Slumbercoach

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The Slumbercoach is an 85-foot-long, 24 single room, 8 double room sleeping car originally built in 1956 by the Budd Company for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad for service on the Denver Zephyr. Subsequent orders were placed in 1958–1959 by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and Missouri Pacific Railroad for the Texas Eagle/National Limited, and in 1959 by the Northern Pacific Railroad for its North Coast Limited and also the New York Central Railroad for use on the 20th Century Limited.

Slumbercoaches contained rows on each side of the car of one-person and two-person rooms with one or two narrow and six-foot long beds provided with basic sheets and blankets. Each room featured a fold-away washbasin and private toilet similar in design to contemporary standard Pullman but on a smaller scale.

To maximize the number of rooms per car, the designers chose a "staggered" design for the single rooms such that every other room was accessible by a small flight of steps. This allowed the beds in the car to either overlay or underlay the room in front of it.

The "slumbercoach", in economic terms, were part of the American railways' attempt, in the 1950s, to recapture market share lost to airlines, buses and the automobile by providing upgraded accommodations for the middle and lower-middle class. Western railways (and some eastern lines) chose instead to redesign the coach seat for greater width and comfort, with the result that by the time of the nationalization of US rail transport, railway coach seats provided at a basic price comfort available only in first class on the airlines. By contrast, the cramped, and to some travelers coffin-like accommodations of the Slumbercoaches were considered, by some, oppressive and strange. Nevertheless, the cars were extremely popular and continued to be used under Amtrak well into the 1990's.

Internationally, the Slumbercoach can be compared to "second class" and "hard" sleeper facilities on many Asian and European lines, but economically comparable facilities such as those provided on the "Train Bleu" between Paris and the south of France de-emphasized American privacy, and in place of this provided typically multiple-stranger compartments with foldaway beds, leading to greater (if at times in its own way oppressive) camaraderie on such famous rail odysseys as the Trans-Siberian express.

Because rail travel today is split between a working class clientele still unable, especially in Asia, to afford air travel, and an interesting collection of boffins, moneyed people either nostalgic or phobic of flight, and eco-friendly souls who have realized the pollution created by air travel for the masses, the development of midlevel accommodation like the Slumbercoach has ceased.