ApproachMedium wrote: hi55us wrote: I wonder if their has ever been any thought about designing a single level dining car that can only be accessible from one end? It would certainly decrease operational flexibility, but it would allow more seating and more maneuverability in the kitchen. It would also be extremely useless and violate many safety standards set for rail cars. Especially since the single level cars need to be able to be evacuated from the car ends for train to train rescue in the tunnels.

I think he was thinking something more along the lines of having the kitchen go across the entire end of a car, but still have a door at the end that would allow crew access (and in the event of an emergency, passenger access) to the car beyond (most likely a dorm/baggage car.)I think though even if you could get it past regulations, the lack of flexibility would be an issue. And keep in mind, currently Amtrak uses the diner as the demarcation between 1st class (i.e. sleepers) and coach. So now you'd either have to have all sleeping class passengers traverse the length of the train to get to the diner, or all coach passengers snake their way through the sleepers. Neither is an ideal situation.