Dinning Cars in Real Trains

I have passenger consist books for the B&O for 1949 and 1950. These show which types of cars were to be in each train and the order. Typically, mail, express, and dead-head equipment was at the front of the train. Passenger baggage car would be next, a combine if present next, then coaches. The diner would be next. To my knowledge, all B&O diners had a passage around the kitchen/pantry. Next would come sleepers. Any observation car would be last. Top B&O trains often had more than one car providing food service. A number of B&O combines had coffee shoppes, and many observation cars had bars with limited food service. The order sometimes changed to facilitate en-route switching. For example, the Metropolitan Special had the dining car in front of the sleeper from Washington to Cumberland, but when the diner was taken off at Cumberland (after serving breakfast), the Cafe-Club car that replaced it was put behind the sleeper as the last car of the train. B&O welcomed coach passengers in its diners and had advertising items distributed to coach passengers to advise them of the service.

Usually the rear so the first class passengers were away from the noise and dirtiness of the locomotive.

In the modern era on regional trains, Amtrak usually places food service cars in the middle of the train so that the passage between cars is the same for regular and business class passengers. I can't really say anything about Acelas because I always took regional trains in the Northeast Corridor.

MELGAR

What car plans are you referring to where the kitchen portion of the car was completely blocked off from the rest of the train?  Every floor plan I have seen for a diner always had a hallway on side for the kitchen to allow passage of passengers and crew through the full length of the train.  Even the twin-unit diners where one car was the kitchen car and the other a dining car had passage on one side of the car.  I have not run across a floor plan where the kitchen created a physical divider between sections of the train on any 20th century car. 

Where first class passengers were placed in a train is a different question.  Some railroads placed them at the rear of the train while others placed them behind the head end cars near the front.  It is always best to research the specific road for their practices.  I had always assumed that the rear of the train was where first-class cars were placed, but this is not universally true. 

You never can go wrong placing the diner between the coaches and the sleeping cars.  The kitchen end should face the rear of the train.

If you have one of those wonderful Golden Gate Depot passenger trains you might have two dining cars - the lunch counter diner in coach, and the full diner in first class.  

With a 3-unit or 2-unit diner such as used by the Southern Pacific or the Pennsylvania, you will need advice from experts on those railroads.

I do not think that any dining car galley is full width.  There is a corridor on one side for passage.

On my last long distance train adventure, the VIA Candian, there were two diners on the train.  One was rear of the dome lounge that separated Coach Class from Sleeper I class, and one between a second dome lounge and the first-class sleepers now known as "Prestige Class".  The train from locomotives back was a baggage car, two coaches, a dome lounge, the first diner, 10 "Manor" sleepers in Sleeper I and Sleeper II classes, the second dome lounge, the second diner, two Prestige Class sleepers, and the Park dome observation on the rear.

During my college years, I rode the next to last configuration of the "Broadway Limited" on Amtrak and it consisted of a baggage car, a baggage-dorm, four coaches, a lounge car, the diner, a Slumbercoach, and two 10-6 sleepers.  As Tom states, the diner was in the middle of the train.  The same was true of my three trips on the Southwest Chief in the 1980's.  The diner and the lounge were in the center of the train.

We used to ride the Amtrak Autotrain frequently. They ran 2 sets of Diners, coach and Sleeper class. Typically 2-3 cars per class, with a lounge car connected to the Diners.
They don't turn that train so southbound coach leads, northbound sleeper leads.

Bob

Being an egalitarian sort, and following Arkansas and Missouri practices, I generally plop the diner mid-train and call it good. 

-MMM-