Railroad carriage question (woefully long)

[pengolodh_sc at yahoo.no]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "Amy Z" <aiz24 at h...> wrote:
> Sorry, I can't help you, but I have a question about railway 
> carriages too--maybe it's the same as yours.  How many people fit 
> into one?  And are they the way I'm picturing them:  you enter from 
> the corridor and two benches are facing each other, one on your 
> left, one on your right, each comfortably seating perhaps 3 or 4?  
> With racks overhead?  And only one door in?

That is the type described in the books.  My question is a bit 
different from yours, as I'll describe in unwarranted excess of 
detail below.
 
> For a while, I pictured the compartments on the HE as Amtrak-type 
> cars, i.e. over thirty feet long, with an aisle down the middle 
> leading to a door at each end, and with rows of seats something 
> like an airplane's (though with some facing backwards and a few 
> facing into the compartment).  Needless to say, this didn't fit 
> with the descriptions.  I don't know why it took me so long to 
> realize that they had to be what I think of as old-fashioned 
> compartments.
> 
> Amy Z

If you're American, it was probably because old-fashioned 
compartments have (AFAIK) never been used by US railways - they have 
always had the Pullman-standard.  I am Norwegian, and while they are 
all but gone now, there used to be a high number of passenger-cars 
with compartments on Norwegian rails.  The last samples were the 
lounge-cars which had two such compartments used as smoking-
compartments.  Now there is a single smoking-compartment, with no 
seats, to prevent people from staying longer than absolutely 
necessary.  The seating used on US railways (basically just Amtrak 
these days, with one or two exceptions) is referred to as open 
seating in UK (according to the online catalogue of Hornby, the model 
railway manufacturer).

Basically, you have three main types of seating-arrangements seen in 
passenger-railroads, with one (or two) major variations, and I'll 
describe them in some length below, most of my information taking 
from Märklin Model Railway catalogues.

1.  Direct Access Compartments.  
This is the passenger railway carriage in its earliest form.  1st 
Class passenger carriages basically were made by adapting the carbody 
of the stagecoach of the time, slapping as many as there were room 
for onto the chassis.  This gave you a carriage with a number of 
compartments, that all had direct access to the platform (or to swift 
and certain death, if the train was moving at a high velocity).  This 
type of carriage was common in most European railways until at least 
the 1890s.  In Germany, tri-axle compartment carriages from the 
Prussian Railway Administration put it's stamp on suburban 
transportation probably past WW2.

The advantages are easy to spot:  first of all, you have very quick 
boarding/de-boarding procedures, with doors directly onto the 
platform from each compartment.  Also, the compartments are 
relatively intimate, compared to more communal seating arrangements.  
Disadvantages:  Passengers do not have access to WC/washroom-
facilities except when at a station, and trainstops have to be longer 
to allow for this.  Also, checking tickets is risky business, as the 
conductor has to balance along a very narrow walking-board on the 
outside of the carriage, while the train is moving.  

2.  Open seating
In Bavaria and Würtemberg, unlike Prussia, one had chosen the open 
seating-arrangement, where each carriage had a central aisle from end 
to end, with communal WC/washroom, with platforms at the ends.  This 
was an obvious improvement on comfort from compartment-carriages, 
even if these carriages had a more communal feel.  Moving between 
carriages was now more possible (if you were daring - the connection 
was two connected walking-boards (one from each platform) with no 
handrail between the platforms).  The main disadvantage is the 
congestion that arises when large number of people are trying to get 
in or out at the same time, and the loss of privacy inherent in 
sharing a room with up to 50 people.

3.a Corridor access compartments.
Obviously, the original style of compartment-carriage became 
unsuitable as distances and times between stations increased.  Going 
to open seating was one choice, but another ingenious solution was to 
slap a corridor along the sides of the compartment-coaches.  This 
made it possible to give access to WC/washroom onboard the train.  At 
the same time, it appears that one decided to have closed vestibules 
at each end of the coach, rather than open platforms, and to have 
closed diaphragms between the cars (with the accordion-like bellows), 
making movement along the length of the train much easier.  Suddenly, 
putting a diner on the train is a real option.  This type of 
compartment still suffers from the increased congestion when trying 
to embark/disembark, but you retain the sense of privacy.  In recent 
years, this type of carriage seems to have fallen completely out of 
favour with most European Railways, in favour of open seating, which 
offers greater density of seating = greater revenues.

3.b Mixed corridor compartment/open seating
A particularity of Deutsche Bundesbahn of Germany, introduced on 
their refurbished Inter-Reggio Carriages.  In short, they have 
converted standard compartment-carriages, by removing half of the 
compartments (those in the middle), replacing them with open seating, 
while retaining the compartments at either end.  I believe the 
compartments are meant in particular for commuters who wish to have 
some sleep and quiet (or the opportunity to work relatively 
undisturbed) on their way to work.

3.c Combined corridor- and direct-access compartment
This is the stuff I was after information on in the first place (if 
you are still with me).  This, if it exists, seems to be a 
peculiarity of British Railway-companies.  I have no direct evidence 
that it exists, apart from photos of models of passenger-carriages 
that clearly feature compartments with direct-access doors to the 
platform (normally indicating that there is no corridor), while 
retaining diaphragms and evidence of WCs at either end (which they 
would not have if they were without a corridor).  

This would indicate a passenger-carriage which has compartments with 
connecting corridor and communal WC/washroom, which *also* has doors 
from each compartment to the platform (and an equal amount of doors 
from the corridor and out).  This offers a slight increase in the 
number of compartments carried on a given length, as there is no need 
for exit-doors at each end.  The problem for me is that it is blasted 
difficult to find information indicating whether such carriages 
actually were in use on any scale or if this is just evidence of 
sloppy manufacture of model passenger-carriages.  The type of 
carriage generally displayed by the manufacturers visually fits to 
the period 1920-1950.

4.   British Rail Mk. 1 Coach
This may be another subtype, but I am not at all certain.  What I do 
know is that it features a central aisle – I have seen it on photos.  
Seating is probably open, with groups of four seats to a table (two 
and two facing each other) on each side of the aisle.  Each sitting-
group has its own window, giving the coaches a distinct look with 
greater than normal spacing of the windows.  There are things in the 
photo I have seen that suggest that there may be thin walls between 
each sitting-group, giving sort f a compartment-feel to things.

My pet theory (moving on-topic and thus off-topic, but with all the 
on-topic off-topicness above, i think it is allowable):
My pet-theory on the Hogwarts express is that the carriages are in 
fact of the type combining direct-access doors to the compartments 
with a connecting corridor (type 3.c).  It is very obvious that there 
is a corridor – it is explicitly mentioned.  If you look at how Harry 
gets onboard the Hogwarts Express in PS, it seems that he could go 
straight into his compartment from the platform, too.  This 
convenient layout of a train would be very typical for Hogwarts, and 
it would also be perfectly reasonable for the apparent age of the 
train.

If you have followed me so far. then you really deserve a KCMG – 
unfortunately, I am not empowered to award one - and if you are 
Canadian or Australian, you couldn't get one anyway.  Aussies might 
get an MOA instead.