trains in Martin (George Romero film)

[northnorthwest]

Just watched the 1976 horror film Martin for the first time.

In the opening scene the main character boards an overnight train in Indianapolis, it's still daylight. They say it's 10 hours til Pittsburgh where he is going, and the train is going on to Philly and NYC. The train arrives PGH daylight as well, seems morning. What train would that have been? It looks like it has a good number of sleepers and more options than what we have now. For example, his first victim has a pretty large room with a private bath. But it also looks as he passes down the hall that there are some kinds of bunks covered by curtains that don't seem to be full rooms. What are those?

Also any idea what those private rooms or cots would have cost in today's dollars?

Warning: If you end up watching any of this opening online it is pretty disturbing and graphic, so I would recommend to just fast forward once he follows the girl into her room.

Once he arrives in Pittsburgh then he has to walk to another train station and take a Pat Train to Braddock. It's a regional rail service that doesn't exist now. What station was that? And what path did that train take? And what was the forerunner of this port authority service? Was it a private rail before? He takes this train back and forth to Pittsburgh a couple times in the movie.

I found this to be a pretty good film, and it was a great snapshot of the Pittsburgh area in the era just before I was born.

 

[Shortline]

No idea what train it was, but the sleeping car sounds like it might have been what was known as a 10-6, or something similar-Basically 10 Open Sections (think roomette, without a wall to the hallway, but rather heavy curtains hung at night to provide privacy), and 6 bedrooms, similar now to the Amtrak bedroom, many had private bathrooms in them, though no shower. There are many other car layouts, but the 10-6 was very common. Some cars had a few bedrooms, or drawing rooms, a few open sections, and some roomettes (different then, a roomette was just for 1, with only 1 seat in it)

I think they were taking some serious liberties with the schedule of the train, it's only around a 5 hour drive to pittsburg, something like 350 miles or so, I can't imagine it was a 10 hour trip by train....maybe today it would be, with Amtrak padding, but on a real RR schedule? Would think it would be closer to 6 or 7 hours at most.

 

[FormerOBS]

It was probably the St. Louis - New York National Limited, which operated over the former PRR line. Some heritage cars had more luxurious and spacious rooms than anything running on Amtrak today, so I imagine the large room you mentioned might have been a Compartment, a Drawing Room, or possibly the super-luxurious Master Room, which had a shower (quite unusual in that time). These names are often casually used interchangeably; but in fact, they were very specific names for very specific accommodations. Remember that Amtrak's consists were not always consistent at that time, and movies didn't necessarily employ the same equipment that real railroads used, so your movie may not have had any relationship to any real train.

When discussing the very numerous "10&6" sleepers, we first must remember that Amtrak has (rightly or wrongly) assumed the right to change definitions. The rooms that today's Amtrak calls roomettes, are not in any way the same as the roomettes of 1976. My old Webster's Unabridged says a roomette is "a small, private room in some railroad sleeping cars, furnished with a bed that folds into the wall, a toilet, washbasin, etc." A "10&6" had ten roomettes and six double bedrooms. Most (but not all) were laid out in an arrangement similar to the 10 & 5 arrangement in the upstairs of today's Superliners. Roomettes then did not have two beds. They had one bed, hinged at the head end like a Murphy bed. When the bed was down, it covered the toilet; but it could be raised by the passenger because it was counterbalanced to keep its weight manageable.

Today's Amtrak "roomettes" are actually equivalent to the sections of the pre-Amtrak days. I am not aware of any sections being operated by Amtrak at any time. Sections had two berths, an upper and a lower, set up very much like the two berths in the room that Amtrak now calls a roomette. There was no toilet nor washstand. There was also no door. At night, curtains provided what privacy there was. Sections were very basic, no-frills sleeping accommodations for a single person on a budget. These are the accommodations we have seen so often in old movies. I have always maintained that the things Amtrak calls roomettes should more properly be called Improved Sections, or some such name.

"10&6" sleepers were very common, but they were not the only types of sleeper. Many other interior arrangements could be found, such as 10-5's, 6-6-4's, 14-4's, 5 Bedroom-Lounge, etc., etc., etc.

Tom

 

[FormerOBS]

Just to be clear, a 10 & 6 did not have 10 open sections. It had 10 Roomettes and 6 Double Bedrooms. Usually, there were movable walls between bedrooms A/B, C/D, and D/E for those who purchased two adjoining bedrooms.

Tom

 

[MikefromCrete]

It's a movie, so it probably wasn't a real train. I don't believe Amtrak ever operated any open section sleepers. The cars used in the movie could have been any kind of sleepers under private ownership, or they could be movie sets.

 

[northnorthwest]

Thanks for these replies. I never knew about the open sections.

I think you're right about the National Limited. On this timetable

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=43364

it does take about 9.5 hours from Indy to Pittsburgh, so that matches the "10 hours" in the film. It also works with the worker's question: "Do you want me to wake you at Pittsburgh?" However, it does not line up with the film, which begins with folks boarding and a "good morning" greeting in Indy and then a morning arrival in PGH. That must be artistic liberty. (Indy is evening departure on this schedule.)

I also noticed in the credits special thanks are given to the Lakeshore Railway Historical Society and the B & O Railroad.

http://lakeshorerailway.com/about-lsrhs/

Some neat trains on their site. I guess one of their trains or former trains was used for the interior shots?

 

[FormerOBS]

Tried to edit my previous, but it didn't work. As far as stations in Pittsburgh are concerned, I believe B&O had a downtown commuter station on the east side of the Monongahela River, and I believe it was used by PAT trains. There was also a P&LE station on the west side of the Monongahela, but I don't think PAT trains used it. I'm not too sure about Pittsburgh area operations. Back before Amtrak existed, I took the PRR's General from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh, then walked in the middle of the night to the P&LE station, where I caught the B&O's Shenandoah to continue to Akron. B&O mainline passenger trains used P&LE tracks through that area.

Tom

 

[northnorthwest]

Tried to edit my previous, but it didn't work. As far as stations in Pittsburgh are concerned, I believe B&O had a downtown commuter station on the east side of the Monongahela River, and I believe it was used by PAT trains. There was also a P&LE station on the west side of the Monongahela, but I don't think PAT trains used it. I'm not too sure about Pittsburgh area operations. Back before Amtrak existed, I took the PRR's General from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh, then walked in the middle of the night to the P&LE station, where I caught the B&O's Shenandoah to continue to Akron. B&O mainline passenger trains used P&LE tracks through that area.

Tom

As a follow-up, this gives a thorough explanation to some of my questions about Pat Train:

http://andrewcarnegie2.tripod.com/transit/pat/patrain/history.html