Isa's Blog - America 1854 - Trains
Lynn B. Connor - Adventures in History
American Cars [Trains]
American cars are so different from our English ones. I must tell you about them.
You enter the car at each end and there is an aisle down the middle - not a door for each row of seats. "There is a small saloon for ladies with babies at one end, and a filter containing a constant supply of iced water." Book, bonbon, and peach venders go through the cars.
"An emigrant-car is attached to each train, but there is only one class: thus it may happen that you have on one side the President of the Great Republic, and on the other the gentleman who blacked your shoes in the morning...this mingling of all ranks is far from being disagreeable..."
I saw and talked to many kinds of people. Heard humorous stories and conversations on politics. A Kentucky farmer with a Bowie knife pointed out things of interest. "Were it not for the disgusting practice of spitting upon the floors in which the lower classes of Americans indulge, I should greatly prefer them to our exclusive carriages."
American cars are so different from our English ones. I must tell you about them.
You enter the car at each end and there is an aisle down the middle - not a door for each row of seats. "There is a small saloon for ladies with babies at one end, and a filter containing a constant supply of iced water." Book, bonbon, and peach venders go through the cars.
"An emigrant-car is attached to each train, but there is only one class: thus it may happen that you have on one side the President of the Great Republic, and on the other the gentleman who blacked your shoes in the morning...this mingling of all ranks is far from being disagreeable..."
I saw and talked to many kinds of people. Heard humorous stories and conversations on politics. A Kentucky farmer with a Bowie knife pointed out things of interest. "Were it not for the disgusting practice of spitting upon the floors in which the lower classes of Americans indulge, I should greatly prefer them to our exclusive carriages."
