So: how many of you had the pleasure of traveling by Slumbercoach?

I did, in 1983 and 1984.

Wikipedia says only five out of 16 are preserved. Really?

Do any of you remember the toiletry kit for a slumbercoach? it was a bar of soap and a pint sized roll of toilet paper.

I traveled by "All America" fare back in the day, and I think the Slumbercoach supplement was only about $40.

I have in the Amtrak era on the Broadway Limited between Philly and Chicago half a dozen times. Much better than coach.

To Florida roundtrip once and also "Night Owl" service from New Haven to Washington, DC. I liked the "upper" section for the high level view.

Where are they preserved?

Wesley

Took a Slumbercoach out to the Feb. 1972 Tourist Railway Association convention in Chicago. Had a "lower" and it was like sleeping in a fiberglass casket. Roomettes were far better!

Howard P.

I did two trips prior to Amtrak in 24-8 Slumbercoaches. The first was between Minneapolis and Chicago on the Burlington's "Blackhawk" on Labor Day weekend in 1968. The second was on NP's "Mainstreeter" between Billings, MT, and Minneapolis, in the summer of 1969.

My most memorable Amtrak Slumbercoach trip involved riding the the largest and smallest Amtrak sleeping car accommodation available - a drawing room and a single Slumbercoach room. A fellow Amtrak employee and I shared a drawing room in an ex-AT&SF "Regal" series 4-4-2 on Train 3 between Chicago and Lamar, CO. We caught a Trailways bus to Denver (with a breakfast stop at Hugo, CO) and then each had a single room on Train 6 between Denver and Aurora, IL.

Don C.

From the ever-dubious Wikipedia supplemented by my own notes:

Silver Repose — Built Budd 1956 for Burlington's Denver Zephyr, later Amtrak 2095, current location: Tennessee Central Railway Museum, Nashville, Tennessee; http://tcry.org/equipment/repose.htm
Silver Slumber — Built Budd 1956 for Burlington's Denver Zephyr, later Amtrak 2021 current location: Gold Coast Railroad Museum, Miami, Florida.
Dreamland — Built 1956 for B&O's Columbian, later Amtrak 2097, current location: Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum, Baltimore, Maryland .
Loch Sloy — 24-8, Built 1959 for NP/CB&Q North Coast Limited as NP 325, Amtrak 2024, current location: Illinois Railway Museum, Union, Illinois.
Loch Arkaig - 24-8, Built Budd 1959 for NYC 20th Century Limited as NYC 10802, then NP 335/Amtrak 2033; current location: Southeastern Railway Museum, Duluth, Georgia

Previous discussions here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=24841&p=111027

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=30675&p=152209

About a year or so after I hired on Amtrak in '85 they quit using the rodent infested bag/dorm cars on the Montrealer and started assigning the crew rooms in the slumber coach and the 10-6 sleeper. I can't remember whether or not some of the crew shared double-slumber rooms or not, as LSA with the cafe car's money I always had private accommodations (not an insignificant consideration in my decision to become an LSA).

Anyway, the one incident that stands out in my mind about sleeping in a slumber coach is a trip where I had bought a nice big Chocolate chip muffin from a bakery in Montreal Central Station for breakfast the next morning, put it in my overnight bag and left the bag unzipped on the floor of my room while I got my all to brief down-time. I vaguely remember hearing some kind of rustling sound during the night and when I went to get my muffin to eat in the morning a significant chunk of it had been chewed away by an "un-ticketed passenger" of the rodent kind, right through the wax paper bag and muffin cup. When I told the Slumber attendant about it, he said, "Hey, the mice have to eat too!" Railroad humor, you've got to love it.

It's true that the Slumbercoach room is a tad claustrophobic, but that fiberglass hole is where your FEET go, Howie. I rode one of these once, and decided it wasn't appreciably inferior to a roomette for one person. I also wondered why it took almost 20 years after the development of the roomette for the carbuilders to begin to think in 3 dimensions and put all that wasted cube to use.

I also wonder how it compared with the experimental duplex sleepers of the late 1930's: Eventide and Nocturne.

It's too bad Amtrak didn't revive the idea; think how many passengers could have been gotten into one Superliner sleeper. I recently gave thought to traveling by Pullman to DC, but the only space Amtrak sells on the Capitol Limited is Superliner "roomettes" -- sections, really, but at a price that implies use by two people. No buying a lower only, and no hopper in the room like a real roomette. At $450 round trip, no sale.

On second thought, cancel that. Who wants to keep 54 self-contained toilets unplugged?

Aarne Frobom
Fibre, Michigan

One of the advantages to a slumbercoach room that was once pointed out to me, was that unlike a roomette, the toilet was uncovered while the bed was down, saving a lot of people dancing around from foot to foot in the hall waiting for the attendant to come and raise the bed for the less mechanically inclined.

Not to go too far afield here, but having seen photographs of the accommodations for first and business-class passengers on some overseas planes that include fully reclining seat/beds, you'd think that Amtrak could come up with a modern version of the old section sleeper that would be acceptable to most passengers wanting somewhere to lie down flat without having to pay for a full room. I think many would be willing to use a restroom down the hall just to be able to lie down all the way for a couple of nights. That's how you accomodate 50+ people in one car without having to worry about 50+ toilets. You could even put a shower or two in the car. Sell it as a basic sleeping space without the room service amenities, so that one attendant could realistically work the car. For a Superliner, putting all of the people on the upper level simplifies the plumbing, by putting all of that downstairs, including a couple of ADA compliant spaces.

Yes indeed, that was my favorite thing about them. That and the $46 price. The one time I got "bumped" to a roomette, I was like - "Well, this is tedious." And now the modern equivalent has no bathroom at all. Go downstairs in your pajamas.

I wonder what happened to "Toledo Harbor".


Yeah, have you priced those??? They're way up there, between 4x and 15x normal fare, and come with the most lavish of amenities to justify the lavish price. Spend $8000 on a seat, you get a $100 meal. By contrast, Amtrak's sleeper service is downright reasonable, at only about 2x normal fare.

What Amtrak is going to say - then - is there's no need for slumbercoaches as their first class service is so reasonable. The slumbercoaches were a $46 upgrade back in the day, with inflation they'd probably be $75. A full sleeper is $200 for 2 people $100/person) and you get $30/person of meals with it, so, nets out cheaper than the slumbercoach for couples. For singles you're just outta luck.

I rode in a Slumbercoach from Butte to Seattle on the North Coast Limited at the end of the summer of 1968. I had a single room and felt that getting the luggage up into the rack was akin to an old comedy routine. Liked the toilet arrangement.

This was part of an end-of-the-summer trip between my summer job and the return to college. Roomette on the City of Los Angeles from LA to Salt Lake City. A section on the Butte Special to Butte. Slumbercoach from Butte to Seattle. A couple of nights in Seattle; the parlor car to Portland. Roomette on the Cascade to Oakland. I think there was two nights in San Francisco with a streetcar excursion there. Then in the parlor observation of Coast Daylight to Glendale.

Neat trip for a nineteen year old railfan.

There's only a few preserved, but many more survive.
The problem with them in service is all the toilets - all 32 have to be converted to retention type, not cheap and rather complicated.

CD

For those few restoring the slumbercoach, I discovered a box of AMTRAK maintenance manuals yesterday as we continue to organize the P-S freight car correspondence files: 8000, 9000 and 1000 lot series.
Ted Anderson, IRM Pullman Library curator

I'm trying to figure out what on earth operation you would have where people would be actually sleeping in one, on a moving train. I've seen some long tourist excursions, but not THAT long. Of course new coaches built to a slumbercoach style would either be built with retention toilets or simply have communal toilets at the ends of cars. I would expect the latter actually.

Loch Leven (ex-AMTK 2088, exx-2025, nee-NP 326) is (or was) on the Grand Canyon Rwy.
http://rr-fallenflags.org/misc-g/gcrx2088adc.jpg
http://rr-fallenflags.org/misc-g/gcrx2088adc.jpg

Loch Tarbet (ex-AMTK 2028, exx-NP 329, nee-MP 699 Southland) is at the Museum of the American Railroad[/color].
http://rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=405914

Loch Ness (ex-AMTK 2087, exx-2027, exxx-NP 328) is at Inland Empire Railway Historical Society, Spokane, Wa.
http://rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1947225

There was, for a number of years, another car in Spencer, N.C., in a shed with other passenger cars that are in storage on the Norfolk Southern. The car use to be able to be seen from the roundhouse but it has been a while since I had thought about the shed and am unsure if the car is still there.

There are other cars still in existance but not accounted for. There are private owners who have hidden these cars away, not being used. Hopefully more yet can be found and identified.