Is there a special name for the passage way between cars that allows passengers to move between cars. In the early years, you remained in the car you entered till you reached a station to allow a car change or got off. I was curious if there was a specific name for it. Thanks. Drake Rice.

Good question...I always though it was diaphragm. Dont trust my answer though. I also would like to know. =]

This?
http://www.irritatedvowel.com/Railroad/ ... eDeck.aspx

The rubber gasket that goes all around that is a diaphragm because the older ones looked like accordians. I don't know what you call the passage itself. "end door" is what I've called it, though on some cars there aren't actually doors.

It's called the vestibule.

The diaphragms are the accordion-pleated devices on the ends of cars which form the vestibule when two cars are coupled together.

I see the terms all the time as curator of the Pullman Library but please correct me if you have something better. The old style open end cars had a platform, also called an open platform. On the train's end could be a car with an observation platform, of which there were interesting varieties. People. particularly the conductor, would go car to car. How else would you go to the smoker, usually in the combination baggage-passenger car at the head end - always reeking of old cigar? At Strasburg Railroad, on the Boston & Maine open cars they have something called a Wood's Safety Gate, which prevents people from falling down the stairs going car to car. Nevertheless, they make sure everyone stays in their seat when the car is in motion! It stows flush with the car end (ie, stows on the outside of the box structure when alighting but swings across the top of the steps as a safety measure.) Going car to car meant you got your share of smoke and cinders so the next developments were narrow vestibules which amounted to a tunnel from the car door to a diaphragm, always with overlapping striker plates over the buffers (ie what hits car-to-car above the coupler) to prevent falling between cars. Doors on the sides of the narrow vestibule could be opened inward to allow the passengers to debark. Well, George Pullman's people came up with a neat patent that gave him a huge advantage over the competition, the trap that stowed on the car side to debark but dropped over the steps for the moving car, coming up with a car end that marked the heavyweight and lightweight streamline car eras, the wide vestibule for a smooth sided train. Today we get in and out of Amtrak cars in the center - Oh Shucks - gone again! And of course there is the blind end - no stairs, common on today's cars but in the old days usually on a baggage car or on a car with stairs on just one end, with diaphragms between car ends touching and the ubiquitous end doors. Aren't you sorry you asked! There are drawings in the Pullman Library showing all this!
Very sincerely - and glad you asked, Ted Anderson

Thanks to all of you. It has helped in explaining to visitors to our museum. I'll also refer them to the Pullman site. Drake Rice, Oklahoma Railway Museum, Oklahoma City, OK.