I always jars me to walk into a car at a museum that has modern bus or airplane seats in it.

I understand that a major producer of train and and street car seats was called Hale and Wakefield.

Has anyone ever heard of where their records might me found?

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!

And I hope your preservation projects advance toward completion during the new year.

Ted Miles

Haywood Wakefield a Eastern Mass company. I'd like to know to what happened to the plans for their seats that I sat in so often. I rode on them on the DL&W, Erie, B&O and New Haven. They had more than one style. My favorites were on the Erie and the B&O. I'd also love to know the date they went under.

The guys at Strasburg make reproduction Hale and Kilburn #73 seats, per the SRC website. The photos show seats with an open side, more suited to the wooden car era than steel. Perhaps steel "sides" could be added to make these more modern looking?

You have it a bit confused. It is Heywood Wakefield and Hale and Kilburn. H-W is the inventor of the famous "Sleepy Hollow" lightweight car coach seat. It is too late to research tonight (if I don't get to bed, Santa will shut me out) but seats are discussed in Jack White's passenger car book. The H-W trademark and some of its commercial furniture designs from the 30'-40's were revived by a new company in south Florida a while ago.

I do not know about Hale and Kilburn,but I believe the H-W designs went to Coach and Car Equipment Co, which was bought out by I believe Simula, and then maybe sold to Kustom Seating. I really do not think any of the designs are extent. The sleepy hollow seat was wonderful, but was not economical to build with modern technologies.

Steve