Who Remembers Smoking Cars?

[PaulTheScandinavian]

I used to love riding in trains until the day when our national railway company announced banning all the smoking in their cars somewhere mid-late 90ties

 

[briarbuck]

Here's a car blowing smoke rings. Pretty impressive...

 

[Elric]

Not sure of the specific state laws but here in Largo, FL, smoking is the norm in restaurants with outdoor seating areas. I was also in a sports bar that served minimal food and they even allowed smoking indoors. I hadn't seen an ashtray at a table in well over a decade or two before that.

 

[alexander87]

My smoking car memories go back to steam locomotives, to date myself for sure. We used to stand on the platform as those devils rattled by dusting embers in their path. I think they were old Baldwin locomotives, big pistons and bells on the top of the boiler. Steam locomotives in general were one apex of mechanical engineering. Even at home, late at night, we could hear them getting up steam headed up the ridge from the station. Sometimes they'd lose traction and have to build up steam all over again. They were dramatic.

That is a really cool memory! Thanks for sharing.

 

[woodsroad]

Inused to love the old Brill cars, but I could never keep them lit.

 

[--dante--]

I definitely remember them. My dad worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad after WWII, which became Penn Central, and eventually Conrail. After Penn Central, Amtrak became the only passenger line (at least nationwide), but as an employee of Conrail, my dad had free passage on Amtrak, as well as for direct family. As a young boy, I do remember riding some Penn Central trains on overnight trips to Chicago or NYC. On Amtrak, all the runs I was on had smoking cars. I didn't smoke, but you definitely knew you were passing through them on the way to the "snack car" or "dining car", both of which were also considered smoking cars. They weren't gussied up as smoking cars as in smoking lounges, though -- just cars that were specified as smoking-allowed.

 

[instymp]

I can remember smoking everywhere.
Trains, planes & ...... my Dr.s office. He had the biggest damn ashtray I ever saw under his desk.
Who would go to a bar & drink if you couldn't smoke?

 

[Spavilla]

After moving to Long Island from NYC I used to commute on the Long Island Railroad. The bar car and the smoking car were one and the same, so of course it was a lot of raucous fun! The commute was always over way too soon. I always wondered how some of those fellas made it home from the station... When the LIRR switched from diesel to electric the party ended...but not for me! The lone remaining diesel with a bar car was my express train from Hunterspoint! There was a great dive bar at the station entrance that posted a fella with a cooler at the station entrance selling cold beer-3 Heinekens for $5. I rode that 5:08 until they retired her sometime in the 90’s. Thanks for sharing my trip down memory lane. It was a good one.