Pullman Palace Car Company

“ The success of the company engendered competition; its success resulted only in a comparison of service injurious to the imitators. Behind all this lay the fundamental reason for Pullman supremacy. Created to give a standardized service everywhere for the convenience of travelers, it was quickly apparent that competition was but a reversal to the old order—the more companies, the less uniform service.
About a month previous, the Mann Boudoir Company and the Woodruff Sleeping Car Company had joined hands and formed the Union Palace Car Company. ”

“ A very large proportion of this company's work is on "palace" cars of the Pullman type, those extravagances of luxury of which Europe is just now applying to Wilmington to learn the lesson. Narrow-gauge cars for the West, in supplying which they are the pioneers, gaudy cars for South America, and sturdy, solid ones for Canada, are all gently riding forward, side to side, in this inexorable chain of destiny, and diverging at the front door on their widely-different errands. Besides the manufacture of cars, the company builds every sort of coasters and steamers. ”

“ Webster Wagner, the founder of the Wagner Palace Car Company, began his career as a wagon maker. The first cars which he constructed had a single tier of berths, and the bedding was packed away by day in a closet at the end of the car. Commodore Vanderbilt backed Wagner and became interested in his company, a connection which gave Wagner invaluable assistance and a hold on the sleeping-car business of the lines controlled by the Vanderbilt interests, a connection which enabled him for many years to be a keen competitor of the Pullman Company. ”

“ With the realization constantly before him that the most perfect service could be given only by the most radically improved equipment and the widest extension of this company's activities, Mr. Pullman identified the early years of organization with a development of the passenger car to a degree of comfort, convenience, safety, and luxury that passed popular comprehension. Nothing was too good for the Pullman car ”

“ George M. Pullman in 1859 set for himself the task of producing a palace car which should be used for continuous and comfortable travel through long distances by day and night. He remodelled into sleeping-cars two passenger coaches belonging to the Chicago and Alton Railroad. Though these cars fell far below the inventor's ideal, they were far in advance of the first make-shifts and in consequence created a demand for more and better cars of the same kind. In 1863, at his factory in Chicago, Pullman began the construction of the "Pioneer," the first of the Pullman palace cars. ”

“ It is remarkable that at this early date the two features of the Pullman car which characterize it today—the features of safety and luxury—should have been so clearly defined.
It is human nature to accept each step forward as a new standard and it is characteristically American to refuse to accept an inferior article as soon as one superior is available, even if at greater cost. The "Pioneer" and its successors established such a standard, and immediately those accustomed and able to afford the increased rate required by the greater investment in the car, gladly and thankfully accepted it ”

“ The Mann car was developed to suit European railroads and European wants. A Belgian company was organized to introduce sleeping cars by contracts with railroad companies, somewhat like those of the Pullman Company in America. The Mann cars which were put in service in the United States between Boston and New York in 1883 were divided into eight compartments, some accommodating two persons, some four. ”

“ It may be a combination of both; a system or organization instituted for the accomplishment of a duty or work beneficial to a community. A great railroad affords such a service. Greater in its scope than any railroad, the Pullman Company provides a more vast, intricate, and complete service to the people of the United States, a service unequaled in all the world.
Pullman sleeping car, latest design, with outline drawing showing how the car is supplied with light, water, and heat
A study of the scope and ramifications of the Pullman operations deserves more than passing comment ”

“ Thus in the space of a few years George M. Pullman not only evolved a type of railroad car luxurious and beautiful in design and embracing in its construction patents of great originality and ingenuity, but, in addition, evolved the rudimentary conception of a system by which passengers might be carried to any destination in cars of uniform construction, equipped for day or night travel, and served and protected by trained employees whose sole function is to provide for the passengers' safety, comfort, and convenience. ”

“ These men each week make personal inspection of cars in operation with the sole purpose of keeping the service up to the highest standard. In addition, a corps of electrical and mechanical inspectors constantly inspect and test the cars and their devices, at various places, and another corps of local inspectors carefully examine every departing and every incoming train with particular attention to the appearance and deportment of the car employees and the apparatus for heating, lighting and water.
The Pullman Company is today the greatest single employer of colored labor in the world. ”

“ It is natural to think of the Pullman Company as housed in some miraculous manner in the cars which it operates, as a company which expends its restless existence in untiring travel from state to state. ”

“ The second step in the evolution was inevitable. At best, the hotel car was only a sleeping car with restaurant accommodations. Eating and sleeping have never been associated in the modern mind; there must be a separate place for each.
To meet the demand, or rather to anticipate a demand which his keen eyes foresaw, Mr. Pullman set himself to the task of developing a car which would be only a dining car, serving no other purpose, and practical for operation in conjunction with through trains of the fastest speed. The first real dining car which Mr. ”

“ INVENTIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS
The invention of the folding upper berth combination by Mr. Pullman was the first of many contributions by himself, and in later years by the Pullman Company and those associated with it, to the development of railway travel. Sleeping cars for a number of years had given night accommodations to travelers; there was nothing new in the idea that a night journey required sleeping accommodations. But in the new and radical berth construction devised by Mr. Pullman lay the difference between impracticability and practicability—between discomfort and luxury. ”

“ Investors did not flock to him, but he got together enough to start operations, and the five cars he already had on the rail were earning money. During the first year he did not add any new cars, but the next year he put several out, and they were a huge success—the company that year earning two hundred and eighty thousand dollars.
The big roads centering in Chicago were pushing out in all directions. The transcontinental roads were open for business. The ending of the Civil War had paved the way to railroad extension in the South. All these facts gave new opportunities for Pullman's business. ”

“ Where formerly it was necessary for the traveler to change from car to car whenever and wherever one railroad connected with another line, the uniform service of the Pullman Company created a new and infinitely more desirable situation, for it was now possible to travel without inconvenience or interruption between practically any two points in the country regardless of the number of different railroads over whose tracks the traveler's ticket required passage. ”

“ Many of these improvements are of a technical character, and primarily affect the construction of the cars; others are of a more directly personal nature and contribute more to the comfort and convenience of the traveler. All that are passed by the committee serve to place still higher the standard that for fifty years has been constantly uplifted by the company.
At the end of its journey the Pullman car is thoroughly cleaned and disinfected. The first picture on this page shows the bedding being given a sun bath. ”

“ The "Pioneer" had cost Mr. Pullman $20,000. Compared with the finest sleeping cars previously in use, it was clearly evident that a new development in luxurious travel had been accomplished. The best ordinary sleeping cars were considered expensive at $4,000. There was no more comparison between the "Pioneer" and its predecessors in comfort than in cost. But it remained to be seen what the public would think of it; whether they preferred luxury, comfort, and real service, to hardship, discomfort, and no service at a lower cost. ”

“ One of the most interesting elements in the history of the Pullman car and the Pullman Company is the story of imitation and competition which for a period after the foundation of the parent company thrived and later disappeared. ”

“ In 1880 the Pullman Company erected the most extensive car-works in the world at Pullman, fourteen miles south of Chicago; and, besides its extensive output of Pullman cars and freight equipment, it has built for railway companies large numbers of passenger coaches. The employees now number about 5,000, and an idea of the capacity and resources of the shops may be obtained from the fact that one hundred freight cars, of the kind known as flat cars, have been built in eight hours. ”

“ The sleeping-car business, in which I was interested, had gone on increasing so rapidly that it was impossible to obtain cars enough to supply the demand. This very fact led to the forming of the present Pullman Company. The Central Transportation Company was simply unable to cover the territory with sufficient rapidity, and Mr. Pullman beginning at the greatest of all railway centers in the world—Chicago—soon rivaled the parent concern. He had also seen that the Pacific Railroad would be the great sleeping-car line of the world, and I found him working for what I had started after. ”

“ The car in itself was in no way remarkable. A twelve-section and drawing-room, mahogany-finish, wide-vestibule sleeper, done in cream brown, hangings shading into Indian reds—a type of the Pullman car so popular some years ago for transcontinental travel; neither too heavy for the mountains nor too light for the pace across the plains. ”

“ And one of the chief excuses for its existence is the flexibility of its service. A railroad in the South, with a large passenger traffic in the winter, or a railroad in the North, with conditions reversed and travel running at high tide throughout the hot summer months, could hardly afford to place the investment in sleeping and parlor cars to meet its high-tide needs, and have those cars grow rusty throughout the long, dull months. The Pullman Company, by moving its extra cars backward and forward over the face of the land in regiments and in battalions, keeps them all earning money. ”

“ People preferred to pay two dollars for a berth in a Pullman car, rather than fifty or seventy-five cents for a bunk in the jolting, springless cars.
Still, the railroad men could not see the advisability of investing twenty-five thousand dollars or more—for Pullman's plans grew in expensiveness all the time—in cars, and they steadfastly turned down his requests that they give him orders to build cars and buy the cars when they were finished. This led him to determine to build the cars and rent them. ”

“ One characteristic of the Pullman business that is peculiarly significant is the average length of service of the employees. In a general way it may truly be said that from the car porter to the highest official every man who enters the business enters it as a life work. In most lines of business there is a variety of concerns operating along similar lines, and it is a natural step for a man to pass up from one company to another. ”

“ But the fact remains that the average citizen, when he is felled by an intermittent attack of the private-car mania, is content to hire one of the very comfortable equipages that the Pullman Company keeps ready at big terminals at various points across the country. The arrangements for these are exclusive of the price paid to the railroad companies for their haul. A complete private car, equipped with staterooms, baths, private dining-room, observation parlor and the like, costs seventy-five dollars a day. ”

“ Pullman towels rarely have a chance to wear out. Over a hundred thousand a year are condemned chiefly because of such usage, and, sad to relate, each year over half a million are "lost." A Pullman towel is a handy wrapping for a pair of shoes, but the annual lost charge amounts to nearly seventy thousand dollars. It is a charge that must be accepted by the company. It will not do to question a passenger's integrity.
All told, the investment by the Pullman Company in car linen amounts to $1,856,708.00, representing 6,597,714 separate pieces. ”

“ Imagine a hotel with 260,000 beds and 2,950 office desks, and a total registration of 26,000,000 people each year. This is what the Pullman Company does, however, and incidentally it does it often at a mile a minute and in every state in the Union. The 2,950 offices where Pullman berths, seats, drawing rooms or compartments may be purchased include Quebec, Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Vancouver on the north; San Diego, El Paso, New Orleans, Key West, and Havana on the south; San Francisco on the west, and the seaboard towns of Maine on the east. ”