[quote user=“wjstix”]
Re “berths” I mixed up terms, sorry. Berths are indeed beds; a typical “section” had two berths, upper and lower. Most travellers paying for a berth would have been in an open section.
For example, according to my old Walthers “Passenger Car Plans” book, the heavyweight GN Empire Builder would typically have as it’s full sleeping cars a 16-section “tourist” sleeper, a 14-section sleeper, a “12-and-1” (12 open sections, one drawing room), and an 8-1-2 (8 sections, 1 drawing room, 2 compartments) sleeper. So for these four you’d have 50 open sections, each with two berths, so 100 total; then two drawing rooms and two compartments. (I believe the Solarium Observation car would add several compartments and or drawing rooms.)
The Summer 2017 Mainstreeter (Northern Pacific Hist. Soc. magazine) has an article by Mike Martin called “MacFarlane’s Gamble”, referring to the risk NP took by spending a lot of money to upgrade the post-war North Coast Limited to a streamliner. A couple of interesting points:
“(T)he Great Northern and the Milwaukee Road competed with the Northern Pacific for the Chicago - Twin Cities - Seattle passenger market.” “Because rates were tightly regulated by the Interstate Commerce Commission, all fares were about equal…and by gentleman’s agreement, all three competitors operated on an admittedly slow 45-hour schedule between St.Paul and Seattle.”
“All three railroads had a flagship train plus a secondary mail train over their respective transcontinental routes.” “All three operated their trains with generally heavyweight equipment and steam power.”
He notes that after WW2, GN and the Milwaukee upgraded to a 39-1/2 hour schedule, that required the NP to decide if it wanted to upgrade and compete or not.
Found this cutaway of a 1920 Pullman car - note towards the middle the open sections