By at least 1832, there were compartment passenger cars for day use on the Baltimore & Ohio and New York & Harlem roads. Drawings of the 1st B&O car show 3 of the bodies of older 4 wheel cars mounted on an 8 wheel flat car. British railroads were using more modern versions of this non-corridor compartment coach into at least the 1970s, almost 150 years later.
In 1972, I rode in an Amtrak extra fare Parlor car with a Drawing Room for day use, if I paid for at least 2 passengers. Mid 1950s schedules for what is now the NorthEast Corridor mentioned Parlor cars with Day Roomettes for 1 person, as well as Drawing Rooms and individual seats.
At various times in the 1900s, there were smoking compartments in a few passenger cars on the Chicago, South Sore & South Bend Railroad and Amtrak. There may have been other rare or short lived examples.For example, the Central Railroad Company of New Jersey had 3 open platform Coach Observation cars from at least 1929 that were still listed in successor ConRail's timetables in 1977! They were used in trains without any 1st Class accommodations.

Comparing the prices between the 2 berth State Room and the 3 berth Drawing Room, I suspect that these are the charges per room, although the double Berth is not a room. In all cases, the railroad fare isn't included, this is just the Pullman charge.

Possibly the fastest exception was shown by the Amtrak derailment in Toti, Illinois on June 10, 1971 at the train's permitted speed of 100 miles per hour on that section of the Illinois Central Gulf Railroad. Some of the derailed cars had propane powered Air Conditioning, and the gas bottles broke loose.
Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania Railroad started permitting 100 mile per hour speeds for some older trains on parts of the NorthEast Corridor about 1967.

The original Metroliner Multiple Unit cars had pay telephones, but the minimum charge was $1 or $3.
The New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroads did hook up telephone lines at New York and Chicago to the 20th Century and Broadway Limiteds. The departing train pulled the plug.
There were some other rare cases of connecting a telephone on a famous train at an important stop.
In the 1950s, some NorthEast Corridor trains had a mobile (radio) telephone in one of the Parlor Cars. Coach passengers could have the Conductor escort them to the booth.
1st Class passengers could have the Pullman Company porter or other employee handle dispatch of a Telegram. Pads of Telegraph blanks were carried in Club Cars.

You mean legally required racial segregation. Some places, like Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1867, and the District of Columbia and New York City, New York a few years later, found it necessary to legally prohibit racial segregation in public transportation.
About 1931, National Pneumatic Company advertised how their treadle controlled, air operated rear trolley car door improved race relations in a Southern United States city, maybe it was Memphis? While every rider had to board and pay at the front, they stayed separate afterwards. Negroes exited by the rear door, Whites by the front, and no Conductor was needed to operate the rear door.
Phil, how did the Pennsylvania Railroad handle the State of Maryland's segregation laws on their own intrastate and interstate trains?
The competing Baltimore & Ohio Railroad even enforced Maryland's law in Washington! In 1872, a Negro lady riding on the B & O from Washington to Ivy City, which is still in the District of Columbia, refused to move to the Colored Coach. The Conductor had her arrested for not obeying his order, required under Maryland law. The lady sued the railroad in civil court on the grounds that segregation was legally prohibited where she was riding, even though the local government refused to prosecute. The appeals dragged on for 75 years. In 1947, the United States Supreme Court ruled against the railroad, saying that lack of enforcement was not a defense against a law.

The steam boat was supposed to be competition to keep prices down, but that wouldn't happen with common ownership.

The November, 1939 Pullman Commissary Instructions for Broiler - Buffet - Club and Lounge Car Service has rules for handling and accounting for bath service when there is no train barber to do this. It also mentions accounting for baths in observation cars for ladies where the train maid handles the service.
LA = Los Angeles, California
LD = Long Distance
Late in the steam era, the Central Railroad Company of New Jersey had a few electric generators in baggage cars to power the lights on the whole train with jumper cables between the cars. Some other road, probably in Chicago,Illinois, put the generator in the steam locomotive's tender. Now, the tender had a "smoke stack" for the exhaust steam.

Wait a minute, beside the "Pullman" fare you had to pay extra to the railroad?

I've seen sketeches with the drawing rooms. But they where just one or two per car, so at the best, those cars could be consider partially compartmented. But the kind of drwaing rooms that you mentionted where sex segregated or a couple or mother/father and children could ride in them?

There where some companies before the '20's and the '30's that had smoking lounges separated from the rest of the car. Some where in the men's lavoratory. Sheesh, a no smoker like me going to wash his hands and getting in a steam thicker then in a steam locomotive yard. And before non-opening windows, if smoke did come from the smoking longue you could open the window and refresh the air. With non opening windows and smoking in the whole of the car, I wonder how bad was the smell inside. Geesh, I lived back then probably I would get nostalgic about old days of the trains.

The bath couldn't be a shower? The "Oriental Limited" (prestreamlined) had showers, for both men and women. I'm curios if non-Whites could use them.

The telegrams where sent by cable, no? So you filled the message and when the mail was pick up from the train, the cards with the text written on them where sent by an operator from the station. I wondered if there was an service on which you could write the text on the card and then the operator to call the person to which the message was adressed and transmite by voice the message. Darn, today one person seeing your text seems so odd for many today... G.D.P.R., you know.
It was nice that you could sent by mail (this took longer) postcards with the train company. But I wonder if they where avaible on the train. And if they where avaible, I'm curios about another thing: did train companies offered Happy Birthady, Happy Christmas and Happy Easter postcards?

First, the CNJ did not have electric generators in baggage cars. They mounted large turbogenerators on the tenders of the steam engines. Alco RS-3's had a generator box on the long hood walkway; EMD GP-7's had a half-height square box at the end of the long hood. FM units had the generators entirely inside. The power was solely for lights; steam heated the cars and the cars were not air conditioned; you raised the window. Marker lights were oil lamps that would not go out when the power failed.

Yes, Pullman fare and railroad fare were separate; they went to different companies. For example, on the B&O in July, 1965, from Washington to Chicago coach fare was $32.53, First Class $55.03 per adult passenger. This went to the B&O. Space charge was $9.71 for a Roomette. This went to the Pullman Company. Also the term "Compartment" in the USA refers to a specific type of Pullman accommodation and was not used by the industry to refer to any other type of enclosed accommodation.

Very few Pullman accommodations had showers. I can think of the Master Rooms on PRR's Broadway Limited and Liberty Limited, and on Southern's Crescent Limited, plus the Drawing Room in the Dome Observation on the California Zephyr. These were the most expensive accommodations on each train.

Phil Mulligan

I noticed that in U.S.A. the term "compartment" designs a specific accomodation, but I used the general term. Probably it's better to write compartment (EU, gen.) in order to people know that it's not reffering to a specific acomomodation. Also, let's use streetcar, not trolley, because in Europe and probably Australia trolley means trolleybus (trolleycoach), not streetcar (or tram how in called in British English).

But if you ride in a coach or a sleeper you couldn't use the shower if you payed the fare for the shower?
That "Great Northen" fare charts that I posted links to dosen't inclued all the fare for the sleeping acomodation (except the Federal Tax of 15%), meaming "Pullman" + "Great Northen" fares?

"Great Northen" (seems this railroad company haves quite a lot of fans, since you do find pretty much information about it) introduced air condition on it's heavy weight "Empire Buider" train in the '30's, by purchasing new cars... I'm curios if those air coniditoning cars had windows that opened - this is one information that I couldn't find.

"Great Northen", but some othe companies had passanger cars that where wow! They where works of art in the inside. All that wood, the lamps. Newer cars where avarage looking (again I say, even Eastern-Europeanen cars had more looks, trough all that I like the inside of some light weight cars).
I could only get a glimpse of it when I rode (or just got in to have a look) some old West-German made sleeping cars (1959-1973 made) that where bougt second-hand in Romania... to replace some Eastern-Europanen made sleeping cars (even some made in 1984). The only ride with them was in May of 2007, the month in which (or the month after) some nice 1957-1959 and 1964-1966 Munich built streetcars where writhdawn from public service in Bucharest (these where second-hand too). To be onest, I hate those streetcars in 1994 (year that the 1st where bought) and probably 1995 (Why do we need to get all the junk from the West?), but in no more then 2 years (probably less) I camed to love them, because I realized how cool they where. Romanian made streetcars (newer then them - including rebuilt cars) where way bellow them. They where introduced on routes 34 and 50... route 34 (now defunct, other routes use the rails now) passed on the place on whic I live.

@ EJ Berry : so steam ejector a.c. wasn't put on C.N.J. cars?
Steam turbine on locomotives tender? :o

I'm curios if on parlol cars that had radio recivers F.M. radio was ever introduced? Or it came to late for such thing.
"Amtrak" had gaming console on some of the trains I think. I've seen one picture from the '80's with consoles inside of dome a car (the lower section). I wonder up untill they kept them?

I rode the Southwest Chief in the late 1980s and don't remember any kind of video games in the Sightseer lounge. The big thing on long distance Amtrak trains in the that era was on-board movies in the lounge. (VHS tapes at that point). On a train that only ran over one overnight, just one movie per trip; on a multi-day trip two or more in rotation. I remember working the lounge on the Capitol Ltd. for several months in the Spring of 1996, and getting really tired of Mr. Holland's Opus, which was the featured flick for most of the time I held that job.

So that thing with movies on train went even in the '90's.
But I'm still curios for what was that tv set incporated in furniure presented in a 1972 brochure.

From what film it can be? https://www.eurotrib.com/story/2011/11/27/23656/738

Something about Saint Paul Union Depot: https://www.rchs.com/wp-content/uploads ... _Diers.pdf

When I read about Propane air conditiong I thought it used an absorbtion system... but what the funk, they where internal combustion engines powered by Propane: https://www.rchs.com/wp-content/uploads ... _Diers.pdf

Something about private cars: http://www.pcrnmra.org/pcr/clinics/Hobb ... ssCars.pdf
That car on which a car could be taken...

The CNJ did not use steam ejector A/C. They had a few cars with electro-mechanical A/C but these all used conventional axle driven generators and battery power. The CNJ cars with Head End Power were all used in CNJ commuter service and were not air conditioned. They could go off line only if accompanied by a CNJ locomotive with HEP.

Propane A/C was more commonly known as Waukesha A/C (for the manufacturer.) The propane powered a piston engine that provided the energy for the A/C. Cars with Waukesha A/C were not permitted in NY Penn Station account fire, explosion and/or suffocation hazard in the tunnels.

Phil Mulligan