That is a very nice pamphlet to study. If you can get a copy, you will learn a lot.

We never had the three or six bed compartments found in Europe. Three tier beds were very rare in North America. We built boxcar size cars for troop transport use during WW2 and these had triple tier beds without partitions. About the same time, Pullman built four experimental "coach sleeping cars" the were size like regular passenger cars with an interior that had convertible three tier beds that converted into three across bench seating for daytime use.

Also during WW2 and at other times, the military made use of the Pullman "Tourist" sleeping cars. "Tourist cars" were an austere version of the standard 12-section, 1 drawing room Pullman sleeping cars. For military use the toilet annex of the drawing room was bolted shut; the two toilet rooms at the ends were still available. And the military put 39 men in a car that normally had a commercial capacity of 15. The lower berths were wider by a few inches than the upper berths; the military assigned two men to each lower berth and one man to each upper berth. (The drawing room had a standard section at the window and a sofa against the corridor wall.)

That brochure sayes that there where some 3 and 6 breath compartements. Compartments in the way of rooms. From the drawing from the brochure you see that there where no doors on the compartments.
The ebay seller dosen't delivers to Europe...

Actually, the Pennsylvania Railroad segregated all colored passengers ticketed on southbound through trains beyond Washington, D.C. at the point of embarkation. In other words, a colored passenger ticketed on the Crescent who got on at any point north of D.C. would be assigned a space in the coach designated for colored passengers if they were ticketed through to Atlanta (just for example). That was provided that space was available. If space was not available, they would be ticketed to Washington and required to see the ticket agent there to purchase a ticket to their final destination.

As for operations out of Chicago, I have not seen any information but one can assume that there was some similar practice. It is known that the reservation agencies could identify the part of a city that a customer was calling from and would use that information to attempt to discern the race of the customer.

There is an upcoming special publication from the publisher (Klambach) of our magazine Classic Trains that is expected October 9. It is Pullman: America’s Hotel on Wheels

The Compartments and drawing rooms had doors that opened inward into the room. These rooms were sold to people traveling together -- not to individuals who did not know each other.

Compartments could sleep two arranged same as a open section with upper and lower births. Compartments also had a wash bowl with running water, and a toilet that had a upholstered cover that could be used as a seat and a chair.

Drawing rooms had the toilet and wash stand in a separate annex. Besides the typical section style of upper and lower berths the room contained a sofa against the corridor wall. The sofa could be made up as a third bed,

The compartments and drawing rooms usually had connecting doors that were usually locked. But for families or couples traveling together the doors could be unlocked.

Below is a scan of one of the common Pullman sleeping cars. These appear in a book about sleeping cars used on the Santa Fe.

The 12-1 sleeping car was the most common design in the Pullman fleet:


Another style of car was the 8-2-1. this plans shows how compartments and drawing rooms were often arranged in Pullman cars:

The PRR at one time did seat people by race, at least on trains carrying no local passengers between Washington and New York. The DC-Virginia border was the beginning of the South. [as opposed to the Mason-Dixon Line which PRR/Amtrak's NEC crosses just North of Claymont DE]

SAL's Silver Meteor (Actually PRR-Washington-RF&P-Richmond-SAL) I had mentioned earlier in this thread carried the coach sesction on the hind end but there was one coach between the Baggage-Dorm and the first Pullman. This was for the Black patrons and very effectively kept them out of the sight of the White coach passengers back at the other end of the train. Unlike what may have happened elsewhere in the South, this car was a 52-seat stainless steel lightweight from the same class as the other coaches.

The HBO movie of the Tuskegee Airmen (WWII Black soldiers training to be pilots; then flying missions in Europe) has a scene of the soldiers from Chicago being made to move to the cars for Black passengers at Cairo IL, just before they crossed the river into Kentucky.

BTW the bottom two floorplans in Br. Norden's post above are 10S DR 2C cars.

Phil Mulligan

So S.A.L. did kept "separate bat equal" really equal.

In a sense, yes. They were also known generally for treating their colored patrons reasonably well by comparison to other roads (specifically the Southern). During the transition from wood cars to steel cars, the Seaboard (and Atlantic Coast Line) adopted a practice of not mixing wood and steel cars in passenger service. The use of wooden cars for the accommodation of colored passengers was a great concern to that community.

Intresting. I wonder if it was a thing caming from the herat or it was for the image?
Desegregation on interurban transport camed in 1964 or 1965, but I wonder if all railway desegregated imediatly.
"Seabord Airline" was one of the last railway companies to run passanger trains at 100 miles per hour, in the '50's or '60's. They had for 2-3 years a powerful manager. But after him, 100 m.p.h. was gone. Can't rember his name, but he wasn't an old person.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964, signed into law July 2, 1964, prohibited "discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin in hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters, and all other public accommodations engaged in interstate commerce."

This put an end to segregation on trains.

Phil Mulligan

It put an end to segregation on interstate railroads. However, there were a few intrastate railroads that were not affected directly. The Central of Georgia Railway attempted to continue to enforce segregation for a short while after that ruling, but eventually gave that up. The Central was also the last railroad to maintain interstate steamship service as they owned a steamship company and being an intrastate railroad, were not required to divest themselves of it like the interstate railroads were. That was due to a federal law that was passed in the 1920s.

But if you went like eg with
"New York Central"
or "Pennsylvania Railroad"
from Washington D.C. or New York City to Chicago

or from Chicago, Twin Cities, Milwaukee
to Tacoma, Seattle, Spokane
with "Great Norther"
or "Milwaukee Road"

you needed to choose between White - Colored cars (some states considered Latinos and Indian Natives as White) or you could go in whatever car you choose.
Did in states which dind't applyed segregation in all domains (for eg you could sit whever you want into a bus, trolleybus, streetcar) non-Whites could be allowed in observation cars?
One non-railway curiosity: did buses, streetcars, trolleybuses in U.S.A. had the 2nd door in the middle, not in the rear becuase of racial segregation... I know that the rear was for non-Whites. Not all cities had streetcars with the door in the middle, some had it in the rear, but most had it in the middle.

Still I can't understead how can people could stay in air-condition more the 24 hours at one time. O.k., probably you could get out of the train for 10 minutes when a longer stop, but otherwise...
But could you go to the vestibule of the car and open the above part of the Dutch ("farm") door to get fresh air without the conductor picking on you (other then saying: be carefful not to fall).

What was wrong in railroad companies operating steam boats?

In some old timetables I've seent "Rail-auto service". For eg, see here *: https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sjuiPqQfOU0/ ... ble%2B.png
What did this service do
a) You could take your car on the train;
b) It was a kind of taxicab service, meaning you're beeing take by the car when going from station to hotel and back and/or between stations, so you didn't need to wait for public transportation or a cab.

* ha, one of those trains passed trought city of Winona, which after Winona Ryder got her last name.


Oh, oh, "Pulmann" from coast to coast was very expensive: https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0PSeBgEmolE/ ... ble%2B.png
But I think when you went from state of Washington to New York City you swtiched companies somwhere along the route.

This was the offer of the "Great Northen" was offering for sleeping accomodation in 1950: https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Wa69ib5cp40/ ... ble%2B.png

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-q6xfvY4s1tU/ ... ble%2B.png

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-q6xfvY4s1tU/ ... ble%2B.png

Just about every major East-West Rail route in the U. S. goes through Chicago, and the railroad companies mostly divided between East of there and West of there. It's still the main long-distance hub for Amtrak, and a huge bottleneck for freight railroads in the U. S.

Segregation on trains ended before the Civil Rights Act. The Interstate Commerce Commission outlawed the practice in a 1955 ruling on Keys v. Carolina Coach Co., but it was not enforced until 1961 when the actions of the Freedom Riders and pressure from Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy forced the ICC to implement its ruling.

The US Supreme Court case was Morgan v. Virginia, 328 U.S. 373 (1946).

Ms. Morgan a Black person, was travelling by bus between Maryland and Virginia. While the bus was in Virginia, she was sitting in the "White" section and the bus driver demanded she sit in the "Colored" section. She refused and was arrested and convicted. The case was appealed to the US Supreme Court which held that segregation was a burden on interstate commerce and found in favor of Ms. Morgan.

The Court found:
"It seems clear to us that seating arrangements for the different races in interstate motor travel require a single, uniform rule to promote and protect national travel. Consequently, we hold the Virginia statute in controversy invalid.

Segregation in interstate dining cars was banned by Henderson v. United States, 339 U.S. 816 (1950).

Some carriers did not enforce the Morgan decision until 1961 when the US Attorney General threatened action against the carriers.

Phil Mulligan

In further reply to djl's comments above. There are many Americans who would spend the entire Summer in Air Conditioning without ever braving the hot, fresh air. Some roads permitted opening the top half of a Dutch Door; others did not. On some, it was dependent on who was the Conductor and how fast the train was going.

As to racial segregation, it was unique to the former Confederate States and to some border states that had allowed slavery in 1861 but did not secede from the Union. Transcontinental trains were not affected, other than SP, Rock Island and Santa Fe trains that served Texas.

Transit vehicles with a single operator (i.e. no Conductor) were universally front entrance. The center door was exit-only.

Rail-auto service, with a symbol resembling a 1930's sedan, meant you could rent an automobile at that station.

Phil Mulligan