Nostalgia & History > Theater Passenger Cars

By a theater passenger car I mean a car with rows of seats with each row slightly higher than the previous row to increase visibility. Today we see them as the last car of an inspection train. The back wall of the car is all glass. The rows of seats are backward facing, and subsequent rows are in turn slightly elevated like in a theater. The view out the glass wall is analogous to the screen or stage.

Yesterday 28hogger posted the first picture: A tourist streetcar in Vancouver, BC in 1929. That car has not been saved but at least two from Montreal have.

Well, I'm going to kick it up a notch with the second picture. The picture is from Alaska's Digital Archives with the following caption.

Title: Tourist [railroad] car at Anchorage, Alaska, 1916.
Railroad car with slanted, theater seating; passengers fill seats
Note on verso: "First observation Alaska Railroad car at Anchorage"
ASL-P45-0564
Alaska State Library-Historical Collections


Enjoy,
Marty Bernard



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/28/14 20:39 by MartyBernard.

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"There is nothing new under the sun..."

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA

MartyBernard Wrote:

> Well, I'm going to kick it up a notch with the
> second picture. The picture is from Alaska's
> Digital Archives with the following caption.

Hmmm...so much for front-row-center being the best seat in the house.

Thanks Marty, great photo. I wonder if they ran old silent films against the back of that US box car. LOL
Warren

That photo of the street car means a little more to me than just a picture, the third tier up the women in white sitting with the little girl is my grandmother and mother.
Warren

Nobody seems to have commented that the railing is completely different on one side of that streetcar than the other.

For a time the Seashore Trolley Museum had either the same or a very similar open air trolley car, which, apparently is now at the Connecticut Trolley Museum. I think the photo shows the car at the Connecticut location, as it is from their web site.

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The Seashore car was from Montreal.

There are four surviving Montreal sightseeing cars--

Canadian Railway Museum at St. Constant, Quebec has #1 and #3, #1 is displayed inoperable, #3 is operated occasionally.

Seashore has #2, and they either just finished or are well along in getting the motors overhauled.

Connecticut Trolley Museum (Warehouse Point, East Windsor) has #4, and it's reported to be in operating condition.

Information from Preserved North American Electric Railway Cars and Seashore Museum newsletter.

Warren,

That is cool, thanks for pointing that out for the rest of us.

Galen