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?
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.
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).
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!
“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…
I 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 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."
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.
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.
