Din you ever had in U.S.A. comparmented passanger cars? I mean standard passangers cars, with seats, I’m not talking about roomets or sleepers.
Examples of compartemnted cars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvsnHciN_ko
Here, from around 3:25 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0-mf0ZDnzM
I have never known of any. I do not think that the coaches that were divided into two sections, each with two restrooms would have been considered “compartmented cars.”
European style? Not that I’m aware of. Anythings possible of course, but if they were tried here they didn’t last very long.
The only thing close to compartmented cars here would have been the private cars constructed for railroad VIP’s and the very rich.
What about those European trains brought here on trials, such as the Swedish Flexliner & X 2000, and the German ICE. Did any of these have European-style compartments? (I’ve never seen pictures of the interiors of the test trains in US trial service.)
I saw one of those European import trains here on display in Richmond 20-plus years ago, it may have been the X-2000 but my memory’s hazy on that. Anyway, as I recall it didn’t have compartmented seating, just typical coach seating like an American train.
Europe has largely turned away from compartment-style seating over the last 20 years. ICE trains in Germany are open seating, some with facing across a table. Some older IC trains have compartments at one end of a car. Some of the private operators there such as ALEX use older DB compartment stock.
A small compartment with paasengers seated facing each other brings to mind a stage coach.
Which is pretty much what early coaches were, but on flanged wheels. Stagecoach builders built many of the early coaches, which set up the compartment coach pattern.
The USA had something like that in the very old days, like late 19th and early 20th Centuries.
The closest you might get to compartmented seating today would be a Viewliner sleeper or a Superliner roomette in the daytime configuration.
First Class day-service Parlor Cars often had a single, separate day-use “Drawing Room” (sometimes several). Pullman built coaches for the Chesapeake and Ohio after WWII with two rooms (seats at each end) and these cars were later used by a number of other lines including the Denver & Rio Grande Western and the Delaware & Hudson–but there were 24-28 seats in each “room”, not 4-6 as in Europe.
Carl Fowler
Both the X2000 and the ICE had corridor coaches much likje we are used to in the US. The first class (parlor) cars had 2 and one seating instead of two and two and had a slightly greater distance between rows. The X2000 also had a “conference room” compartment at each end of the full coaches to allow for provate metings for up to 6 people. My memory of the ICE is a bit foggier.
X2000
If I remember correctly (and I’m having trouble finding pictures) some of the boat trains, like the Fall River boat train, were the ‘typical’ kind of stock that comes to mind when people say ‘compartments’ - slam-door without any corridor or vestibules at all. This ensured that on arrival, massive parallel detraining in a short time would be possible, as opposed to people (with luggage!) jostling down corridors to make a right-angle turn to get out.
Some of the special services to fairs, etc. were built all doors for high speed in loading and unloading, but I do not know if these had partitions between the sections. Note that this is different from subway cars, etc. where a ‘plurality’ of doors going into a common volume is a better solution than ‘partitioned seating’.
As the Siemens consortium (ICE) demonstration train here would have been similar to the ICE 1 in Germany, it was all open seating with no compartments.
Also, I think the OP was referring to regular trainsets… not necessarily to once in a century demonstration runs imported from Europe.
The compartments in Europe I think have more to do with the history over there on how the rail cars developed versus the United States. Our coach cars in the U.S. have always been wide open on the inside for the most part and were built without the horse carriage in mind. Contrasted with Europe where the passenger car first started as nothing more than individual horse carriages type coaches coupled together…then becomming one large coach partitioned to horse carriage size comparments. Part of this was due to culture as the Europeans were more class based than the United States ever was and intermixing between classes used to be frowned upon…sort of like India with it’s caste system. That was the Europe of the late 1700’s to 1800’s. Some of that crap was brought over here by immigrants but faded away after the first generation when the American melting pot took over.
Some one mentioned that in the late 19th century and early 20th century there where some compartmented cars in the U.S.A. Does any one haves any idee about it?
Unfortenley in Europe we are quiting compartimete cars. I heared a lot of reasons about why so: they are easayer to be supervisied, easyer to be taken care of (that’s I think is true), the seats are lager (meaning longer), people prefer them (I doubt that all of people prefer them).
Durring Communist regime standard passanger cars (double deckers and multiple units a.k.a. self propeled railway cars where a differnet thing *) the sent uncomparmetnted cars on slow and commuter trains and compartmented cars on fasters trains. The uncomparmented cars where sometimes called bouvagoane (oxcars) - a general term used in Romania for low confort railroad cars, derived from the fact that after Word Worl I we used form some time cattle transporation cars converted into 4th class passanger cars (the economical situation of Romania wasn’t too good after W.W. 1, throu all that we where on the winning side).
“Oxcars” on faster trains come on faster trains after year 2000. I hate them, because they are like buses on tracks and why then to take the trains in stad of bus on routes where the bus moves as faster as the train? Well, one - two hours ride is one thing, but longer ones… Anyway, while I do ride the trains, a lot of the trip I do like standing up, so time will pass faster.
I must thank you all for the answers!
I have the impression that the first enclosed coaches in this country were styled after horse-drawn coaches–two seats that faced each other inside, and seats on top for the benefit of passengers who enjoyed having holes burnt in their clothing.
An explanation for this 20-year turn away from compartments in the UK was given to me there by one or two people who said that compartments made it easier for men to, well, let’s say, take advantage of women. Women seem to prefer open seating these days.
I noticed in Poland in 2013 that the compartments may have had a sliding glass door, but there were no curtains, which seems to be a step in the same direction.
Found something!
Back in 1834 the Paterson and Hudson River Railroad had several 30 passenger, three compartment cars built by John Stevenson of New York. Passengers entered and exited the cars through side doors in the British fashion.
Can’t post a picture, but it looked like a flat-top stagecoach, had four wheels with a running board on each side. Conductors collected the fares from the running boards.
Originally horse drawn, when the railroad began using steam locomotives they were coupled together in consists of two or three.
As I suspected earlier, they didn’t last too long, by the 1840’s they’d been replaced by the more conventional type of passenger car.
Wow! 10 passengers per compartment. Pretty strange.
It’s too bad the book didn’t give the dimensions, either that was a BIG car or they were packed in like sardines! Or maybe both!