Pullman Passenger Car questions

[Trainman440]

Hi,

I am adding shades in my Branchline Pullman heavyweights...

Are there shades in the bathroom windows? 

Also, in the Branchline kit, there is a U shaped Bar that is supposed to be added over/under the coupler box. On it are 2 chains, one with 3 links and the other with 3 links and a hook. Are those prototypical? They look like extra British style(hook and chain) couplings.

Thanks, Charles

[ACY Tom]

Windows in toilet areas were frosted.  In restroms that had large men's or women's lounge areas with small separate toilet rooms (such as the lower level of dome coaches), the lounge often had a regular window with shades. The cars you are describing are earlier Pullman Heavyweights. I'm not aware of any large lounge areas in those cars, like the ones I described above. So the short answer is no, use frosted windows. 

Those frosted windows usually had a very small unfrosted area at the bottom, smaller than a playing card, through which a passenger could see out if he needed to. It was too small to allow anybody to see in.

Tom

[gmpullman]

Tom has covered the frosted windows pretty well.

Here is an ad for prismatic glass used in the heavyweight days:

Some heavyweight section Pullman cars had rather large washrooms for the men and dressing rooms for the ladies. Sometimes, these rooms did have regular glass and shades. Before the "private room" cars, and individual facilities in each room, all the passengers on a car had to share the same washroom. That could have been twenty-four people in a 12 section car. I have seen some Pullmans with three basins and even a dental basin for brushig your teeth. The toilet annex always had the frosted or prism glass, and like Tom pointed out, the little "peep hole".

Laserkit has prisim windows for the Branchline cars with railroad emblems in them. A neat addition if you want to go all-out.

http://www.rgspemkt.com/BLWININDX.html

Safety chains were part of the end equipment on Pullman and other passenger equipment. I will have to look for some documentation on this. Although I have seen the chains on many pieces of passenger equipment I have never seen them used.

Telescoping was a real concern for passengers especially in the days of the wooden cars. Before the advent of tightlock couplers attempts were made to try to keep cars in alignment during a derailment. The safety chains were supposed to do that. Many people were injured or killed when a car pushed its way into another car, like a telescope.

I do not know if it was an AAR or ICC requirement but I do know that the 1938 Century cars and even the 1941 Empire State Express cars on the NYC still had safety chains along with type F tightlock couplers! Never saw them connected, though. The railroad wouldn't have gone through the expense if they didn't have to. May have been a requirement in some states.

Even this diner, built for the C&O in 1950 had safety chains, long after the tightlock coupler was adopted.

May have been one of those regulations that were still on the books but not in practice and it took a long time to remove the requirement.

I'll see if I can find more information on the safety chains.

Have Fun! Ed