At the outset I’ll state that this message refers only to straight-back coach travel on long distance not commuter trains. My first ride on a long distance train was taken in 1942 (or maybe '43) and over the years that followed I rode many trains on many different roads. Fortunately the vast majority of my coach trips were in streamlined lightweight or at least moderized heavyweight cars with reclining seats. However, on three occasions I had the dubious “pleasure” of riding in old coaches with straight-back seats upholstered in IIRC mohair.
The first and longest of these trips was around 1949 when I rode the ACL’s local from Jacksonville to Tampa. I had come from Chicago on one of the three Florida streaminers which arrived too late in Jacksonville for the ACL to hold the West Coast Champion which I had expected to ride on to Tampa. This left me no choice but to ride the local train which consisted of a few head end cars and two old straight-back coaches. The trip took most of the day and my lunch was a stale ham and cheese sandwich washed down with a coke purchased from a “news butcher” who went through the train during its rather long station stop in Orlando. This was definitely a trip to be remembered only because of its duration and discomfort.
My next and shortest trip in a straight-back coach was on the IC from Champaign to Chicago around 1954. Back in those days the IC ran special trains for Univ.of Illinois students at the Christmas holidays, spring breaks and at the end of the school year and also for Chicagoans going to Uof I home football games. As I recall the train consisted of about 10 old straight-back coaches which smelled musty because they likely spent most of their days stored in some coach yard and were called into service only for such special runs. Fortunately the trip took only a little over two hours because the specials ran pretty fast and stopped only at Kankakee before
My worst trip in a straight back seat was on Missouri-Kansas-Texas #5, The Katy Flyer, from Kansas City to Muskogee, OK in 1962. This took FOREVER and , of course, the car was filthy and the bathroom didn’t work.
Mark, I had five rides that I know of in coaches with the walkover seatbacks. The first one came when I was two years old, and I remember nothing at all of it but my mother told me, many years later, that I screamed from Plant City (where we boarded) to Lakeland. I say that it was in such a coach because I doubt that the ACL used reclining seat cars on its Tampa-Jacksonville local in 1938. Probably, the next three trains also had the old coaches–Southern 24 from Jacksonville to Columbia and from Columbia to Rock Hill, and Southern 117 from Rock Hill to Heath Springs; indeed, the timetable just mentions “coaches”.
The first one I remember was overnight from Atlanta to Birmingham on Southern #11 in 1951 (when I next rode this train, in 1957, it had reclining seat coaches). Both my brother and I were able to sit in seats that faced other seats and were able to put our legs up on the facing seats. On the same trip, we rode Southern #43 from Birmingham to New Orleans (day trip, so it was not as bad as a night trip), and spent much time standing at the rear of the car, seeing where we had been. (When we went through Eutaw, Alabama, I thought the spelling to be interesting, not knowing that the town was name for Eutaw Springs, S. C., where Nathaniel Greene had defeated the British in battle [Eutaw is the seat of Greene county]) On the same trip, we rode Southern #136 from Atlanta to Charlotte and when we boarded, my brother immediately staked out the long seat at the end of the seat section and stretched out all night; I spent the night much as I had from Atlanta to Birmingham.
My last experience in such a coach came in 1953, when I rode Southern #36 (#136 had just been abolished) from Atlanta to Charlotte. I am sure that revenue passengers had reclining seats, but I, riding on a pass, was relegated to the older car–and I took the end seat. This may well have been more comfortable than a coach seat on El Capitan.
Many many trips in such coaches, and somehow, I always managed to enjoy the trip despite the discomfort. After all, I always was a railfan. Very few times that I was able to spend at least some time standing in the rear vestibule. I remember with most joy the Marie Kleibolt Colorado trips. Lucius Beebe may have enjoyed the parlor car comfort of the San Juan betwen Alamosa and Dorango, but I thoroughly enjoyed three round trips, 1960, 1961, and 1962, in the usual D&RGW naroow gauge coaches, some that supposedly had been “modernized” with seats from scrapped Denver local transit buses. Would any of us do it again? You bet! 14 hours each way, too! Stil, I appreciated the roomettes on the standard gauge portions of these trips to and from Chicago.
Quite true; if you enjoy traveling by train, you can be willing to put up with a little discomfort now and then (such as spending most of the night in a station such as New Orleans Passenger Terminal; the last time I did this, I was not able to lie down, even with my legs bent). If you do not enjoy train travel, a little thing such as running late because someone tried to beat the train across a public crossing (“blame the railroad, not the car/truck driver”).
More info: Most people associate the D&RGW narrow gauge with wood open platform coaches, because that is the general make-up of today’s tourist oeprations. But the D&RGW did have some wood closed-vestibule coaches, possibly equipped with diaphragms. Durijng or before WWII, several were truly modernized with reclining seats, a row of one on one side and two on the other.
The San Juan usually carried one or two for longer distance riders, located directly ahead of the buffet, parlor, obs car, which coach passengers could use for meals. After the San Juan was discontinued, these were the cars equipped with 2x2 ex-Denver Transit bus seats to increase capacity on the now popular Silverton mixed train. They did not sport diaphragms in this service but did retain closed vestibules. Does Durango and Silverton use these cars today? Are they now open platform like the rest of the coaches? What kind of seating today?
Hi Dave! The wife and I rode the Durango and Silverton back in 2000. We spent the extra money and rode the parlor car at the tail end of the train. It was very 19th Century in it’s appointments but VERY comfortable. The rest of the train, well I don’t know. The regular passenger cars were open platform types right out a Hollywood western, no diaphragms, how comfy they were I can’t say. There was an open-to-the elements car as well, what it’s like to ride in that one, who knows? I WOULD say if you’re going to ride the D&S spend the extra money and ride the parlor car, it’s well worth it. It’s the closest you’ll come to feeling like a “Robber Baron”, and the on board bar’s not bad either!
In 1962 on the Kleibolt-Chicago RR Club tour, we did have the Nomad on the round-trip to Silverton, and Tom Long, who I later met on the Clifornia Service D&RGW diner in 1969 between Denver and Salt Lake City, was along with us. (D&RGW VP Passenger.) And at his suggestion we chartered the William Jackson Palmer for the round trip to Farmington the next day, with Rudy Morgenfrue and I buying provisions in Farmington for the cooked on the car steak dinner for the return to Durango. Brad Miller was also part of this party, and I think we invited Ron Ziel to join us for dinner.
But we never had this deluxe equipment on any of the Almosa - Durango runa.
I think the cars the D&RGW modernized for San Juan long distance (or rather long hours) service were once open-platform, and possibly after Bradshaw got the line from the D&RGW, the closed vestibule cars were returned to open-platform configuration.
To DaveK: That '62 Kleibolt- Chicago Railroad Club tour sounds like it was one hell of a party! Tell me, how do you have the knack for being in the right place at the right time? You should bottle it and sell it!
I find the railways could do a lot more than they care for to make long distance travelling more comfortable . It seems there is a secret act from the age of the formative years still applying that prescribes seats in trains must never compliment nature of human body shape and spine but rather try to reform , arguably : deform , bones - for the benefit of a purpose unknown and maybe untraceable since maybe there never was one , other than the railway’s still lingering tendency to ‘parent’ or ‘train’ passengers while travelling a train .
With TGV or ICE high speed trains incessantly dashing round and about in Europe these days as if frantically searching for answers to present day’s pressing economic crisis , yet never finding one , not in Frankfurt , not in Paris , nor in Brussels , neither by channel-tunneling to London , narrow and - again - unergonomic seats in these trains seem to make high speed / short time travel mandatory .
Or , sarcastic tongues have asked if maybe there was a highly unofficial cordial understanding between train seat manufacturers and chiropractor’s offices and vertebral surgery clinics – a thing Mercedes has also been suspected of for a long time since each new model was conspicuously turned out with the same spine-torturing back-sloping seats and jack-knifing backrests . It seems , since BMW has learned how to design a suspension for their 700 series cars providing a degree of soft ride worth mentioning , seats in present S class Mercs finally had to be shaped up .
Yet , the railway’s apparently world-wide anti-human seat shaping conspiracy , possibly upheld to protect against hordes of people basically perfectly willing to travel by train , yet remains to be broken .
John H. White, Jr’s The American Railroad Passenger Car has a ten page section (pg 373 - 383) on the development of American passenger car seats from the 1830’s to the 1950’s (the book doesn’t cover developments after Amtrak took over). This would be in part 2 of the softbound reprints of the book.
The Sleepy Hollow chair that was fairly common in post WW2 coaches was comfortable - remember coming home from Disneyland on the AT&SF San Diegan and falling into such a deep sleep that my brother had a hard time waking me.
The chapter that contains the section on seats also covers heating, ventilation, air conditioning, plumbing and lighting (from tallow candles to fluorescent lights). You seem to be the kind of person that would enjoy reading White’s book.
I wouldn’t want to say I wouldn’t want to read it - after all the American Railroad Passenger Car has to a certain degree always remained a somewhat mysterious creature to me - just try to explain to me why on earth you need 80 tons to seat 80 passengers , if US short tons . I mean , allow 200 lbs per well hamburgerised passenger and you still have a relation of 10 to 1 railriding vehicle to paylo-uhm person .
Regards
Juniatha
Oh , and speaking of contorting as in contrast comforting seat contouring - airlines seem to have taken up from RRs these days :
Aircraft customer service : “For that number of passengers you might take a look at our 777 you will find a fitting version like …”
Airline acquisition : “Oh no , umm , couldn’t you squeeze the same number of seats into a 767 , short version with extra fuel tank capacity , preferably ?”
BTW airing rumors are there is a new very short haul Airbuzzy around - here’s a rare view of the birdy taking off for a test fight … umm … flight
In addtion to many manynights in roomettes and slumbercoaches, and a few in double bedrooms, I had quite a few overnight coach rides as well. Some were in non-recliners, including the Narraganset on the New Haven with the few 8600 series coaches filled and my having to settle for a prewar 8200 series American Flyer. Somehow I managed to sleep OK. But really comfortable seats for overnight travel:
Best The El Capitan AT&SF highlevel coaches
Next best The PRR Juniata-built 44-passenger postwar lightweight coaches -that unfortunately rusted out in about eight years and were scrapped very early.
Fortunatly, I have never had to ride overnight ina an Amnfleet I, and the Amfleet II and Superliner caoches are OK, but I am only 5’10", and I did wonder about how the over-six footers faired.
I am 6’2", rode Amfleet I and II, and Superliner coach, found them to be fairly comfortable, no problems. As to non-recliners, whoa! Was going to call a chiropractor but didn’t know how to spell it.
White did discuss the issue of car weight per passenger on several cccasions in his book. Germane to this discussion was the weight of the seats themselves, particularly the Sleepy Hollow seat designed post WW2. He pointed out that weight per passenger reached a relative minimum in the early “streamline” era and agian in the 1950’s with the experimental lightweight trains. Along those lines, the rationale for the Santa Fe bi-levels used on the El Capitan was to reduce train weight per passenger.
A couple of guesses as to why the lightweights didn’t succeed: One is that the ride was thought to be worse, perhaps due to higher relative unsprung weight, The other is that crashworthiness was a concern (perhaps overrated).
Cute picture of the baby Airbus - reminds me of some of the photoshop jobs of locomotives appearing in the Berlinerwerke apocrypha, such as the 2-4-6-8-0.
Well , if ride should have to be less smooth if vehicle sprung mass is down to 1/2 of usual or previous - then what were bus constructors supposed to do with vehicle mass at best 1/4 of half-mass light weight coach ? not to think of car builders having vehicle units of but 1 - 2 tons hopping off their assembly line - cars should go down your average street in a “bouncy-b-b-bounc-bing-bang-bonky-bonk-bubblebounce” gait , no ? ( well some of contemporary cars seem to do just that - g )
It’s really all a matter of adjusting suspension to body mass - and , yes , of keeping down unsprung masses .
As I had written earlier recalling an earlier visit to Berlin-East station , seeing DB and DR coaches in a train go over a switch with sunken rail-joint : DB coach : "karr-arrgh … outch-arrr , followed by DR coach “bha-leng … de-long” - which prompted me to remark to comrade next to me …
As far as airline seats are concerned, they aren’t that uncomfortable but the lack of legroom can be a real problem. Having just returned from a vacation in Central America, it would appear that American Airlines, at least, has tightened the seat pitch on their 737’s and 767’s to just about the minimum possible.
As far as airline seats are concerned, they aren’t that uncomfortable but the lack of legroom can be a real problem. <<
You named it ! and that can make it reeaally torturous , at least if you have to use your thighbones as an expanding tool to get a minimum of legroom - or that’s what it makes you feel like … ( not to mention what your front buddy will think of being bumped in the back )
However , we all know from fantastic ads that’s not so - no-no , or at least not regularly .
