I am not claiming that the use of "club car" to indicate a reservation-required, swivel seating, attendants-on-call, first-class fare is never correct.. The CN used "club car" as a term of art for their parlor cars and still does for all I know. However, looking at historical as well as derived usage, "club car" to indicate a bar-car, etc., is most always the term to be applied to a drinks-based car with first-come, first serve capacity in which patrons are not expected to "hog" seats the whole trip. Even though "club" may just be an historical holdover.
I think some of the overlapping ambiguity is due to the fact that on many roads, the club car (sometimes dining car, too)was open only to first-class (in the States, Pullman sleeper) travelers. That and the comfy, non-rigid seating gave it something of the aspect of a proper classic Pullman parlor car. But even the RRs were never greedy enough to make people pay a surchage of any kind to go to a place where the drinks and food were often very good, but almost always expensive!
Really, doesn't it make a lot more sense to use the Euro-derived terms first- and second-class?
Away from the East Coast, "club car" in most other jurisdictions could indicate a kind of colloquialism for what might be less euphemistically mean a "bar car" or "tavern lounge" or "observation lounge" . Example: in the 1954 film HOLIDAY INN, after the Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye characters give up their compartment on an all-reserved train to Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen, the conductor gives our heroes a Hobson's choice: "You can sit up all night in the club car,". by which he meant they had to pay regular fare to sit in uncomfortable, straight-backed banquette / booth type seats that, rather like McDonald's seats, began to ache the back after a while. (Through the magic of musicals, though, this "club car" was open after midnight and they and "the girls" were the only patrons in it!).
I suspect "club car" was standard usage rendered acceptable if not 110% correc t; I'm sure a Hollywood writer wrote the WHITE CHRISTMAS dialog rather than a RR professional. When I was quite young I got to ride the Sunset Limited from Houston to N.O. before the train got hideous. It had a proper, wholly impractical and utterly wonderful rear-end observation car,.It certainly sold drinks and I think sandwiches. What my mother colloquially called the "club car" the bar attendant insisted I call an "obvservation car" when he brought me my Coke.
And -- digressing back toward topic -- I wonder if anyone can tell me if a private compartment (be it styled bedroom or family suite or whatever) can be used during the day on a train with such first-class accommodations (if properly reserved)? Recall that in Hitchcock's wonderful 1950 flick STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, the luxury-loving Bruno had reserved a private compartment for a NYC-DC trip on a train not unlike the Afternoon Congressional. He even had luncheon from the diner brought to him! Does Amtrak offer anything like that service today at any price? I just can't psych out Amtrak; sometimes I think that all vestige of service and luxury has been eliminated and other times I think the sky's the limit, unless one lights up.
*****
Also (whew), should I kick off another threat about Slumbercoaches? I find the whole thing fascinating. Playing alternative-history, what if Slumbercoaches had become the norm; would the RR's not lose (or lose less slowly) their popular-price passengers, etc.?
[?]
Inquiring minds, etc.,
Al
