Sleeping car
George Pullman was the main American innovator and owner of sleeper cars in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when railroads dominated intercity passenger travel.
[2][3] In 1857, the Wason Manufacturing Company of Springfield, Massachusetts – one of the United States' first makers of railway passenger coach equipment – produced America's first specifically designed sleeping car.
For nearly a year during the end of World War II the United States government banned sleeping cars for runs of less than 450 miles (720 km) in order to make sleepers available for transporting troops returning to the US from Europe, many being deployed in the Pacific Theater.
One unanticipated consequence of the rise of Pullman cars in the US in the 19th and early 20th centuries was their effect on civil rights and African-American culture.
Their union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (established, 1925), became an important source of strength for the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement in the early 20th century, notably under the leadership of A. Philip Randolph.
[9] From the mid-19th to the mid-20th centuries, the most common and more economical type of sleeping car accommodation on North American trains was the "open section".
Duplex Roomettes, a Pullman-produced precursor to the Slumbercoach, are staggered vertically, with every second accommodation raised a few feet above the car's floor level, in order to make slightly more efficient use of the space.
Amtrak's Superliner Economy Bedrooms (now called Superliner Roomettes, although they are structurally closer to open sections) accommodate two passengers in facing seats that fold out into a lower berth, with an upper berth that folds down from above, a small closet, and no in-room washbasin or toilet, on both sides of both the upper and lower levels of the car.
In Europe, the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (French for "International Sleeping Car Company") first focused on sleeping cars, but later operated whole trains, including the Simplon-Orient Express, Nord Express, Train Bleu, Golden Arrow, and the Transsiberien (on the Trans-Siberian railway).
Planned destinations include Edinburgh, Copenhagen, Berlin, Venice, Rome, Barcelona, Madrid, and Porto, with some intermediate stops.
[14][16] In 2022 the design and engineering faculties of three European universities – Aalto, KTH and TalTech – discussed plans to reshape sleeping cars for flow production.
The ADLNE project aims to create the railcar from modules that are themselves composed of interchangeable segments, compartments and fittings, allowing bespoke designs at low cost.
Since then, the railroads in the smaller ex-Soviet nations have largely transitioned to daytime intercity trains, such as in Belarus, where the process is based on government-funded purchases of rolling stock supplied by Stadler, which operates a train factory in Minsk,[19] or in Uzbekistan, which has established a 600 km Afrosiyob high-speed rail service between all of its major cities.
In countries like Kazakhstan and Russia, locally-produced cars are purchased regularly to update the fleet, with newly introduced comforts such as showers, dry toilets, or conditioning units in passenger compartments becoming an increasingly common sight; Russian Railroads have also introduced double-deck sleeper cars; yet comfort levels still suffer from a modest degree of innovation in the bogie suspension systems and the passenger compartment design.
Some other post-Soviet nations rely more heavily on the rolling stock fleet inherited from the Union, to a large extent based on vintage life-prolonged cars assembled in East Germany or Soviet Latvia back in the 1980s.
Croatian sleeping coaches include single, double or 4-bed compartments with washbasin and many additional hygienic accessories.
It leaves Paris from the Gare d'Austerlitz station in mid-evening and arrives in Nice at about 8 in the morning, providing both first-class rooms and couchette accommodation.
[22] Night train numbers have been reduced significantly, as the quality of the rail infrastructure is declining and repairs are insufficient, which leads to longer ride times between cities.
A journey from Gara de Nord station in Bucharest to Arad (599 km) usually lasts 11 hours 20 minutes when there are no delays.
The overwhelming majority of night trains with sleeping coaches are owned and operated by CFR Călători (Romanian Railways).
The Estrella (Star) is a low-cost night train between Madrid and Barcelona served by berth carriages, with compartments for up to 6 people.
Formerly, overnight trains departed Istanbul to several European destinations such as Thessaloniki, Belgrade, Budapest, Warsaw and Kyiv but were all discontinued in the 1990s and 2000s.
A privately operated overnight train, the Optima Express, runs between Edirne and Villach in Austria with an average trip time of 35 hours.
These services operate all week, except Saturdays and usually depart London from Euston and Paddington stations in the evening, arriving at their destinations at approximately 08:00.
[27] China Railway operates an extensive network of conventional sleeper trains throughout the country, covering all provincial capitals and many major cities.
The Chinese "hard" sleeping car in use today is very basic, consisting of 6 fixed bunk beds per compartment, which can be converted into seats in peak season.
With railways as one of the primary mode of passenger transport, sleeper cars vary from economical to First Class AC (air conditioned).
[citation needed][31] Japan used to have many sleeper trains, but most of these routes have been removed because of the development of air travel, overnight bus services and high-speed rail.
The successor to the Indonesian State Railways, PT Kereta Api Indonesia, relaunched the Sleeper Train service on 11 June 2018.
These units were first built for the Japanese National Railways (JNR) in 1974 as 14 series passenger cars (ja), and were donated to the Philippines in 1999.
