It was a proposal from PPR (Not Pullman) and got cancelled. Supposed to be built in PRR’s own shop, used 2D-P5 truck and Full-Width Diaphragms.
"This invention relates to railway cars and more particularly to railway’s sleeping cars.
The trend in sleeping car design is .to provide fully enclosed rooms or compartments for the passengers **instead of .curtained upper and lower berths.** A single deck sleeping car .divided into fully enclosed compartments will accommodate fewer passengers than cars .with curtained upper and lower berths, so it has been necessary to establish a higher passenger fare rate. in order to maintain the pay load value of such a car. An object of the `present invention is .to provide a plural deck sleeping car for accommodating a maximum number of passengers in private wcorn’- partments .whereby .the individual passenger fare rate .can .be reduced to a minimum.
Another object of the invention is to provide a sleeping car within allowable dimensions that will accommodate a maximum .number of passengers. I
Another object of the invention `is to providea plural deck sleeping car wherein a maximum number of passengers may beacoommodated and with adequatestorage space for equipment and accessories…"
You may already have noted that the technical answer here was the roomette. As noted, there are problems with low ceiling and probably with noise in the possum belly. It is hard to understand where all the equipment on the car would go – HVAC, brake, electrical, etc. – even with some version of HEP. Would have been fun to build one a la Pendulum Car and tour it around, but I suspect high-margin sleepers increasingly commanded attention in the postwar period (as commodity overnight rail travel dramatically fell off).
Be interesting to see what, if any, continuity there is between this and the Budd Tubular Train of the mid-50s, which similarly dropped the riders down near rail level. That had its own separate power car.
Definitely. It seems to me that they wanted to place all the stuffs at the front end, but there were a reasons to place those equipment under the car, like heat dissipation and passenger safety. Before Budd Tubular train, they had a very similar double deck sleeper like this one patented in 1951 but I can’t find that version again. Anyway, Raymond Loewy patented the folloing designs in 1946. The PRR/Pullman Brook-series duplex roomettes s
As noted, there are problems with low ceiling and probably with noise in the possum belly. It is hard to understand where all the equipment on the car would go – HVAC, brake, electrical, etc. – even with some version of HEP.
Partly this was addressed by shortening the “gondola” of the car at one end. The asymmetry can be seen in the side elevations. The arrangement is basically that used by hundreds of Bombardier commuter cars in Canada and the USA and it can be said to be well accepted in that role. Some equipment can be placed in the higher roof over the single deck sections.
The Canadian cars were based on those built for Sydney, Australia, based in turn on pre-WWII Paris suburban cars.
In Sydney, electric power cars were built. These had a shorter double deck section than the non powered cars to allow items like the brake compressor to sit under the floor. This also gave a longer single deck section at one end where the control switchgear was placed above the passenger seats.
I’m sure that with careful use of the roof space and and extended single deck section at one end, most equipment would find a home. I doubt that the allowance for ventilation ducting shown would work without high velocities and noise problems.
The staggered compartments of the “Brook” cars were much more practical. There were cars to this design on the 1937 Cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles trains, so the staggered design actually preceded the patent made in 1937.
I think the staggered design was popular in Europe where clearances were more critical and I think some cars to this design may still be in service (not that many sleeping cars still run in Europe).
IMO UP’s the Cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles trains were definitely “Train of Tomorrow” (M10000 series, EMC E2, E3 etc.) From the power they used to haul the consist to the facilities used on the train, they set up a new and high standard of Streamliner. The yellow livery is too shape for my taste though.
This design was by Budd in 1940, the layout and floor plan were very similar to many sleepers or coaches which were used in Mainland China and Russia since early-90s. Note the corridor and roomettes on first and 2nd floor are placed on opposite side (for better balance?), such design didn’t solve many problens including low ceiling height but the overall design was simplified compared to PRR’s one. I can’t see any public washing room in the drawing, maybe there was supposed a Budd Bathroom Car?
That train was the City of San Francisco No M10004 but later became the City of Los Angeles No LA-4, in which form it is illustrated. That train was built in 1936 and was the last of the “earthworm” style trains as far as the car design was concerned. As converted for the CoLA the train had polaroi
Thank you for the reply, Peter. I really like those 12-wheel streamlined betterment car on the 49er! The livery was not as colorful as the two streamlined steam locomotives, but they really looked elegance and the yellow strip looked sharp and eyes catching above the light grey body. I almost forgot this train since UP’s livery always remind me that fast food shop, I am not familiar with their history, but I really admire their insight of the railroad industry!
Articulation on light weight trains was actually a good idea, too bad it was not flexible when adjusting the length of the consist, I know not all the cars on 49er were articulated though. “Bear Flag” and
Advance may have been the first new build Duplex car although some standard cars were rebuilt as prototypes. AHM made plastic HO models of that conversion.
Given the thread topic, most of the discussion so far has concerned the leading car of the pair, Advance, later Bear Flag as the first duplex room car, it has occurred to me that the other car, Progress later California Republic, was the first of the parabolic curved streamlined observations that became so well known on trains across the USA (except of course for the articulated Zephyrs).
If anyone can think of an earlier separate car that had such an observation, I’d ike to hear about it. The Milwaukee Hiawathas had observation cars but quite different in design and appearance.
The Broadway, 20th Century, the Lark and all the other trains that had this style were all later. Even Pullman’s own American Milemaster was much later.
(I adjusted the thread title so that broader content can be discuss in one post.)
I didn’t note that Pullman’s Progress of 1936 was the prototypes of all curved streamlined observations car before, but I believe your information is accurate. Milwaukee’s own shop built some
Yes, but if you’re referring to the Milwaukee Skytop you pictured, that design of car was made by Brooks Stevens in the mid-Forties, built 1947, by which time the use of really large observation windows as in some NYC cars was under way.
I don’t think the streamlined end on the Pendulum Car prototype counts in this comparison; it was a compound-curved shape rather than parabolic.
Even in “Forty Niner” service, Bear Flag and California Republic were Pullman Pool Service cars. Before 1947 there wasn’t much distinction, as even UP-painted Pullmans were probably owned by Pullman and leased to UP. The two-unit car remined in the Pullman Pool until it was dismantled in the late 1940s. The tail shape of California Republic was copied on quite a few prewar and postwar trains.
The two pool service observations “American Milemaster” and “Muskingam River” replaced nearly identical cars 400 and 401, assigned to SP’s “Oakland Lark” and identified by number at SP’s request. The original 400 and 401 were wrecked a couple of months apart, and the pool Pullmans were readily available. Sold to SP in the Pullman breakup, renumbered 9500 and 9501, 9500 ended up as EMD’s test car.
I have to agree about the tail marker lamps…
It was the first thing I noticed.
The train appears to be a Santa Fe train.
The only reference to these cars I have is Randall’s Streamliner Cars Vol 3 which indicates they were built by Pacific Railway Equipment in 1937 and had wood bodies to test the suspension principle. Three steel coaches to a similar but taller design were built in late 1941 and early 1942 for ATSF, CB&Q and GN. The design is said to have originated with engineers with the Northrop Aircraft Company. Presumably they had other priorities after December 7 1941.
But if built in 1937, even the prototype cars post dated “Progress”
Clearly the SP was under strain with extra wartime traffic to have two rear end collisions in relative quick succession with their premier overnight train. The two reolacement cars were slightly older, American Milemaster built for the 1939 New York World’s Fair (along with three “River” class for the New York Central) and Muskingum River, with a polished aluminium clad body in 1940 (in time for the second year of the fair?)
The original Lark cars had the same floor plan as the American Milemaster and Muskingum River (all variants of Plan 4082) and more importantly used the same Pullman diagram for a 2 DBR, 1 Cpt, 1 DR buffet lounge observation. The 400 was hit in September 1941, the 401 in Decmber 1942. Since the seasonal Arizona Limited did not run in 1942, Muskingum River was readily available.
Both cars had their ends squared off in 1957. 9501 was damaged in a sideswipe in 1959 and retired, 9500 removed from Pullman lease and sold to EMD in 1963. The January 1960 OG listing for the Oakland Lark still lists a Buffet Lounge Sleeper.
Thank you, Overmod. I love all Milwaukee Hiawatha observation car, from the first generation of Beaver Tail Observation in 1936 built in MILW’s own shop to the next generation designed by Otto Kuhler in 1938 and the Milwaukee Skytop designed by Brooks Stevens in 1947 ( I admire his work more than Raymond Loewy to be honest, especially his automobile designs), I can clearly see the design was in a progress of getting better and better, compare to Pullman’s prewar “standardized” parabolic curved streamlined design and that dull and uninteresting postwar squared-off design built for PRR (what were they thinking almighty!), MILW really knew how to max out the fun.
