Re:Re: (erielack) [passconsist] cars used as dormitory

["Janet & Randy Brown" <jananran_@_mymailstation.com>]

Many diner crews had an arrangement of planks or extra tables to provide a better sleeping surface. Comfortable? No, but there was no alternative.

Passenger train crews would change several times throughout the run, but diner crews (and porters) were on for the duration.  As it was, between cleanup and preprep, diner personnel got only a few hours' sleep.  Porters had to nap, in uniform, on the couch in the smoking room as best they could.  Although Santa Fe and UP had a few heavyweights, dormitory cars and lightweight sleepers with porters' arrangements came late in the game. They started with the early West Coast streamliners and worked their way East and to shorter runs.  Many trains never got them.

An unwritten rule was that the passengers, once settled for the night, would stay put and not wander, to give the crews some relief.

Randy Brown
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This is absolutely true.  Dining car employees slept on top of the tables on all railroads until the late 1930's.  As steamlined equipment started showing up the use of dormitory cars for dining and lounge car employees became standard.  So it isn't a question of if the Erie dining car employees slept on the tables, only a question of when that practice stopped.



Tim

On 8/29/06, Paul Brezicki <doctorpb_@_bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> I've heard this before, but I have my doubts. . .
>
> Paul B
>

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