Passenger Trains > Which railroads ran 'duplex' sleepers? (pic)

Hi,

I have attached a picture of the specific car type I am wondering about. This is a picture of a model I have. Which railroads ran these types of cars? Can someone tell me more info about the prototype.

Possibly PRR didn't own any? It was just painted that way.

---

Actually, this car /is/ a model of a car the Pennsy owned- a 12-5 sleeper from the "Brook" series. As I recall, there were only a handful of cars of this specific design, and all were on the Pennsy.

The other paint schemes Rivarossi has offered on this car are fiction.

Other roads which had duplex sleepers included at least the GN and ATSF, but their cars didn't look quite like this one.

-fm

Where these cars run in pool service on other railroads? Were they painted in any other colors besides maroon?

Pennsy had nine "Brook" series 12 duplex single rooms / 5 double bedroom cars built by P-S in April and May of 1938. Many other roads had duplex roomettes configured into their cars and they were much more common than the duplex single room. AT&SF, GN, NP, CB&Q (NCL and EB train contributions), Milw Rd, C&NW, B&O, CP and CRI&P all operated duplex roomette cars. UP had at least two 12 duplex single room / 5 double bedroom cars, one each in the seventh and eighth "Overland' trainsets. "Rose Bowl" was assigned to the 7th set and "Portsmouth Square" was assigned to the 8th set. There may be others which I have missed. And don't forget the Slumbercoaches and Sleepercoaches which also carried duplex style rooms. But then, that is a whole different story. Hope this helps.

"Car Names, Numbers and Consists" lists the following "initial" assignments for the cars: two for the "General", three for the "Spirit of St. Louis" and four for the "Liberty Limited". You'll have to ask a true Pennsy fan to get a definitive answer but I would guess that being built by P-S in the late 1930's that they all were delivered in Tuscan red and probably stayed that way. Oh, BTW, I missed 24 12 duplex single room / 4 double bedroom cars which were in the "Creek" series. All of the prefix names began with the letter "C", such as "Cliff Creek". They were built by P-S January through April of 1949. In 1956, six of the cars were renamed for Pennsylvania merchants and industrialists. If I run across any further info, I'll post it for you.

PRR also had some postwar duplex single room cars, but only with four double bedrooms, so that their was room for to have enclosed facilites in the double rooms The prewar cars were not enclosed facilites. The Pacific Railroad Society in Los Angeles owns one of the 12-4 cars, I belive the only one remaining. A couple of 12-5 are kicking around.

PRR had the idea that businees travel would like more room then a roomette, yet not have to pay for a double bedroom, so it came up with the 12-5 and 12-4. A single room had only one crosswise bed. they were used on major overnight runs. To have been seen off the PRR would be a unusal move.

The two 12-5 cars from the City of San Francisco, was assigned to the SP in later years and used them on specials, 2nd sections and for a while were assigned to what was then the overnight Starlight, a coach train between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

However during the Korea war and for some years after, a lot military moved to/from Ft Ord and Camp San Luis Obispo. So the 12-5 would operate daily except Saturday, along with a heavyweight 8 section 5 Bedrrom car. If all the space was not needed for Military, the 12-5 would be opened up for public sale.

I worked SP reservations during that ERA.

At least one Pennsy "Creek" series car still survives today, namely the Chippawa Creek, owned by the Pacific Railroad Society, located in Los Angeles, CA.

So these two cars that ran on the Union Pacific, did they ever where the yellow and grey paint scheme?

In 1947 the Pullman Company delivered twelve 24-duplex roomette sleeping cars to the Santa Fe who was the only U.S. railroad to receive solid duplex roomette cars. They ran on the Kansas City Chief, Texas Chief, Grand Canyon and San Francisco Chief. The cars were in the "Indian" series -- Indian Arrow, Canoe, Drum, Falls, Flute, Lake, Maid, Mesa, Pony, Scout, Song and Squaw. The cars were converted to 11-bedroom cars in 1964 and retained their original names and then ran on the Super Chief between Chicago and Los Angeles.

Peddler

Silver Sky's list was pretty comprehensive, but here are a trio that were overlooked:

NYC: their sleepercoaches had 16 duplex single rooms.

MP: their only slumbercoach (SOUTHLAND) had 24 duplex single rooms.

CN: I series were 24 duplex roomette sleepers. E series sleepers had 8 duplex roomettes.


A few these cars are still in service as Private Varnish in 2001.

The 12-5 when operated on the City of San Francisco would have been in yellow.


On SP they were in silver paint, with the Red Strip the SP standard of the late 50's and 60's. I would expect on the SP, they stayed in Yellow until repainted into Silver. However they may have gotten a two town Grey paint job in between, which was standard on the SP owned heavyweight sleepers, plus some coaches, diners, lounges and head-end cars.

Here is the story of the cars as covered in VOL 13 of the Pullman Standard series of books.

Decmeber 1936 pullman ordered two 12 Duplex Single room, 5 Double Bedroom cars for the City of San Francisco. Delivered in 1941.
As delivered the names were Rose Bowl and Portsmouth Suqare.

In 1941, the Rose Bowl became the Telegraph Hill. This was a name swap with a 18 roomette sleeper that was delivered as the Telegraph Hill, but became the Rose Bowl. The 18 section car went to the C&NW in 1947.

After new equipment was delivered in following WWII, the two cars became the property of Southern Pacific. It was in 1947 that the US Gov't said that Pullman could not be both a builder and operator of sleeper cars. So the railroads purchased cars from Pullman to get around this ruling.

One must remember that each set of the City, had a slight differant consist, as they were all formed from the first lightweight cars built 1936-1941.

Folks,

According to the Keystone (Pennsy Technical and Historical Society mangazine June 82 edition)there were a total of 19 of these cars built by Pullman for the P. Co. in 1938.

Nine cars built in lot number 6538 - floor plan 4066 B - 43-R trucks
Six cars in lot number 6566 - floor plan 4066 B - 41 HR trucks
4 in lot 6611 - floor plan 4066 c - 41 HR trucks

It is important to note that there are 3 different types of "Duplex" sleepers:
Duplex Single Room (the PRR cars) were a series of bedrooms with crosswise sofas, where the folded down to make the bed. The aisle was on the left side of the car. the lower rooms were depressed several steps below the normal aisle height, the uppers were several steps up.

Duplex Roomettes were essentially standard roomettes with the aisle in the center. The lowers are at standard aisle level, the uppers were two steps up.
The beds in the uppers folded down from the wall, the beds in the lowers slid underneath the upper rooms. All rooms had sink and toilet.

Slumbercoach (Sleepercoach on NYC) rooms were small and came in duplex singles and doubles. The original Budd built cars had 24 doubles ad 8 single rooms. These cars ran on the B&O, Missouri Pacific, Burlington, Northern Pacific and NYC.
The first two cars ran on the B&O between Baltimore and Chicago on the all-coach "Columbian". Later, the B&O and MP ran a thru operation between Baltimore, St. Louis and Texas. The B&O leased 3 cars and MP leased 1.
The Burlington ran a set between Chicago and Denver, and the NP ran theirs between Chicago and Seattle. The Burlington and NP actually traded off in Chicago with the car arriving from Seattle in the morning going to Denver that afternoon and vice versa. The 4 B&O/MP cars ended up on the NP.
The NYC had 4 of the original 24/8 cars, and liked then so much that they had a group of 22 roomette sleepers rebuilt as 16 single & 10 double Sleepercoaches. The doubles and several of the doubles retained the windows and spacing of the original roomettes, the others being duplexed.
The rooms were constructed of plastic and made efficient (if cramped) use of space. The 24-inch wide beds in the duplex singles (and lowers of doubles) were in two pieces which folded from the opposite walls, with a thin mattress pad on each, and then a full length made up mattress pad with sheet and blanket that you pulled out of the foot end compartment. In the doubles (which were not duplexed) there were two seats facing each other and the upper bed folded from the ceiling. (Very tight and no basketball players allowed)

If you consider heavyweights, there was another kind of duplex sleeper, which I'm not familiar with, but AHM also made this model, consisting of what looks like heavyweight style compartments duplexed on one side. It is my understanding that PRR had the only two of these for NY-DC overnight service, one named "Nocturne".

Utilising similar window arrangements on both sides, the LIRR's duplex type double decker commuter coaches might have also been able to be done as "Duplex Sections" if they had thought of it back then. Why didn't they, considering that the seating arrangements in these cars were dead ringers for section seats on duplex levels. Probably would have yielded lower berth only, but added a lot of daytime "seat space"?

I also believe (stand to be corrected) that a few dome sleepers (NP, and ex"Train of Tomorrow" and "Chessie", later B&O) dome sleepers had single rooms under the domes configured and sold as duplex sleepers, though not physically duplexed.

Vytautas B. Radzivanas

JAChooChoo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It is important to note that there are 3 different
> types of "Duplex" sleepers:
> Duplex Single Room (the PRR cars) were a series of
> bedrooms with crosswise sofas, where the folded
> down to make the bed. The aisle was on the left
> side of the car. the lower rooms were depressed
> several steps below the normal aisle height, the
> uppers were several steps up.
>
> Duplex Roomettes were essentially standard
> roomettes with the aisle in the center. The lowers
> are at standard aisle level, the uppers were two
> steps up.
> The beds in the uppers folded down from the wall,
> the beds in the lowers slid underneath the upper
> rooms. All rooms had sink and toilet.



When i look at the diagram of the PRR CREEK series 12-4 lightweight sleepers built by Pullman Standard in 1949, the 6 lower duplex single rooms appear to be a good bit larger than the 6 upper duplex single rooms ... is this accurate, or have I drawn a false impression from the drawing?

Were all of the cross-wise beds in the duplex single rooms fold down sofa beds, or did anything slide out of & into the wall on tracks ... like in a duplex roomette?


Jack Deasy

Slumbercoaches were an enjoyable ride to me -- although I had much less bulk at the time I rode them in the 1980s (and 90s?). They survived into the Amtrak years and I rode on one several times on Amtrak's Crescent between Atlanta and Washington, D.C. at reduced sleeping accomodation fares. When the slumbercoaches were removed from service, the reduced sleeper fares were retained for some time on Amtrak's Crescent but with much more spacious 10 roomette - 6 double bedroom traditional sleepers substituted in their place. This was quite a good deal, since there were also 10-6 sleepers in the first class pool and first class passengers on the Crescent were paying substantially more than me for essentially the same accomodation.

OK, I suppose they did get a newspaper, pack of crackers, and a small bottle of wine and free morning coffee and juice for their extra $$$.

On a 1963 #29 Broadway ride, I once got "upgraded" into a Duplex Room when the lighting in my Roomette went Bad Order "along about" Lancaster.

The bed folded down in the same manner as it does today in an Amtrak Bedroom.

Considering the 14.5% premium over a Roomette, I would say the accommodation delivered "value"; the only drawback was the smaller window than that found in a Roomette.

Lastly, we should be careful to distinguish this uniquely Pennsy accommodation from the Duples Roomette offered by the Western and Canadian roads.

How did a thread that started in 2001 suddenly show up in 2007?

And why, when I click on "Back the Thread List," does it take me to the day the thread started, not today's thread list? That happens quite a lot, and it's a bit annoying.

Todd?

Mr Symphony, if you click "Passenger Trains" rather than back to thread, you will be returned to Page 1.

Maintaining a six year archive of discussion topics, is what your $27 a year supports.