the cars equipped with 2x2 ex-Denver Transit bus seats to increase capacity on the now popular Silverton mixed train. They did not sport diaphragms in this service but did retain closed vestibules. Does Durango and Silverton use these cars today? Are they now open platform like the rest of the coaches? What kind of seating today?
Hi Dave! The wife and I rode the Durango and Silverton back in 2000. We spent the extra money and rode the parlor car at the tail end of the train. It was very 19th Century in it's appointments but VERY comfortable. The rest of the train, well I don't know. The regular passenger cars were open platform types right out a Hollywood western, no diaphragms, how comfy they were I can't say. There was an open-to-the elements car as well, what it's like to ride in that one, who knows? I WOULD say if you're going to ride the D&S spend the extra money and ride the parlor car, it's well worth it. It's the closest you'll come to feeling like a "Robber Baron", and the on board bar's not bad either!
In 1962 on the Kleibolt-Chicago RR Club tour, we did have the Nomad on the round-trip to Silverton, and Tom Long, who I later met on the Clifornia Service D&RGW diner in 1969 between Denver and Salt Lake City, was along with us. (D&RGW VP Passenger.) And at his suggestion we chartered the William Jackson Palmer for the round trip to Farmington the next day, with Rudy Morgenfrue and I buying provisions in Farmington for the cooked on the car steak dinner for the return to Durango. Brad Miller was also part of this party, and I think we invited Ron Ziel to join us for dinner.
But we never had this deluxe equipment on any of the Almosa - Durango runa.
I think the cars the D&RGW modernized for San Juan long distance (or rather long hours) service were once open-platform, and possibly after Bradshaw got the line from the D&RGW, the closed vestibule cars were returned to open-platform configuration.
To DaveK: That '62 Kleibolt- Chicago Railroad Club tour sounds like it was one hell of a party! Tell me, how do you have the knack for being in the right place at the right time? You should bottle it and sell it!
I simply read the Running Extra or Extra Board column in TRAINS.
Thanks for the link to Horton Chairs!
I find the railways could do a lot more than they care for to make long distance travelling more comfortable . It seems there is a secret act from the age of the formative years still applying that prescribes seats in trains must never compliment nature of human body shape and spine but rather try to reform , arguably : deform , bones - for the benefit of a purpose unknown and maybe untraceable since maybe there never was one , other than the railway's still lingering tendency to 'parent' or 'train' passengers while travelling a train .
With TGV or ICE high speed trains incessantly dashing round and about in Europe these days as if frantically searching for answers to present day's pressing economic crisis , yet never finding one , not in Frankfurt , not in Paris , nor in Brussels , neither by channel-tunneling to London , narrow and - again - unergonomic seats in these trains seem to make high speed / short time travel mandatory .
Or , sarcastic tongues have asked if maybe there was a highly unofficial cordial understanding between train seat manufacturers and chiropractor's offices and vertebral surgery clinics – a thing Mercedes has also been suspected of for a long time since each new model was conspicuously turned out with the same spine-torturing back-sloping seats and jack-knifing backrests . It seems , since BMW has learned how to design a suspension for their 700 series cars providing a degree of soft ride worth mentioning , seats in present S class Mercs finally had to be shaped up .
Yet , the railway’s apparently world-wide anti-human seat shaping conspiracy , possibly upheld to protect against hordes of people basically perfectly willing to travel by train , yet remains to be broken .
( caution - may contain pointed wording )Regards
= J =
Juniatha,
John H. White, Jr's The American Railroad Passenger Car has a ten page section (pg 373 - 383) on the development of American passenger car seats from the 1830's to the 1950's (the book doesn't cover developments after Amtrak took over). This would be in part 2 of the softbound reprints of the book.
The Sleepy Hollow chair that was fairly common in post WW2 coaches was comfortable - remember coming home from Disneyland on the AT&SF San Diegan and falling into such a deep sleep that my brother had a hard time waking me.
The chapter that contains the section on seats also covers heating, ventilation, air conditioning, plumbing and lighting (from tallow candles to fluorescent lights). You seem to be the kind of person that would enjoy reading White's book.
- Erik
Hi Erik
I wouldn't want to say I wouldn't want to read it - after all the American Railroad Passenger Car has to a certain degree always remained a somewhat mysterious creature to me - just try to explain to me why on earth you need 80 tons to seat 80 passengers , if US short tons . I mean , allow 200 lbs per well hamburgerised passenger and you still have a relation of 10 to 1 railriding vehicle to paylo-uhm person .
Regards
Juniatha
Oh , and speaking of contorting as in contrast comforting seat contouring - airlines seem to have taken up from RRs these days :
Aircraft customer service : "For that number of passengers you might take a look at our 777 you will find a fitting version like .."
Airline acquisition : "Oh no , umm , couldn't you squeeze the same number of seats into a 767 , short version with extra fuel tank capacity , preferably ?"
BTW airing rumors are there is a new very short haul Airbuzzy around - here's a rare view of the birdy taking off for a test fight .. umm .. flight
In addtion to many manynights in roomettes and slumbercoaches, and a few in double bedrooms, I had quite a few overnight coach rides as well. Some were in non-recliners, including the Narraganset on the New Haven with the few 8600 series coaches filled and my having to settle for a prewar 8200 series American Flyer. Somehow I managed to sleep OK. But really comfortable seats for overnight travel:
Best The El Capitan AT&SF highlevel coaches
Next best The PRR Juniata-built 44-passenger postwar lightweight coaches -that unfortunately rusted out in about eight years and were scrapped very early.
Fortunatly, I have never had to ride overnight ina an Amnfleet I, and the Amfleet II and Superliner caoches are OK, but I am only 5'10", and I did wonder about how the over-six footers faired.
I am 6'2", rode Amfleet I and II, and Superliner coach, found them to be fairly comfortable, no problems. As to non-recliners, whoa! Was going to call a chiropractor but didn't know how to spell it.
Juniatha I wouldn't want to say I wouldn't want to read it - after all the American Railroad Passenger Car has to a certain degree always remained a somewhat mysterious creature to me - just try to explain to me why on earth you need 80 tons to seat 80 passengers , if US short tons . I mean , allow 200 lbs per well hamburgerised passenger and you still have a relation of 10 to 1 railriding vehicle to paylo-uhm person .
White did discuss the issue of car weight per passenger on several cccasions in his book. Germane to this discussion was the weight of the seats themselves, particularly the Sleepy Hollow seat designed post WW2. He pointed out that weight per passenger reached a relative minimum in the early "streamline" era and agian in the 1950's with the experimental lightweight trains. Along those lines, the rationale for the Santa Fe bi-levels used on the El Capitan was to reduce train weight per passenger.
A couple of guesses as to why the lightweights didn't succeed: One is that the ride was thought to be worse, perhaps due to higher relative unsprung weight, The other is that crashworthiness was a concern (perhaps overrated).
Cute picture of the baby Airbus - reminds me of some of the photoshop jobs of locomotives appearing in the Berlinerwerke apocrypha, such as the 2-4-6-8-0.
Well , if ride should have to be less smooth if vehicle sprung mass is down to 1/2 of usual or previous - then what were bus constructors supposed to do with vehicle mass at best 1/4 of half-mass light weight coach ? not to think of car builders having vehicle units of but 1 - 2 tons hopping off their assembly line - cars should go down your average street in a "bouncy-b-b-bounc-bing-bang-bonky-bonk-bubblebounce" gait , no ? ( well some of contemporary cars seem to do just that - *g* )
It's really all a matter of adjusting suspension to body mass - and , yes , of keeping down unsprung masses .
As I had written earlier recalling an earlier visit to Berlin-East station , seeing DB and DR coaches in a train go over a switch with sunken rail-joint : DB coach : "karr-arrgh ... outch-arrr , followed by DR coach "bha-leng ... de-long" - which prompted me to remark to comrade next to me ..
ah but you can look that up at the other thread http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS/forums/p/172903/2224733.aspx#2224733
As far as airline seats are concerned, they aren't that uncomfortable but the lack of legroom can be a real problem. Having just returned from a vacation in Central America, it would appear that American Airlines, at least, has tightened the seat pitch on their 737's and 767's to just about the minimum possible.
>> As far as airline seats are concerned, they aren't that uncomfortable but the lack of legroom can be a real problem. <<
You named it ! and that *can* make it reeaally torturous , at least if you have to use your thighbones as an expanding tool to get a minimum of legroom - or that's what it makes you feel like ... ( not to mention what your front buddy will think of being bumped in the back )
However , we all know from fantastic ads that's not so - no-no , or at least not regularly .
rebounds
Oh, the airline seats I've been in aren't TOO bad, but as we used to say in the Marines "You know you're a real Grunt when you can get comfortable anywhere!" I haven't flown in a while though, even though I love airplanes and love flying, I HATE airports! Don't get me started....
Firelock76 Oh, the airline seats I've been in aren't TOO bad, but as we used to say in the Marines "You know you're a real Grunt when you can get comfortable anywhere!" I haven't flown in a while though, even though I love airplanes and love flying, I HATE airports! Don't get me started....
The biggest problem in airports seems to be the characters employed by the Committe for State Security.
Oh, the TSA people are the least of my concerns, I've never really had a problem with them, but as I said, don't get me started.....
Hello everyone,
I haven't been on the Classic Trains forum for quite a while.
I was going to post the following story a year or so ago, but talk of trips taking forever as FlyingCrow remembers, prompted me to do it now.
In the summer of 1963 or 4, while Dad was the Station Agent at Irricana, AB my parents decided we should visit my Dad's parents in Regina, SK, and we should take the train, because they thought my brother and me would both be old enough to remember it. There was only Mixed Train service on the Langdon Sub. past Irricana, so we drove into Calgary to catch the EB "Dominion". This trip was so uneventful I remember almost none of it. I only remember my mom and brother going into the station at Medicine Hat, AB to buy a late snack.
This trip was taken with the anticipation of an imminent RR strike, and our return was either going to be at the end of my dad's vacation, or at the conclusion of the strike. Dad had arranged with his relief man to stay the first day after the strike to cover for him. Well, the strike happened. At the conclusion of the strike we were planning to take the WB "Dominion" home. That morning, however, my grandparents had arranged a visit with some old friends of the family, and Dad figured there wouldn't be a problem to simply catch a local "all stops" train that would leave a couple of hours later. He thought people wouldn't be back on the trains that quickly, and there wouldn't be all that many local stops.
The train was made up of old heavyweight equipment, with steam heat and battery/generator electric lights. Well, there may not have been many passengers, but the railway had the line plugged with freights in both direction. We were either meeting trains or stuck behind trains meeting trains. This went on from Regina to Medicine Hat. Then things really went from bad to worse.
At the outset of the strike, trains were stuffed into every siding and empty back track along the line. After the strike was over, the bosses in Calgary decided that our train was going to pick up every car that had started out as a "perishable" load before the strike, and haul them all into Calgary, to sort out the ensuring mess. We were picking up reefers from every station along the line. Our "local" had turned into a Mixed Train! We hadn't gotten to Medicine Hat yet, before we were supposed to arrive in Calgary, sometime before midnight, and these new orders came down.
They started out by backing the whole train into the sidings to lift the cars. And as they were doing this, the lights in our car grew dimmer and dimmer, as there was not enough mainline running to recharge the batteries fully between stops. And the batteries were old to begin with. After daylight, this was no longer a problem, but then the crew decided that since it was warm enough to not need steam heat and to save time switching, they would start putting the reefers behind the engine ahead of the coaches. So there were reefers ahead of us, and reefers behind us, and we were in violation of many rules.
Well, we eventually got to Langdon around 7:00 AM, and even though the station wasn't open yet, Dad went around the back and knocked on the Agent's door, since he knew him. He used the regular phone to call my aunt in Calgary to explain the situation and to arrange to meet us. The agent commented to my Dad that he had never seen the railway so plugged in all the time he had been there.
After a few more stops to lift more cars we finally got to Calgary after 8:30, and met my aunt. To everyone's relief the train didn't stop at Alyth first to drop off all of those reefers. The did the switching after we got to the station. My aunt drove us up to her place, where we had left our car, and we piled out of the car as she almost drove slowly by her place, so she would not be too late getting to work.
We went from her place to a nearby gas station/restaurant combo. The restaurant section closed down at the end of the sixties, I think, and the gas station shut down toward the end of the seventies. Then the building became a used car dealership, featuring a bottom-of-the-barrel selection of vehicles. I mention this because that building was only tron down a couple of summers ago, in a road widening project. All of those years after that trip when I would be driving by that location, if I happen to look at that building, I would remember that trip.
My Dad was so disappointed about that trip. He had wanted to show us what train travel was like. And I suspect after my brother and me had gone to bed the night we got home, there were some words exchanged between my parents about the decision to take that later train. Although nothing was ever said about that.
Bruce
So shovel the coal, let this rattler roll.
"A Train is a Place Going Somewhere" CP Rail Public Timetable
"O. S. Irricana"
. . . __ . ______
Juniatha You named it ! and that *can* make it reeaally torturous , at least if you have to use your thighbones as an expanding tool to get a minimum of legroom - or that's what it makes you feel like ... ( not to mention what your front buddy will think of being bumped in the back )
At 6'2", I find the typical airliner legroom to be a bit tight when the seatback in front is upright and definitely inadequate when the passenger in front tries to recline. OTOH, things are even worse for my wife who has longer legs than I despite being 2 inches shorter and worse yet for my daughter who has longer legs than my wife despite being two inches shorter than her. Don't get me started on shoulder room.
Gee ...
... see ?
I have ridden both TGV and ICE trains a number times in recent year and it was a disappointing experience in terms of comfort. Those "new-fangled" stylish seats are in no way a match to those big chairs the former TEE trains sported. The only good thing I can say about the high speed trains is that they are fast. I am 6´5", and every minute in an uncomfortable seat is a torture to me.
Airline seats - never saw any that was up to my needs.
Hi Ulrich
You know , I suspect they still use that old sack of potatoes for Standardisation of European Railway Passenger Seating ( SERPS ) *g*.
As for airliners - it's not the aircraft manufacturer , though , see:
http://baviation.com/wp-content/uploads/Boieng-787-dreamliner-interior.jpg
*ggg*
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