There is a fleet of Amtrak Smoker Coaches:
What Are They?
What purpose do they serve?
It's where you can sit and smoke cigarettes. The last one I was on did not allow pipes or cigars. It was a regular coach car designated for smoking.
Enjoy
Paul
I used to commute on the IC in Chicagoland in the days of the old pullman green "wickerliners". On northbound trains the first car or cars would be smokers. On 2 and 4 car trains smoking was permitted only in the first car but on 6 and 8 car trains the first two cars would be smokers. Each car had a double faced sign that could be flipped over mounted above the doors to the vestibules. On one side it read "Smoking Permitted" and on the other side "No Smoking". For the life of me I can't remember whether the smoking cars were on the head or rear of the southbound trains.
Mark
KCSfan wrote: I used to commute on the IC in Chicagoland in the days of the old pullman green "wickerliners". On northbound trains the first car or cars would be smokers. On 2 and 4 car trains smoking was permitted only in the first car but on 6 and 8 car trains the first two cars would be smokers. Each car had a double faced sign that could be flipped over mounted above the doors to the vestibules. On one side it read "Smoking Permitted" and on the other side "No Smoking". For the life of me I can't remember whether the smoking cars were on the head or rear of the southbound trains.Mark
Was pretty much the same on the BN/Metra commuter trains from aurora to chicago, It was allways the first coach after the engine (push its at the back and pull its at the front)and on long trains they had two.
alphas wrote:Prior to Amtrak, most passenger coaches were designated either smoking or non-smoking. Question for someone: were sleeping cars ever designated the same? I can't recall.
I think sleepers were all "smoking". Don't ever recall a non-smoking sleeper.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Many Railroads prior to Amtrak dedicated parts of many coaches as smoking areas. These cars were quite prevalent in the Washington - New York - Boston corridor.
What I would like to see Amtrak bring back is the family coach where families traveling with kids were all assigned to one coach so the other passengers would not be bothered with some of the little monsters. The CZ did this in its early years and the GN although they denied it always booked mothers traveling with kids in one car on both the Western Star and Empire Builder. Amtrak says this is discrimination, I say it would bring many passengers back to the rails by making the trips more enjoyable. I understand they have to go from there car to the Diner and lounge cars I would suggest Amtrak find a way to move them along the outsides of the cars when they need to go to the diners or lounges. If they lose a few transferring them this way who's going to notice.
Al - in - Stockton
I remember seeing a Long Island RR notice that told the smoking scheme. I forget the details, but depending on the train length the smoker would be the nth car from the New York City end of the train, if the train was long enough it would have more than 1 smoker.
I don't remember what NJ Transit or Metro North did, but I'm guessing it was similar.
All of those New York operations had really long peak trains and stub end terminals, so it was reasonably simple to have an entire car in a fixed train position devoted to smokers.
Philadelphia typically had shorter consists, it had always been rare to have more than 6 cars, and 4 cars is probably closer to average. Silverliner 4's have a center bulkhead, I think this and the relatively short train lengths were reasons why Philly would make half a car smoking, which meant the other half was second hand smoking. I think we did that with Rail Diesel Cars too, which also had center bulkheads.
We used to be like New York, stub end center city terminals, so the smoker car was always the same position, nth from the Philly end of the train. If I remember correctly it was 1st or last. When we built the connector tunnel and instituted through running the Philly end of the train changed mid trip, it used to be the first car before the tunnel, it became the last car after the tunnel.
The train crew would flip a cover to expose or cover the "no" on the "smoking permitted" sign. They'd inconsistently do this somewhere between Market East-Suburban-30th Street stations, so you'd have some scurrying smokers and non-smokers. The smokers had to traverse the entire train length. And you'd get experienced smokers who would position themselves properly at the first station, and insist on their right to light up immediately.
These are getting to be distant memories. Most places have prohibited smoking for over 15 years now. Toronto started a lot earlier. When they first started using their multi-level "hotdog" coaches they decided to ban smoking. But not for health concerns. On a fan trip around 1980 the announcer said it was because they didn't want cigarette burns on the seat upholstery.
Patrick Boylan
Free yacht rides, 27' sailboat, zip code 19114 Delaware River, get great Delair bridge photos from the river. Send me a private message
hf1001 wrote:Why do the Superliner Smokers have a baggage door on the lower level?
because there is or was a baggage area on the lower level. Does anybody know how often they used that area for baggage? How many, if any, have had that area converted to other uses?
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