Pullman porter

“ The Pullman porter of today must be a very versatile sort of a person, he must have plenty of patience, be a good judge of human nature, quick, kind and observant. Many are the times a gouty and crusty passenger has traveled in my car, who was in such a bad humor that it was next to impossible to please him, yet before he had ridden a hundred miles with me, I had him in good humor and laughing with the rest of the passengers. "Laugh and the whole world laughs with you." ”

“ The staggering thought of what the loss of my bag meant to me put my finger on the bell and kept it there until the porter came.
“Did you ring, sir?” he asked, poking his head through the curtains obsequiously. McKnight objects that nobody can poke his head through a curtain and be obsequious. But Pullman porters can and do.
“No,” I snapped. “It rang itself. What in thunder do you mean by exchanging my valise for this one? You’ll have to find it if you waken the entire car to do it. There are important papers in that grip.”
“Porter,” called a feminine voice from an upper berth near-by. ”

“ All these things are taught the sophomore porters by a wrinkled veteran of the service; and they are minutely prescribed in the voluminous rule book issued by the Pullman Company, which believes that the first foundation of service is discipline. So the school and the rule book do not hesitate at details. They teach the immature porter not merely the routine of making up and taking down beds, and the proper maintenance of the car, but they go into such finer things as the calling of a passenger, for instance. Noise is tabooed, and so even a soft knocking on the top of the berth is forbidden. ”

“ Your bags have long since been carried away by the Pullman porter, and you have sat for many minutes in the hot car, wearing the overcoat and hat into which he insisted upon putting you when you were yet many miles outside New York.
Before the train stops you are in the narrow passage-way at the end of the car, lined-up with others eager to escape. The Redcaps run beside the vestibule. That is one good thing: there are always plenty of porters in New York. ”

“ The whole car—a Pullman—is luxuriously fitted up, and one end is partitioned into a storeroom and kitchen; there is a smoking-room for lovers of the weed, and a separate toilet room for ladies. As the porter of the car blackens the boots, and there is a telegraph office at each stopping place, the waggish question of "Where is the barber shop?" is often made. ”

“ CHAPTER VII THE FAT MAN INTERPOSES The people in the Pullman car, who were much more comfortably situated than those in the smoking car, or than the crew of the train hived up in the first baggage coach, were beginning to complain a good deal now. The colored porter, with rolling eyes and appealing gestures, met the conductor and the two girls. ”

“ Trained as a race by years of personal service in various capacities, and by nature adapted faithfully to perform their duties under circumstances which necessitate unfailing good nature, solicitude, and faithfulness, the Pullman porters occupy a unique place in the great fields of employment. ”

“ The difference between a porter and a porter in charge is that a porter generally has a car over which a Pullman conductor presides, which the porter in charge owing to his long service and his knowledge of the business is placed in full charge of a car, making the services of a Pullman conductor unnecessary. A porter in the employ of the Pullman company for ten years and giving good service for that time receives from the company two suits of clothes per year, and other privileges not enjoyed by the beginner. ”

“ Pullman.’ Just then a lady, who had come out on the steps, spoke to the Captain about her seat in the car. He turned to her: ‘My dear madam, you are all right, just go in there and take your seat anywhere; when I come in I will fix everything. Go straight into that car and don’t come out in this cold air any more.’ The lady went back and the old fellow said, ‘Nick, go in there and seat that lady, if you have to turn every man out of his seat.’ Then, as the porter went in, he turned back to his irate friend. ‘Now, my dear sir, you don’t mean that: you’d be the first man to give up your berth ”

“ Watch the people come out. Here is the brisk little man with a brown bag, who always leads the crowd. The men from the smoker are first, puffing pipes or cigars. They all seem to know exactly where they want to go and push on relentlessly. After the main body of travelers come the Pullman passengers, usually followed by porters. Here is a girl in a very neat blue suit. Her porter carries an enormous black hat-box painted with very swagger stripes of green. She is pretty, in a rather frank way, but too dusty with powder. An actress, one supposes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As the train came to a solemn pause in a deep cutting a number of us gathered together in the warm and cosy Pullman, the ne plus ultra of railway cars, far surpassing in comfort and luxury an English or Continental first-class carriage, though not adorned as are the Italian cars with those abominations of the sterner sex—tidies for the head to rest against. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Their drives behind Uncle Neal’s old gray mare had always been the other way. Five miles more, and they were strangers in a strange land. Fifteen miles, and they were experiencing the bitterness of “exiles from home” whom “splendor dazzles in vain.” There was no charm left in the luxurious Pullman with its gorgeous red plush seats and shining mirrors. All the people they could see over the backs of those seats or reflected in those mirrors were strangers. ”

“ Naturally so general a convenience has led to rank abuses from which the passengers invariably suffer. Chief among them is the practice of hotel clerks and porters, especially in large cities and at summer and winter resorts, to reserve far in advance all the desirable Pullman accommodations on popular trains in the names of supposititious travelers whom they claim to represent, and later sell these tickets to the hotel guests at a premium or for the tip which invariably follows. ”

“ The girl thought a moment; then, with the faintest flush, said:
"No, thank you. I will leave my luggage; there will be something, some cart——"
"Carrier's cart goes to the Court every evening!" broke in the porter, and, seizing the bag and the parcel, and dropping them in a corner with that sublime indifference to the safety of other people's goods which only a railway porter can adequately display, hurried off to the other passenger. ”

“ You jump out, in the throng of hundreds of passengers, into the brilliantly lighted station, stiff with long riding, confused with the rush, bustle, noise, and lights; but the porter, into whose hand, as it rested on the car-door, you slyly slipped a sixpence or shilling, attends to your case instanter. He does not lose sight of you or your luggage, nor suffer you to be hustled a moment; he shoulders your luggage, escorts you to the cab, mayhap assisted by another ”

“ A Pullman lower or a third story front in a three-dollar-a-day hotel was often his bed, and a marble-top table with iron legs screwed to the floor of a railroad restaurant and within sound of a big-voiced gateman bawling out the trains, generally his board. ”

“ It is surely impossible to abuse the same porter if, out of a feeling of recognition for favours previously received, he leaves the belated passenger to manage the best way he can under a cartload of shawls, rugs, hat and bonnet-boxes, to attend again to your comforts. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Most frequent is the reason given that the wife has packed the tickets in the trunk, that the cab or taxi broke down, or that the last act of the theater caused unrealized delay. Often the tickets are lost, and not infrequently they are turned in by others for refund.
Bedroom and observation section of a costly private car. This car represents the apotheosis of railroad travel
But one of the most convenient features of the Pullman service is the ease with which the traveler may reserve in advance accommodations on the train which he intends to take. ”

“ If we cannot remember these, then let us remember those for whom Pullmans are not good enough and who spurn the dust of our summer ways in their automobiles, and leave the parlor-cars to our lower-class vulgarity. Such people take their automobiles to Europe with them, and would not use that possible Pullman train if they found it waiting for them at the port of arrival in Germany. ”

“ Nothing can surpass the comfort and luxury of the Pullman cars, unless it be the perfected Pullman that is called the Vestibule Train. Six or seven carriages, connecting one with another, allow of your moving about freely over a length of some hundred yards. Dining-room, sleeping car, drawing-room car, smoking-room, library, bath-room, lavatory, the whole fitted up in the most luxurious style. What can one desire more? It is a hotel on wheels. It is your appartement, in which you whirl from New York to Chicago in twenty-four hours. ”

“ Platform No. 5 was completely deserted as I emerged breathless from the long staircase and I had no difficulty in getting into the last first-class carriage unobserved. I sat down by the window on the far side of the carriage.
Alongside it ran the brown panels and gold lettering of a German restaurant car.
I looked at my watch. It was ten minutes to seven. There was no sign of my mysterious friend. I wondered vaguely, too, what had become of my porter. True, there was nothing of importance in Semlin's bag, but a traveller with luggage always commands more confidence than one without. ”

“ The Pullman tourist sleeping car, which you can find on all through trains of the different railroads throughout the United States, are to the traveler of moderate means what the Pullman car is to the millionaire traveler. They are designed for the comfort and convenience of the traveling public to whom the expenditure of a dollar more or less is a matter of moment, and who cannot afford or do not care for the small extra show and tinsel of the Pullman sleeping car, but whose only desire is to make their journey pleasant, comfortable and safe. ”

“ We notice that the English and Egyptian passengers put most of their belongings into bundles and bags, which they can bring into the cars with them. Many a single passenger is carrying four or five valises, each holding as much as a small steamer trunk, and the compartments are half filled with such luggage. Every first-class car has a guard, or porter, who helps us off and on, and there are always fellaheen at the depot ready to carry our effects for five cents apiece. ”

“ It is interesting, in passing, to consider the fact that up to the development of the Pullman car, night trains were patronized exclusively by men, for no woman would have considered subjecting herself to the inconvenience and lack of privacy of the ordinary sleeping car. The development of the Pullman car and Pullman service made continuous day and night travel practical for women and children ”

“ A porter put the ladies small luggage into a first-class carriage, spreading it about, as clever porters will, in the hope of keeping out other passengers.
"Come, Nora," said Terry. "He's got our places. Would you like tea?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ By such practice the distribution of space is placed in the hands of outside parties, out of the control of the railroads or the Pullman Company, and the traveler is obliged to look to these irresponsible individuals for his accommodations. ”

“ Why cannot the railway authorities separate the part of the car devoted to the gentlemen from that part inhabited by the ladies? The way in which the sexes are mixed up at night is, to say the least, unpleasant. I shall never forget my last experience in a Pullman sleeping-car. ”

“ However, when criticism has been exhausted it is an undeniable fact that the American Pullman cars are more comfortable and considerably cheaper than the so-called compartiments de luxe of European railways. ”

“ I also find as I emerge from the narrow passageway, which is an unavoidable nuisance in all Pullman cars, the genial, good-natured, and good-looking sleeping-car conductor, Miles H. Suter, who has charge of the three Pullman sleepers that are on the train.
“Mr. Suter,” I said, “the Pullman people have given us a fine train.”
“Yes,” he replied. “There are no more substantial or more comfortable cars in the Pullman service than these. In one of them a person can ride many hundreds of miles and not become fatigued. You will find the motion of these cars very agreeable and easy. ”