10-6 sleeper cars

How were Amtrak 10-6 sleeping cars compared to the Viewliner and Superliner sleepers? Did the 10-6s have showers and were the bedrooms sound proofed? What came with the roomette portion and did they garantee any privacy? I heard they were kind of like slumber coaches but more room.

Is VIA's 10-6s much better? I did hear that each car has a shower down the hall an the rooms are bigger and better lookign in terms of color,lighting,etc

The 10-6 cars did not have showers. Only cars with showers on regularly scheduled trains in the great age of trains were those with Master Rooms (Broadway, Century, Crescent maybe a few others). You washed as best you could in the sink.
The Roomette was private enough. However, if you woke up at night and had to go, you had to raise the bed.
The train atmosphere contributed a lot to the sound control. When in motion, there was enough train noise to drown out just about any other sound. Also the ventilating system was quite audible.
I got a brief ride on a NYC Sleepercoach, one of the four originals NYC bought, not a rebuilt car, from Boston to Framingham about 1959-1960 because I wrote a letter to NYC PTM in Boston. The space is dinkier than a roomette.
I don't follow VIA too much, but if VIA has a 10-6 with a shower, it is probably a rebuild and some salable space must have been converted to this purpose.
Under usual operating conditions, a space was reserved for the porter or Pullman conductor on trains with sleeping cars. They used it for their office space, etc.

Although this predates any rides i had on the Century during the "sixties", the shower on the Century was communal. The shower was installed in the full lounge cars, Atlantic Shore and Lake Shore that were withdrawn and sold to the Rock Island when the downgrade to a Coach/Sleeper consist was made.

I did get to ride in one of these Lounge cars during December`1963 on the Golden State, and visited them often at Track One (more: http://64.78.30.219/forums/viewtopic.ph ... baa9b3e23d However, the shower had been deactivated.

The only in-room showers were aboard the Broadway, Crescent and California Zephyr. "Showere for the masses", or at least those riding Sleeper, is an Amtrak innovation - and a most welcome one at that!

First,

My experience with Roomettes and Bedrooms dates to before my commissioning in 1978. After that, my rail time into the 90s was on Deutsche Bundesbahn.

A roomette has a footprint of about 18 square feet. In that respect, it has the same footprint as a standard section or double slumbercoach room, or in current construction, a Standard Bedroom.

The FIRST difference is this was an accommodation designed for ONE. A roomette had a single lower berth.
The SECOND difference was a Roomette was a complete accommodation: Hopper and washstand.
The THIRD difference was the easy chair (daytime configuration of the seat) was more comfortable (and just as adjustable) as the current standard BR seats.

A DOUBLE BEDROOM (DBR) has at least four configurations, depending on when a car was built. In general, a DBR had a 30sq ft footprint, including the annex. A current DELUXE BEDROOM has a footprint of 42 square feet (in fact, it's basically the design of a late era Pullman Compartment).

A DBR is an accommodation designed for two. Upper and Lower berths, each with thick mattresses (no 1" mats atop the seat cushions). BTW, each berth was 36" wide. Annex (in some older cars, hopper and washbasin in the open room). NOTE: MOST 10-6 cars should have facilities in the annex).

As GBN noted above, showers in the rooms (and showers in each sleeper) is an Amtrak (and glad for it!!) era innovation.

Hope all this helps.

One point worthy of mention:

Not all 10&6 sleepers had identical floor plans, where the 10 roomettes were at one end of the car (usually the vestibule end) and the 6 double bedrooms were at the other end of the car (usually the blind end).

Some railroads had "center bedroom" 10&6 sleepers. The 6 double bedrooms (the premium accomodations) were in the center of the car, with 4 roomettes on one end and 6 roomettes on the other end. Working from memory, I believe B&O, C&O and CB&Q had center bedroom 10&6 sleepers on their roster.

I reserved the right to edit this post, and I'm exercising it

From a list that specializes in passenger car design and construction, and from reliable folks oh that list, I am told the nine 10-6 cars built for the Denver Zephyr in 1956 had bedrooms over car center.

Those cars were Plan 9538, Lot 9660-169, names

SILVER Series....

Ridge, Terrain, Plateau, Ravine, Hollow, Boulder, Channel, Vale and Basin.

Also

Ah, Pullman cars! They were designed by the people who at that point had been running sleeping cars for almost 100 years, and the design quality shows. It's in stark contrast to Amtrak's newer cars, which do not use space nearly as effectively.

In addition to the 10-6 cars that Amtrak acquired exclusively, there were 14-4 cars, as well as center-bedroom 8-6 cars (don't think there were any center-BR 10-6 cars). CRIP and B&O had these; there may have been others. My personal favorite was the "you name it, we got it" 4-4-5-1 car; that's four sections, 4 roomettes, 5 BRs, one compartment. As noted above, the compartment was somewhat larger than a bedroom.

The roomette was a very comfortable accommodation for one, with a full-sized bed with a proper mattress. Bedrooms were far superior to the Amtrak viewliner or Superliner "standard" room; there was actually room to stand when the beds were down. Amtrak's sleepers are more like Slumbercoaches (which I found acceptable although cramped) than like Pullman cars. I would travel in slumbercoaches because of the large differential in price; unfortunately, Amtrak offers economy rooms at luxury prices.

For a short time after "A-Day", Amtrak was using whatever they inherited and selling all as either a BR or a RMT.

I was fortunate enough to figure this out and booked, among others, a single bedroom (not a duplex) at roomette rates, a roomette at day coach rates for a day trip, a drawing room at bedroom rates, etc. All you had to know was the car diagrams and rosters (which Amtrak would share with you in those days) and book a 'certain' room.

For those of you in the know, what/when was the last of the Amtrak operated sleepers other than heritage 10/6's? I seem to remember the Crescent carried the MR car fairly late?

For Christmas one year, my parents gave me a trip on the Super Chief. I had a single BR under the dome EB to Albuquerque, where my cousin lives. WB, the dome was on the RIP track, a 4-4-2 was the substitute, except the "system" gave me a compartment!!!

The 10&6's were far superior to the Viewliners as far as space utilization and efficiency. Give me metal fabrication any day. They were more substantial and had, IMHO, better looks in that industrial way. Unfortunately, they're all gone now (sniff sniff). From a working standpoint there was a LOT of stretchiing and some precarious balancing to make those beds in the morning, so I'll give the Viewliners and their ilk props for "ease of paycheck acquisition."

I'll try to answer as many as I can here. It may take several posts. But, this belongs better in some other forum in the case of some replies.
To NJTRailfan, ALL of the VIA (ex-CN) 10-6s were former US railroad cars. They had just about every type of Pullman Standard 10-6 ever built, including Gilbert's famed ex-MILW 10-6s. There were also a few ACF builds on CN's roster ... I don't recall whose right now. CP had NO 10-6s! VIA purchased a few ex-Amtrak 10-6s (SP Sunset Ltd. as I call), but I don't think that any of CN's 10-6s made it to VIA.
To CarterB, Amtrak refurbished (and HEP equipped) a few 11 bedroom sleepers for AutoTrain service. Mostly, these were ex-UP STAR and PLACID series cars (these had different floor plans, since the STAR series were originally 5 DBR lounges). Also, there was at least 1 SILVER-series 6 DBR/5 Compartment car in this group ... I believe from the 1956 DZ (although it may have been a 1952 CZ car).
And, for jhdeasy, I can recall 2 different series of center bedroom 10-6s. First, there were a lot of these from P/S from the 1950-series C&O order. Nickel Plate tacked a few additional cars onto C&Os existing order (well before C&O started to dump its excess cars). Once C&O realized that it had over-ordered, these cars went in all directions ... ACL, B&O, D&RGW, IC all purchased come of the C&O order. Curiously, D&RGW converted 5 of the roomettes into open sections, because these sold better on their routes. The ACL cars survived into Amtrak; the Nickel Plate cars went to CN. There was also a series of Budd-built 10-6s: 9 cars for the 1956 Denver Zephyr, and a handful of similar cars for the Missouri Pacific (in 1956 also). The curious feature of the MoPac cars was that these rode on 6-wheel trucks! All of the CB&Q cars made it to Amtrak; NONE of the MoPac cars did. I can't recall any ACF-built center bedroom 10-6s. P/S had some other variations ... 10 roomettes/5 double bedrooms for CN/GT&W and Erie, and 8 roomette/6 double bedrooms for Rock Island. Amtrak eventually did purchase the 8-6s, and, for a while, leased (?) some of the CN 10-5s (these frequented the Montraler/Washingtonian in the early days). Many other center bedrooms configurations existed in various forms (see MILW, NP, GN, SAL, ACL, AT&SF, UP, and many others), which contained various combinations of sections, roomettes, duplex roomettes, double bedrooms and compartments. The best source for this information is the old Wayner book, CAR NAMES, NUMBERS AND CONSISTS, if you can find one!

To eddiebear ... Just a small clarification. If I recall correctly, NYC never actually owned the original (4) 24-8 sleepercoaches. These cars were on a lease from BUDD. BUDD desperately wanted to market these cars, but NYC wasn't so sure about them, so BUDD granted very favorable lease terms to NYC. Initially, 2 of the cars were assigned to the New England States, and 2 were assigned to the Pacemaker (? ... these cars were on the property before the coaches were added to the 20th Century Limited). Eventually, all 4 cars wound up assigned to the Century, and , when 10 of the 22 roomette BAY-series cars were converted to 16-10 sleepercoaches, 2 of these were also added to the Century consist (3 sleepercoaches total). Other trains then received the 16-10 cars, and the 24-8 cars were returned to BUDD, and then sold to the Northern Pacific.

To John_Perkowski ... the Santa Fe had no domes with (passenger) sleeping accomodations in them. Perhaps you rode a Northern Pacific car (one of their 4-4-4 dome sleepers, which had single bedrooms under the dome) substituting on the Super Chief?

On my comment of ACF 10-6s on the CN ... there were NONE! CN owned several cars built by CCF; but, the only ex-US ACF car on the roster was a 6 double bedroom lounge from the Florida East Coast (originally OLEANDER). This car was part of the same lot as the ACL BEACH-series 6 double bedroom lounges which were quite dominant in Amtrak consists pre-HEP.

On the MoPac center bedroom 10-6 sleepers, I forgot to mention that these cars (I believe there were 6 of them) had the BUDD flat sides, and were painted in MoPac colors, but the floor plan was idential to Q's DZ cars. The siding was similar to that found on the GN Super Domes, and the GN & NP short domes (among others). I believe that all of these MoPac cars wound up in Mexico.

One other thing, as I recall. The PS and ACF cars were much quieter than any BUDD car (at least as far as insulation, or sounds coming from the outside, were concerned ... individual exceptions excluded). When it came to sleeping, it did make quite a difference!

Let's see. Mr. Laubenheimer--

The Century first added Coaches during summer 1957 and with the Spring TT went to its Coach-Sleeper configuration that lasted until Dec 12, 1967.

The newbuilt 24-8 Budd Slumbercoaches were added to the consist during 1959 and were so assigned to The Century (Dubin will appreciate my caps) and States until the lease expired (I think) during 1962. At the time the rebuilt 16-10 cars came on line.

When the 24-8's lease with the NYC was up, those four were sold to the NP, as were three that had been leased to B&O, and one from MP. Four others ("Loch--") had been acquired earlier by the NP, which is where the 12 cars that Budd built for inventory (I believe you will find that is the only instance of such in the history of "postwar" carbuilding) eventually ended up.

To close on an Amtrak note, all these twelve cars were acquired by Amtrak, along with two others acquired by B&O but were sold to Amtrak by an intermediary (somewhere, I learned the intermediary made quite a killing). Additionally, the CB&Q had acquired from Budd four similar, but not an exact match (they had a different plan number) cars that also ended up on the Amtrak roster.

But let's not stray too far from topic (even though I know some of you guys think the answer to all Amtrak problems would be at hand if they offered Slumbercoach service.

Ahhhhh, yes, Mr. Norman......bring back those slumbercoaches!!!

(Sorry, couldn't resist!!!)