posted
When I tried to use the sleeper while in motion I ran into a quandary: If I sleep head first and the train stops suddenly, will I damage something? If I sleep feet first, will I lose my food?
Which way is preferred and reliable on a sleeper, which is situated with the train and not across it?
Posts: 64 | From: NYC (NYP) | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
You will not have much choice about which way to sleep. The beds are generally set up with a wide and narrow end. Deluxe bedrooms run crossways in the car (side to side). Roomettes run parallel to the rails (lengthwise).
quote:Originally posted by D. David: When I tried to use the sleeper while in motion I ran into a quandary: If I sleep head first and the train stops suddenly, will I damage something? If I sleep feet first, will I lose my food?
Which way is preferred and reliable on a sleeper, which is situated with the train and not across it?
When sleeping in a roomette, I prefer to sleep with my feet forward. I have never lost my food.
-------------------- David Pressley
Advocating for passenger trains since 1973!
Climbing toward 5,000 posts like the Southwest Chief ascending Raton Pass. Cautiously, not nearly as fast as in the old days, and hoping to avoid premature reroutes. Posts: 4203 | From: Western North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
In the roomette I prefer to sleep with my feet forward. Easier to sit up and see where I'm headed. In the Deluxe I prefer my feet toward the window so it's easier to sit up and look out. The attendants are usually very agreeable to making the bed up however you want it.
Frank in dark and cool SBA
Posts: 2160 | From: Santa Barbara, CA, USA | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Originally posted by dcfan: The beds are generally set up with a wide and narrow end.
I think that's only the Viewliners. I've swapped the bedding around on a Superliner before with no problems. Personally I prefer head first because I sometimes get a weird "falling" sensation when going feet first. Safety-wise, you'd probably be *slightly* safer feet first, but then remember that trains can get rammed from either end. I was on the California Zephyr going head first when it hit a car and didn't even wake up straight away.
Geoff M.
Posts: 2426 | From: Apple Valley, CA | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
dcfan's statement that "the beds are generally set up with a wide and [a] narrow end" is not correct. Only the beds in the regrettably named Viewliner roomettes (previously known as "Standard Bedrooms") have a wide and a narrow end. All other Viewliner sleeping car rooms, and all Superliner sleeping car rooms, have beds that are simply rectangular.
In response to D. David's question, it's always seemed clear to me that if you sleep head-forward and the train stops suddenly, there's a small but real chance that you might have your neck broken, receive a concussion, or have some other unfortunate head or neck injury. If you read accounts of train accidents, you see that many of the more serious injuries are the result of the passengers continuing to move forward when the car they're in stops, until they slam into some obstacle such as the seat in front of them, a table, or whatever. The same would have to apply in a sleeping car room, with the top of your head slamming into the wall in front of it. Therefore, I always sleep feet-forward, even if that means putting my head at the narrow end, and even if it means remaking the bed myself. In fact, I feel somewhat insulted when the attendant presents me with a bed made up head-forward: I feel like saying, "So you expect to be paid as much as a degreed professional for your job, yet at the same time you don't care whether I end up a paraplegic or quadraplegic?" It seems to me that to end up with a head or neck injury because I simply accepted the unsafe situation some heedless train employee put me in would be one of the most vexing fates I can imagine.
Regarding D. David's question about losing his food if the train stops suddenly while he is sleeping feet-forward: First, no, I don't think that's likely to happen. Second, even if it did happen, it would be a much less serious problem than having a head or neck injury. Third, I worry that D. David may be one of these people who think that being in a moving train may have strange effects on the normal workings of the human body, or perhaps one of these people who are obsessed with the supposedly highly delicate workings of their own digestive system. I would reassure D. David that fears of the former type were mostly put to rest by the middle of the nineteenth century; and fears of the latter type, while shared by many people, can, I presume, be dealt with effectively by a competent mental health professional.
In my various journeys riding in Viewliner and Superliner "roomettes", Superliner Accessible Bedrooms, Heritage roomettes (the real roomettes), and longitudinally-oriented Heritage bedrooms, all of which have beds that are parallel to the tracks, it's seemed to me that the beds have been made up feet-forward the majority of the time. This has led me to wonder whether Amtrak has a specific policy that beds are to made up this way, a policy that employees are therefore violating by making them up the opposite way (unless a mistake or irregularity of some kind has occurred, e.g., the employees make up the beds with the foot ends in a given direction on the assumption that the car will be traveling in that direction on its next trip, but the car is then unexpectedly reversed when the new train is assembled). I'd be interested to know whether anyone is aware of Amtrak having such a policy.
Posts: 86 | Registered: Mar 2005
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Actually I can't sit backward on trains. I learned this the hard way in 1977 on the TEE in Europe. I was a teen traveling with my grandmother and cousin, and was STARVED. We went to the dining car and while waiting for the food I got very queasy and they took my food away. My grandmother was angry because she had to pay for the meal anyway. When I got back to my seat, I was hungry again.
Since then I sit sideways or forward on trains and never backwards. I can't take chances with a full stomach lying that way I don't think, but as explained that's nothing when compared with the alternative.
When I lied down in motion after lunch on the SWC I felt maybe it wanted to come up. I think it's probably like the water rule where you shouldn't go back into a pool right after a meal. I'm sure later on it isn't an issue.
Posts: 64 | From: NYC (NYP) | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
To D. David: If you feel that you must sit facing forward while on a moving train, then, assuming that you spend most of your sleep time on your back, wouldn't it follow that you'd want to lie down feet-forward? I would think that that position bears a greater resemblance to sitting facing forward than lying head-forward does. After all, when you're lying feet-forward on your back, all you have to do is tilt up your head, and you're looking in the direction the train is moving; and if you sit up, you're in your preferred facing-forward position. On the other hand, if you're lying head-forward on your back, you have to awkwardly tilt your head back to look in the direction the train is moving, plus you'll just be staring at a wall; and if you sit up, you're in the facing-backward position that you wish to avoid.
One question I'd raise is, are you sure that one incident on the TEE in 1977 proves for all time that looking backward on a moving train makes you queasy? Maybe there were other reasons for your feeling queasy that day, such as the hunger you were feeling at the time. Or may just a little practice would have enabled you, and still could enable you today, to experience this unfamiliar position without ill effects. I also wonder if perhaps your beliefs about the effect of sitting backwards on your digestive system are rooted in a misunderstanding of physics. Perhaps you imagine that, as the train moves along, your stomach is constantly being pulled out of your abdominal cavity. In fact, because of inertia (in this case the tendency of a moving object, i.e., your stomach, to stay in motion), that is not happening.
Regarding your queasiness when lying down after lunch on the Southwest Chief, I'd at least consider the question of whether the main reason for that feeling might have just been that you were full, with the train motion only a minor contributing reason, or even not a contributing reason at all. As a general matter, lying down after a big meal can be a problematic situation, whether you're in a moving vehicle or not; and those Amtrak meals can be quite big, especially considering that you're not exerting much energy during your trip. Sometimes an Amtrak lunch can also be hard to take because you haven't really recovered yet from a recent big Amtrak breakfast. Often when I'm on a trip on a train with a dining car, I'll simply skip lunch, even if it's already paid for through my sleeping car accommodation charge, because my constitution just can't handle three full dining car meals a day.
For whatever reassurance value this might have, in all my tens of thousands of miles of travel on intercity trains, commuter trains, and heavy-rail and light-rail trains, I've never observed, or heard of, a case of someone actually throwing up because of facing backwards, or indeed for any other motion-related reason. (Train motion is significantly different from plane or car motion, and rarely if ever has motion-sickness-inducing effects of the kind they do.) All I've seen is riders, usually inexperienced ones, fretting about whether they might get sick to their stomachs by riding backwards. My advice to you would be to practice riding backwards for a while, at first on an only slightly full stomach and then on progressively fuller ones. Perhaps you could report back on this thread in a few weeks or months, and let us know what happens.
Posts: 86 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Wherever the steps to the upper bunk are is where the pillow has been on all of my trips in a standard sleeper.
Posts: 1418 | From: Houston, Republic of Texas | Registered: Jan 2001
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Feet first is definitely the way to go. It IS best for viewing and safety is a big consideration. A friend of mine was the crew chief on the Sunset Limited when it derailed into Bayou Canot. He was asleep in the rear sleeper (yes, they were on the rer back then) which stayed on the bridge thanks to good emergency brakes that activated when the train line was severed. He told me a year later that he went to bed with his feet against the wall at the forward end of the room. He was sound asleep. When the train stopped, he ended up in a standing position in his bed (the car did not overturn). Had he slept head first, he'd have been standing on his head, obviously with a busted neck.
Posts: 561 | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
The Viewliners do pose a problem as the forward end in SOME rooms is the narrow, tapered end of the bed. Additionally, in the lower bed that end is right beside the toilet which I prefer not to smell while I am in bed. The option when alone would be to sleep in the top bed with my head at the narrow end.
Posts: 561 | Registered: Jul 2003
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quote:Originally posted by mikesmith: Wherever the steps to the upper bunk are is where the pillow has been on all of my trips in a standard sleeper.
That has always been my observation up until our last trip. The attendant made up the upper bunk with the head away from the steps. Lower bunk, too. In this particular roomette, that put feet forward, which I always felt was safer. However, it did make getting into the upper bunk more difficult. But since my wife actually prefers the upper bunk (!), I didn't have to deal with it myself.
On every other trip the upper was made up head to steps, regardless of travel direction. But some attendants do make the lower in the opposite direction, feet first. There doesn't seem to be a standard. It seems to be up to the individual attendant.
Posts: 2649 | From: California's Monterey Peninsula | Registered: Dec 2000
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