Who Remembers Smoking Cars?

[trubka2]

It's less age than geography. I smoked on Russian trains until 2013, sometimes between cars, sometimes in the dining car. I've heard you still can on some trains there, but it'll cost you if it's one of the nicer sleepers.

 

[gerryp]

The parish where I live still allows smoking in bars, which would be nice if I ever went to bars any more.

I worked in a bar in New Orleans a few years back, up until right before the city' smoking ban was passed (Igor's on St. Charles, if anyone's familiar with that place). Every single employee there smoked, and if a customer didn't smoke they were in the very small minority. Everyone in there drank like a fish. The idea of protecting the employees from second hand smoke (or 3rd, 4th, 5th, or however high they've upped the "passive smoking" thing to) was a joke.

The last time I was in a smoking restaurant was about 12 years ago in Green Bay, WI. It seemed weird to still allow that, but I smoked a few cigarettes anyway just because I could.

I should add that in terms of drinking, the people in Green Bay would give New Orleans residents a run for their money, and that's saying something.

 

[scloyd]

I can remember ashtrays built into the armrest of barber chairs. As a child I would flip the lid open-closed-open-closed-open-closed until someone told me to knock it off...usually the barber.

I can also remember the barber flicking the comb on the back of my head and telling me to sit still. I hated going to the barber.

 

[The Clay King]

They got rid of the smoking cars on the London Underground after the Kings Cross fire if I remember correctly!

That is correct, the cause of the fire was stated to have been a cigarette end and one of the old wooden escalators, all of which were replaced following the public inquiry.

 

[snagstangl]

In 2001-2002 I took an Amtrack from south east iowa to Chicago. There was not a smoking car but smoking rooms on the lower level of some of the cars. I remember smoking Camel lights there.

 

[Mr.Mike]

Some bars around me still allow smoking. I don't know the exact legislation, but it has something to do with serving food is a no go for smoking.

 

[The Clay King]

I remember smoking on planes for long haul flights but no pipes or cigars were allowed. In fact I remember a flight from NYC to London Heathrow circa 1987 were I was sitting next to a lovely priest who smoked Lucky Strikes. We went through a patch of turbulence and one of the Irish sisters asked him 'Father cannot you do something?'. He smiled and replied that he was only retail and that they needed to speak with head office! I remember smoking Belomorkanal Cigarettes on an Aeroflot flight in the very early 1990s as well. You could still smoke on the London Underground until maybe 1986/87 and on British Rail well into the mid 1990s. When I arrived in NYC in 95 you could still smoke in the office, bars and restaurants until Bloomberg turned NYC into a messed up version of Disney world.

Yes on the InterCity 125s coach B was the standard class smoking coach, if they had 2 1st class coaches then one was for smokers but if they only had 1 1st class coach then all 1st class was non smoking. After privatisation Midland Mainline designated Coach A for smokers and all 1st class was non smoking. I remember seeing the late Tony Benn (Chesterfield MP) boarding a train and smoking his pipe!

 

[Epip Oc'Cabot]

I remember well walking many times to the smoking car on the VIA (Canadian Rail) to smoke my pipe. Starting in the 1990s, however, pipes sadly became verboten there, and then by the mid 1990s smoking cars were eliminated on VIA.

 

[The Clay King]

GNER was the last UK train company to have smoking seats right up to the 2007 workplace smoking ban. From the refurbishment in about 2003-4 the smoking accommodation was reduced (due to falling demand) from a full coach to a small section right at the end of the train.

 

[saltedplug]

It's less age than geography. I smoked on Russian trains until 2013, sometimes between cars, sometimes in the dining car. I've heard you still can on some trains there, but it'll cost you if it's one of the nicer sleepers.

Love hearing something about Russia!

gerryp: ""If you think there's a solution, you're part of the problem." - George Carlin. Love, love, love the inversion, which to me is closer to the truth than the non-inflected version.

I'm a big George Carlin fan.

 

[swilford]

Yes, in Sydney an 8 carriage train (called Red Rattlers) would have 2 carriages dedicated as smoking cars well into the 70s and 80s (I remember lots of Falcon pipes for some reason). Planes yes also. In Japan the bullet trains still had smoking cars in the late 80s and into the early 90s.

Actually, I was in a smoking seat on the bullet train from Tokyo to Osaka as recently as 2017.

More recently--this past February--smoking seats were not available on the bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto (this time, they had cramped little smoking cabins designed to hold four standing smokers at a time, assuming all four smokers were very small or very fond of each other).

Sykes

 

[philobeddoe]

Indiana still allowed cigarette smoking in restaurants up until 2012. My wife and I would always ask to be seated in the smoking section if the restaurant had one, not to smoke, but to avoid the children as we preferred the cigarette smoke to the little brats.

 

[mso489]

Not a train trip, but when I took a long-haul bus from Chicago to Ft. Myers Florida in 1964 after h.s. graduation, to visit my cousin and his folks, and ride their horses and swim in the river, the trip was about two-plus days as I recall, smoking permitted all the way. I didn't smoke, but I was immersed in nicotine fumes all the way, and I had to get out and walk every stop to renew my oxygen levels, and when I got there, I walked it off before I phoned to be picked up. That cooled any impulse I had to smoke for years. Never have smoked cigarettes on a regular basis.

 

[sablebrush52]

One time, when I was very young. Went on a trip with my parents to visit family Back East. We flew to NY, then took a train to Connecticut. I remember the upholstered chairs and the standing ashtrays. Oh, yeah, and the smell. Stale tobacco, perfume, wood, BO.
I do remember smoking on airplanes. But then again, people smoked everywhere. Nobody gave a shit.

 

[Country Bladesmith]

My wife and I had several smoking cars when we were in college, but not the kind you’re talking about.

 

[Duke of Erinmore]

Sorry, there's a little bit of age discrimination in this thread, but how many members are of an age, and remembering actually riding in a smoking car on the train? My family used the Chicago and Northwestern railroad commuter line to get to and from downtown Chicago, and for many years, until the sixties probably, a smoking car was standard on the commuter runs. I even remember the old cars with velvet like upholstery and wood trim. Most of the riders read the newspaper as they smoked, but others had ongoing card games that went on for years. Cigarettes were standard; cigars not uncommon; and pipes were always represented. You could track styles of pipes over time. I remember the craze for Meerschaum lined leather wrapped pipes, often in the apple shape. It is something to remember while there are those who can.

As a European, smoking cars in trains do not go back that far, so I remember well. The best thing is that you always ran into the most different kind of people - united by smoker's solidarity.

I remember once, around the mid-2000s, I was taking the night train from the Baltic Sea to Munich - I had reserved a spot in the couchette car but before boarding that one I went into a smoker's compartment to have a smoke.

There was already a guy and we started chatting, really a decent bloke - later in Berlin Zoo a third one joined. He had brought a bottle of cheap East German brandy which the three of us emptied then. Was really a memorable experience...

 

[timelord]

They got rid of the smoking cars on the London Underground after the Kings Cross fire if I remember correctly!

That's what I thought too until I did a bit of digging around on the old interweb. The fire was in 1987 but the smoking cars were removed in 1984 and smoking in below ground stations was banned in 1985. Following the fire they banned smoking in the above ground stations too.

 

[spike]

I also took the Northwestern, from Palatine and later Glen Ellyn, when I worked in the Loop in the early 80s. Never took the smoking car because it was too oppressive. But back then I could smoke in the office and was all piped out by the time I left. And I’ve never smoked in the a.m.

 

[LOREN]

I've been places where they have a section for cigs and cigars, but pipes weren't allowed. Not trying to start anything, but I think pipe tobacco smells good, but at least is way way better smelling than cigs or cigars.

 

[LOREN]

I remember smoking inside the main venue at the Chicago Land Pipe Show!