interior pictures of Slumbercoach rooms

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amtrakmichigan

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I have seen many pictures of the exterior of Slumbercoaches. However I have personelly never set foot into a Slumbercoach. I have always been currious how the rooms were set up so that the windows were staggered. Do any of you have pictures of the interiors of Slumbercoaches or know of any links that you may be able to post? Please don't make an effort to post exterior shots, since I have seen many of these.
 
Bill Haithcoat once sent an interior photo he took - I think it's on another computer which I don't have here with me...
 
Will try to help---I am not particualrly skilled at describing things.....am not completely sure where the photo is that Anthony mentioned---it might be on a member's webside, maybe Viewliner's.

The staggered windows match the 16 single rooms. The single rooms themselves are staggered with the windows. One room is sort of crammed about half way back on top of the room below it---God, do I REALLY not know how to explain things.I hope somebody will come to my rescue. I know what I am talking about, but putting it into intelligible words.....The entrance to every other single rooom,alternating is a few inches off the ground.

The double rooms are just normal shaped rooms, normal windows. normal access from the aisle floor (but cheap in design and comfort, cheap in price)

I searched google for illustrations of the inside myself and found nothing good---also searched "duplex roomette"==--that is a pre-Amtrak sleeper room-- standard sleeper--, much nicer than a slumbercoach but the same staggered pattern. SOME of the sleepers on The Canadian contain what were formerly known as duplex roomettes. If you actually take time to read some of the copy, the (words) on these these google sites either for slumbercoaches or for duplex roomettes it might explain it far better than I, even without picturing it.

I will try to find something that can be posted in a few days.

I remember this: when lying in the bed on one of the " floor level" rooms, you had to be careful not to hit your head against the back end of the room above you when you got out of bed.
 
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Looks like it is going to be a few weeks before I can provide some interior shots.

Meanwhile, here is some random info, just in case you don't already know:

One, slumbercoaches were kind of rare. There were never very many of them.

They were not invented until about 1956, I think slumbercoaches ran for the first time on the Denver Zephyr from CHI to Denver. The year 1956 was kind of late to still be building passenger cars. The downward slide in railroad business was already beginning.

Trains that did have them usually had just one of them, in addition to several coaches and several sleepers. Few trains had any more than one slumbercoach. It is possible that they were "too little, too late"..

Keep in mind also: some railroads took existing sleepers, both heavy weight and streamlined, and re-made them into various kinds of "sleeper coaches", " budget sleepers", "thrift -T Sleepers", etc various kinds of names. In some cases such cars were not rebuilt with staggered windows. It was sort of like taking a regular car and "dressing it down". Such details vary from train to train and railroad to railroad.

Of course any slumbercoach which Amtrak inherited was a lightweight streamlined car, none of the rebult heavyweights.
 
Bill Haithcoat said:
Will try to help---I am not particualrly skilled at describing things.....am not completely sure where the photo is that Anthony mentioned---it might be on a member's webside, maybe Viewliner's.
The staggered windows match the 16 single rooms. The single rooms themselves are staggered with the windows. One room is sort of crammed about half way back on top of the room below it---God, do I REALLY not know how to explain things.I hope somebody will come to my rescue. I know what I am talking about, but putting it into intelligible words.....The entrance to every other single rooom,alternating is a few inches off the ground.

The double rooms are just normal shaped rooms, normal windows. normal access from the aisle floor (but cheap in design and comfort, cheap in price)
Click to expand...
I'll second Bill on the idea of trying to paint a totally intelligible word picture.

And there is a picture of a lower on page 41 of Harry Stegmier's Baltimore & Ohio Passenger Service, 1945-1971 Vol 2-Route of the Capitol Limited

The rooms were molded pink plastic assemblies.

The doubles were essentially similar to a Viewliner roomette with the sink and toilet.

 

The duplex singles [which all faced forward] which were equipped with sink and toilet - were cramped. As I recall the beds folded down in two 24 inch wide halves. Each half had a thin mattress pad - then a full length thin mattress pad, sheet, blanket and pillow were rolled into the cavity where your feet would reside.

In the lowers, the seatback folded down to make the head part of the bed, in the uppers I think the bed was at the level of the seat back.
 
Wikipedia has an exterior picture at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slumbercoach as does the TCRM (Tennessee Central Railway Museum) at http://www.tcry.org/equipment/repose.htm. TCRM apparently owns a Slumbercoach, the Silver Repose. They also have an email photo group, at http://www.egroups.com/group/tennesseecentral and it might be that if you got in touch with them that someone there might be willing to take some e-pix and send them to you. I would also suggest that you ask them to add some info to the Wikipedia Slumbercoach page, since they are uniquely qualified to do that, as they apparently possess one of those cars.
 
Amtrak ran Slumbercoaches on the Empire Builder in the 1970s. Silver Repose was one of several that I rode when I was in the Air Force and living in Grand Forks, ND. Amtrak offered a 25% military discount on coach railfares and that included Slumbercoaches, but could not be used in first class sleepers. The cost of a slumbercoach ticket from Grand Forks to Chicago was only $15.00 more than coach. Amtrak also had slumbercoaches from New York to Miami that were inherited from Seaboard Coastline. SCL called them Budgetroom Sleepers. I believe they were former B&O 14 roomette 4 double bedroom cars. I think "nofrills" slumber coach type sleepers are something Amtrak should consider when new rolling stock is being planned. They are great for college students and younger folks who don't have the budget for first class.
 
I always said this about slumbercoaches---it was broom closet space----but broom closet prices!!! The prices made the cramped space more than worth it.

One of my travel secrets for a person traveling alone was this: ride in a double slumbercoach room. That is not that uncomfortable, one person in a room meant for two, and the prices still ridiculously low. The prices were always closer to coach price than to sleeper yet the space so much more comparable to sleeper.

They had one for several years on the Crescent. It just went NYC to ATL, not enough of them to go all the way to NOL.
 
I don't know if this helps, but this is a picture I took a couple of years ago on The Canadian. The room was very small and it was the only one, as I passed through the train, that had a door/curtain open so you could see inside. But, as you can see, it is cramped. The bed makes up over the commode seat and when you are prone, your feet stick back in the area on the right. Above that is the upper room and that person's feet are over yours on the other side of the ceiling area. Don't know if that makes sense or not.

121216279-L.jpg
 
MrFSS said:
I don't know if this helps, but this is a picture I took a couple of years ago on The Canadian. The room was very small and it was the only one, as I passed through the train, that had a door/curtain open so you could see inside. But, as you can see, it is cramped. The bed makes up over the commode seat and when you are prone, your feet stick back in the area on the right. Above that is the upper room and that person's feet are over yours on the other side of the ceiling area. Don't know if that makes sense or not.
121216279-L.jpg
Click to expand...

I believe what you have taken a picture of is a duplex roomette. Kind of similar to a slumbercoach especially as to the staggered window effect. . A slumbercoach is even more spartan and even more cramped, but a duplex roomette is quite similar, something which I think I mentioned on an earlier post. The Canadian today does not have slumbercoaches but it does have eduples roomettes, so I think that is what it is.
 
Bill Haithcoat said:
I believe what you have taken a picture of is a duplex roomette. Kind of similar to a slumbercoach especially as to the staggered window effect. . A slumbercoach is even more spartan and even more cramped, but a duplex roomette is quite similar, something which I think I mentioned on an earlier post. The Canadian today does not have slumbercoaches but it does have eduples roomettes, so I think that is what it is.
Click to expand...
Thanks, Bill - I didn't know for sure. I knew it had the staggered windows as seen from the outside. It did look cramped to me.
 
Bill Haithcoat said:
MrFSS said:
I don't know if this helps, but this is a picture I took a couple of years ago on The Canadian. The room was very small and it was the only one, as I passed through the train, that had a door/curtain open so you could see inside. But, as you can see, it is cramped. The bed makes up over the commode seat and when you are prone, your feet stick back in the area on the right. Above that is the upper room and that person's feet are over yours on the other side of the ceiling area. Don't know if that makes sense or not.

121216279-L.jpg
Click to expand...

I believe what you have taken a picture of is a duplex roomette. Kind of similar to a slumbercoach especially as to the staggered window effect. . A slumbercoach is even more spartan and even more cramped, but a duplex roomette is quite similar, something which I think I mentioned on an earlier post. The Canadian today does not have slumbercoaches but it does have eduples roomettes, so I think that is what it is.
Click to expand...
Did either of them come with a bottle of olive oil, so as to complete the "life as a sardine" immersion experience? <grin>

-Rafi
 
Rafi said:
Did either of them come with a bottle of olive oil, so as to complete the "life as a sardine" immersion experience? <grin>
-Rafi
Click to expand...
My wife and I had the two person bedroom on that trip and I felt cramped in it. Not anywhere as nice as the deluxe bedroom Amtrak has. We spent all our waking time, when we weren't in the diner, either in the dome, in the lower lounge part of the dome car, or in one of the empty sections (that become upper and lowers at night). The section area had comfortable seats and you could see out both side very well. No one in our car had reserved on for this trip so they were always empty and available.
 
MrFSS said:
Bill Haithcoat said:
I believe what you have taken a picture of is a duplex roomette. Kind of similar to a slumbercoach especially as to the staggered window effect. . A slumbercoach is even more spartan and even more cramped, but a duplex roomette is quite similar, something which I think I mentioned on an earlier post. The Canadian today does not have slumbercoaches but it does have eduples roomettes, so I think that is what it is.
Click to expand...
Thanks, Bill - I didn't know for sure. I knew it had the staggered windows as seen from the outside. It did look cramped to me.
Click to expand...

Just for the heck of the historical record, when the Canadian was put in service, about 1955, it did have some heavyweight sleepers (though otherwise very much a lightweight streamlined train) painted silver to look like stainless steel and they were budget sleepers of some sort---can't think of the name. Something like "touralex" . No staggered windows, as I recall.

The competing route across Canada also had some version of low cost sleepers put aboard its otherwise lightweight streamlined lead train, the Super Continental . But none of them were true slumbercoaches-- which were always lightweight cars.

I have lost track of when the "budget sleepers" (whatever they were called) exited Canada.

The duplex roomette, which you have shot, was kind of rare. I remember them as being largely on the pre-Amtrak Empire Builder, the North Coast Limited, trains like that.
 
jphjaxfl said:
......... Amtrak also had slumbercoaches from New York to Miami that were inherited from Seaboard Coastline. SCL called them Budgetroom Sleepers. I believe they were former B&O 14 roomette 4 double bedroom cars............
Click to expand...
Those were ex-B&O 16 Duplex Roomette-4 Double Bedroom "Bird" series sleepers.

When the B&O dropped their genuine Slumbercoaches from the National Limited they were replaced for a while by three 16-4's as SlumberRoom Coaches. The B&O's other 16-4's were still running as First Class sleepers! In fact, since the B&O had no spare Slumbercoaches, if one was out of service on either the National Limited or Capitol Limited, the B&O would substitute a regular 10-6 and scatter other Slumbercoach passengers into empty First Class rooms. Once I actually occupied a regular Double Bedroom that way.

 

PS: the original Slumbercoaches were operated by the Pullman Company

 

PPS: In a standard Duplex Roomette, if you look closely, the bed in the lower slid out on a tray. In the uppers, they folded from the wall just like a standard roomette.
 
Interesting - so the Chateau cars have duplex, while the Manor cars have the traditional roomettes? I've done the latter on VIA, but wasn't aware of the duplex, so I may have to work one into future travel plans :)
 
Sorry I didn't get back with you guys earlier since I am the one who started the thread. Thanks a million for to those who posted the interior pictures of the slumbercoaches. That was exactly the type of pictures I was trying to locate.
 
JAChooChoo said:
Bill Haithcoat said:
Will try to help---I am not particualrly skilled at describing things.....am not completely sure where the photo is that Anthony mentioned---it might be on a member's webside, maybe Viewliner's.
The staggered windows match the 16 single rooms. The single rooms themselves are staggered with the windows. One room is sort of crammed about half way back on top of the room below it---God, do I REALLY not know how to explain things.I hope somebody will come to my rescue. I know what I am talking about, but putting it into intelligible words.....The entrance to every other single rooom,alternating is a few inches off the ground.

The double rooms are just normal shaped rooms, normal windows. normal access from the aisle floor (but cheap in design and comfort, cheap in price)
Click to expand...
I'll second Bill on the idea of trying to paint a totally intelligible word picture.

And there is a picture of a lower on page 41 of Harry Stegmier's Baltimore & Ohio Passenger Service, 1945-1971 Vol 2-Route of the Capitol Limited

The rooms were molded pink plastic assemblies.

The doubles were essentially similar to a Viewliner roomette with the sink and toilet.

 

The duplex singles [which all faced forward] which were equipped with sink and toilet - were cramped. As I recall the beds folded down in two 24 inch wide halves. Each half had a thin mattress pad - then a full length thin mattress pad, sheet, blanket and pillow were rolled into the cavity where your feet would reside.

In the lowers, the seatback folded down to make the head part of the bed, in the uppers I think the bed was at the level of the seat back.
Click to expand...
The problem is so many rail photographers seem to forget trains have interiors as well as exteriors. I don't know if railfans just didn't ride the trains they photographed or just failed to take pictures once aboard.

It is a constant disappointment with nearly every railroad book. Plenty of locomotives zooming by - too few candid

shots onboard those trains.
 
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