Passenger Car doors

[blueriver]

Hi all,

I have noticed that some passenger cars have doors on one side only. I was wondering that when a consist was made up, did the doors all have to be on a certain side or did it matter which side of the train they were on?
If it didn't matter, did the passengers travel from car to car until there was a door to the platform? I appreciate the responses.

Thanks

blueriver

[ndbprr]

I think you will find that is not a typical case. Most cars I know of may have had a vestibule at one end with a door on either side or vestibules at both ends with one door at each end on diagonally opposite sides. It wasn't that much more of a burden to walk into the vestibule on the next car to exit and probably saved some money for the railroads. No matter which way the car turned the door was always in the same corner. A raging debate went on for several weeks on a PRR web page regarding the turning of cars however. The concesys (sp) opinion was that there was an effort to keep the corridor side of sleepers toward the inside to limit the noise of passing trains at night.

[Anonymous]

Whether or not this is true, I don't know. But I do remember reading somewhere that one railroad tried to keep the corridor side of cars on the same side as the other side provided excellent scenic views for the passengers.

[Anonymous]

New York Central did keep the "room" side of sleepers facing toward the Hudson River --at least on the 20th Century Limited during its heyday.

Most roads kept the "corridor" side toward the left or fireman's side of the train. This wasn't done so much to keep noise levels down in the rooms as it was to reduce the likelihood of injuries in the event a shifted load on a passing freight train impacted with the side of the passenger train. The theory was that fewer people were likely to be in the corridors than in the rooms. Since this is not entirely a comforting thought, the reason was not publicized beyond employees.

With respect to side doors on passenger cars -- diners, cafe cars and club cars often had doors on one side of the car only. However, these were service doors, used to off-load trash and to on-load and off-load provisions. They weren't for use of passengers. New York Central did have some heavyweight and lightweight diners with vestibules and a door suitable for loading passengers on one side of the car only. I can't think of another road which did the same.

New York Central also had one-side-only doors on its streamlined observation cars. These could be used as service doors, and also for quick exit by the flagman. Milwaukee Road also had one-side-only doors at the rear of its first 2 groups of streamlined parlor-observation cars. These were for use of the flagman only.