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From: goutal@dec-parrot.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.railroad
Subject: reversible seating
Message-ID: <570@decwrl.DEC.COM>
Date: Mon, 20-Jan-86 01:01:10 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.570
Posted: Mon Jan 20 01:01:10 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 21-Jan-86 08:23:19 EST
Sender: daemon@decwrl.DEC.COM
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 25


RDC's ("Budd Cars") are still in common use on the MBTA, the Boston-area
commuter rail system, and they have reversible seats for the same reason
that someone else mentioned -- saves turning them around.
This is especially important when one end of the line is a place like
Rockport, with no room for a wye.

One of the charms of commuting by rail for me (by RDC, anyway) was that
inevitably at least one seat in each section could reverse, so somewhere
in the car was a pair of facing bench seats.  On the homeward run, such
a configuration was always commandeered by a foursome of bridge or poker
or whatever, playing on the briefcases on their knees!  Try doing that
in your car!  (On second thot, don't...)

I'm pretty sure the clerestory coaches used by the Bay Colony RR also
has those same reversible bench seats.  (BCRR started out as an excursion
run during the summer tourist season on Cape Cod.  It now supports daily,
year-round commuter service from Cape Cod to an outlying subway station.)

I'm another of those who doesn't care particularly which way I'm riding
on a train, although sideways as on some subways and the Chicago double
deckers verges on awful.  I might not like it in an airplane, though.
Hard to say.

-- Kenn Goutal		(...decwrl!dec-parrot!goutal ?)