What is the difference between a "Coach" and a "Chair car" in classical passenger service?
I used to think that the two terms were interchangeable. But an old Wabash RR ad posted a few threads down list a "Combination Coach and Chair Car" in the consist, reminding me that I also have seen the two terms simultaneously used in historic Southern Pacific consist info, implying that they were somehow distinct.
Was it the difference between a car with reclining seats, most often found on the long-distance services, as opposed to the "walk-over" bench-type seating I remember from the old SP Commute "subs" (aka "Harrimans", though they really weren't)? If so, why would there be both types on one train?
Thanks in advance.
Just speculating, but maybe a combination of 1/2 coach and 1/2 parlor car seating?
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Just as the words say. Coach has coach seats, sorta like sofa's but not as plush, either seating two or three; can be reversed. Chair cars have chairs, easy chairs, sometimes fixed back to the outside wall, sometimes swivaled, one person seating thus only one chair opposite another per aisle.
Again...ATTENTION Jim Wrinn and others at Kalmbach and TRAINS: we need more on explaining how railroads used to operate, how equipment was designed for customers and railroad operations, how people operated trains and trains provided services. Classic Trains is good, but it too often has been shrouded in nostalgia rather than real operating railroads. Maybe need to re publish a lot of old TRAINS materials. The way things used to be is more than weeping nostalgia, it is a way things were done that led to the way things are done.
RIDEWITHMEHENRY is the name for our almost monthly day of riding trains and transit in either the NYCity or Philadelphia areas including all commuter lines, Amtrak, subways, light rail and trolleys, bus and ferries when warranted. No fees, just let us know you want to join the ride and pay your fares. Ask to be on our email list or find us on FB as RIDEWITHMEHENRY (all caps) to get descriptions of each outing.
schlimm:
I don't think so, since the same consist info would also describe a parlor/observation car.
henry6:
This was part of my speculation, though "coach seats" do not automatically speak to me of "sorta like sofa's", since today "coach seats", whether on Amtrak or ailrlines, are generally chair-like one-seat-per-one-person affairs. And, even my limited pre-Amtrak US passenger rail experience was that "only one chair opposite another per aisle" was only found in parlor or observation car service, which (from the context) was not the distinction which was being described (since parlor cars were also in the same consist).
And, in any case, why both types of seating (in addition to a smoker and a parlor/observation car) in one train, such as Wabash's Banner Blue Limited ("The Finest Day Train in the World", according to the ad!)?
A Parlor Observation was a parlor car with services...chairs and sofa seating. A chair car had just chairs...not seats...and maybe no services or it was a colloquilism. But coach denotes a seat as described; I used couch to describe side by side seating on one piece of furniture. A chair car or parlor car were plush, usually one person chairs or two person sofa's, with lots of leg room to stretch out. Again, railorading, and rail riding, were quite different back then. And, just like today, reflected life styles of those to whom the service was marketed.
According to the Southern Railway, the Tennessean and the Southerner, which were streamliners, had coaches; I do not think that at any time these trains carried cars with the walkover seats. Other trains did carry such cars at times when passenger traffic was heavy, or had one such car for people riding on passes, but the only description in the timetables for these was also "coaches."
And, many other roads called the coach class accommodations, even those on the streamliners, "coaches."
Some other roads called their coach class (non-first class) accomodations "chair cars". I expect that the combination car actually had both reclining (and, perhaps, revolving) seats and the seats with no reclining ability (it was much easier to reverse the direction on these seats than it was to do so on the seats that could be reclined).
Johnny
First class coaches did not have walk over seats (the back of the seat flipping back and forth in place) but rather the seats swivel in place so that seats face forward all the time. Thus the need to "service" a train at the end of each run...time and labor consuming.
More fodder for need to get more from Kalmbach about what railroading was like before 1960!
henry6 First class coaches did not have walk over seats (the back of the seat flipping back and forth in place) but rather the seats swivel in place so that seats face forward all the time.
First class coaches did not have walk over seats (the back of the seat flipping back and forth in place) but rather the seats swivel in place so that seats face forward all the time.
"First class coaches." Do you mean coaches on long distance trains, probably streamined? Only Pullman and parlor car accommodations were first class, never coach, as far as I can recall.
Yeah, probably...first class as an operating term rather than a marketing term...long distance passenger trains or locals, just not commute. But nothing was standard...some locals had walkover seats and not swivel; some places probably wyed a whole train so that seats did not have to be reversed. etc.
The term 'Chair' can mean different things on each railroad. The CB&Q listed their streamline coachs as 'chair' cars. And the dome-coaches were listed as dome-chair cars. These were not 'walk-over' seats. The entire two seat unit pulled away from the window and was rotated....
Jim
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
On Santa Fe, Chair Car and coach were interchangable AFAIK (any comment Diningcar?)
I do not recall any parlor cars or any cars requiring a First Class ticket called chair cars. Chair cars in my experience were simply coaches that the particular railroad wished to indicate were more comfortable than the usual straighit-back flip-seat coaches. Some railroads used the term, and lots did not, being content to note in timetables: "reclining seats, air-conditioned."
Often one read: "Regularly assigned cars are air-conditioned and equipped with reclining seats." However, in we cannot guarantee all cars on this train will meet this specification."
travelingengineerI agree with "henry6" regarding our need for more practical material, as opposed to vintage photos, et al., about early railroading. In the meantime, amongst my modest railroad library, I have several titles that provide some good pre-WWII information, in story form by trainmen, to wit: Chauncey Del French, RAILROADMAN (1938) and Frank P. Donovan, Jr. and Robert Selph Henry, editors, HEADLIGHTS AND MARKERS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF RAILROAD STORIES (1946). Good reads, both, from which some understandings can arise.
I'll second that. Pictures are available pretty easily, but the background material is much harder to find.
Thank you all for your comments.
This is my idea of a proper chair car:
The Skytop Dome belonging to the "Friends of 261"!
Looks more like a parlor car to me, complete with first-class fare plus seat charge.
It is certainly a parlor car and a pretty nice one. Not a chair car.
On the New Haven, "The Yankee Clipper", 1PM to New York was all Parlor Car train. Each car was named for a Clipper Ship and had a painting of it hanging in the car.
Today, at least in my area, Flip-over Seats are used for Commuter Trains, Amtrak has slide out and spin seats. Amtrak Coach gets you a seat nearly as big as Airline First Class with foot rest and fold down table, Business Class has fewer seats per car and swing up leg rests, First Class cars have big wide seats, two on one side of the aisle and one on the other with free food.
Acela is Business and First Class only, seats MUST always face forward or, if facing backwards have a table between it and the other seat.
Don U. TCA 73-5735
Look again...the car has parlor turn seats but also in the lower front there are chairs against the outer wall. I think the terms were different from railroad to railroad or that parlor was a Pullman term that some roads perferred not to use so as not to be confused with Pullman service.
But those are still individual parlor chairs.
Was this car perhaps Wabash 1602 (built for Bluebird service), which had lounge seats under the dome?
Why does the forum put all those REs and quotes???
Rotatable single seat 'chairs' constitute a Parlor Car seating.
Dakguy201 This is my idea of a proper chair car: The Skytop Dome belonging to the "Friends of 261"!
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Again, before the Amtrak era, at least, the term chair car was only used by railroads to define a coach that was more comfortable than a run-of-the-mill coach. The C&O used the term, and the coaches were air-conditioned and had reclining seats. Parlor cars were parlor cars, whether Pullman or railroad operated. I think the AT&SF may have used the term, but later, lightweight, streamlined, air-conditioned, reclining-seat-equipped was enough and the term was dropped. I don't believe the New Haven, PRR, RF&P, ACL, or SAL ever used the term. Or the NYCentral.
BaltACD Rotatable single seat 'chairs' constitute a Parlor Car seating.
True, but I suspect that Dakguy201 had his tongue in his cheek when posting that. Kind of what I would think is a "proper" chair car as well...
- Erik
The CB&Q promoted both Coaches and Chair Cars, the former were found in the shorter distance trains such as the Twin Zephyrs while chair cars were advertized in Denver Zephyr and California Zephyr. The Denver Zephyr also carried Parlor seating and a Parlor Drawing Room on an overnight train. Parlor seats were sold eastbound between Denver and Omaha and westbound between Chicago and Omaha.
The NP Mainstreeter sold Parlor seating in the daytime areas of its schedule as it crossed from Seattle to St. Paul. The parlor seats were used as additional lounge seats for the sleeping car passengers at night. Since the Lounge occupied half the car and the parlor seating the other half. I personally never witnessed more than six or seven parlor passengers on the train and the parlor seats were occupied most of the time by sleeping car passengers. The cars were named Holiday Lounge cars on the NP and they also operated a couple of identical cars in the Seattle Portland pool trains.
I never heard the term Chair cars used on Canadian trains from the latter 1960's through early eighties and rode most . I was a frequent traveller between Toronto - Montreal when the Rapido's first entered service and introduced the Parlor cars with paired seats on one side of the aisle and single seat on the other. These cars had formally had the single swivel seats on either side of the center aisle. Part of the rebuilding included a galley that served airline style meals at the Club car seats as CN promoted the rebuilt cars. Cara was the caterer that prepared the meals and was the same firm that prepared Air Canada's in flight meals at the time. In any case they were excellent for the most part. This same service carried over to the Turbo trains except I never traveled anywhere but in the Turbo Club dome which featured single swivel seats. It was an excellent way to travel.
Al - in - Stockton
The CB&Q used the term "chair cars" instead of "coach" on all their passenger trains, with no distinction between shorter trains like the Morning and Afternoon Zephyrs or the Blackhawk, and the longer distance trains such as the DZ, CZ, KCZ, AZ or TZ. The NP used the term "chair coach" on through trains and "coach" on locals. GN used the term "coach" on all trains.
The Illinois Central at one time designated cars with walk-over, non-reclining seats as coaches and those with individual reclining seats as chair cars. I suspect this distinction was used by many other roads as well. Both had four across seating as opposed to parlor cars which had two across individual chair seating. For example, the equipment section of the OG for the 1937 Chicago - St. Louis Daylight listed the following consist: Library-Lounge Car, Observation Car, Diner, Parlor Car, Chair Car and Coaches.
In the post WW2 period as modern (or modernized) equipment with incividual reclining seats became the norm, the term chair car fell into disuse and these cars were simply designated as coaches. AFAIK parlor cars (which required a first class ticket) were never designated as chair cars.
Mark
KCSfan The Illinois Central at one time designated cars with walk-over, non-reclining seats as coaches and those with individual reclining seats as chair cars. I suspect this distinction was used by many other roads as well. Both had four across seating as opposed to parlor cars which had two across individual chair seating. For example, the equipment section of the OG for the 1937 Chicago - St. Louis Daylight listed the following consist: Library-Lounge Car, Observation Car, Diner, Parlor Car, Chair Car and Coaches. In the post WW2 period as modern (or modernized) equipment with incividual reclining seats became the norm, the term chair car fell into disuse and these cars were simply designated as coaches. AFAIK parlor cars (which required a first class ticket) were never designated as chair cars. Mark
20 years later, a public IC TT uses the terms "coaches" on all trains. On the streamlined and better trains such as the City of NO, City of Miami, Green Diamond, Daylight, Land O'Corn and Seminole, the term "Coaches - Deluxe Reclining Seats" is used, as opposed to "coaches" on non-streamlined trains like the Creole, Louisiane, Southern Express, Night Diamond, Chickasaw and Hawkeye. Parlor cars are found on the Panama, Daylight and Green Diamond only.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.