London Banter - View Single Post - Trivia: Victorian double-decker trains?

Andrew Clarke

(Troy Steadman) wrote in message . com...
The first L&SW trains to Kingston-on-Railway (nowadays Surbiton) were
notable for having people riding on top and people riding below.

Were they double-deckers?

You can see an early postwar Australian variant in the opening scenes
of "The Road to Bali" where Bing Crosby is riding in a Victorian
Railways dining car and passing food through the window, by means of a
walking stick and a handkerchief, to Bob Hope who is riding the rods
below. Other points of interest:

1)the GM loco hauling the train was possibly still in service until a
couple of years ago

2)the Australian officials portrayed in the film all have BBC accents
with the occasional "mate" thrown in to add local colour ...

Turning to a film of a slightly different kind, Francois Truffaut's
New Wave classic "Jules and Jim" -- set between ca 1910-1920s --
includes archival footage of French trains of the period, and I'm sure
there's some real double-deck carriages in one of these clips.

Meanwhile I wonder if IK Brunel, not usually one to miss an
opportunity, ever considered building broad-gauge carriages *with a
basement*?

andrew clarke
canberra