Pullman Palace Car "South Park"

DESCRIPTION

Pullman Palace car South Park was a ten section sleeping car built according to Pullman’s plan 73. This means it had 10 pairs of facing seats (five down each side), each pair of which made up into a lower berth, and had an upper birth that swung down from the ceiling above it. Since it was an “open” Pullman, there was no permanent wall between the sections. At night heavy curtains would be pulled that closed off each section from the aisle and from each other section. At one end was a ladies’ restroom, linen closet and heater, and at the other was a mens’ restroom and lavatory. Each sleeping section had two pairs of windows, and each end section had a pair of windows. From the outside, the car would thus appear to have seven evenly-spaced pairs of windows.

Chappell ^{26} quotes an October issue of the Denver Times as saying:

The “regulation color” of the Pullman company at that time was described in 1877 as a “maroon”, and in 1884 by the railroad trade press as “a dark plum.” The Eastlake style was a simpler style than previously used, with ornamentation provided by patterns incised into the wood or created by contrasting colors rather than the voluptuous carvings of prior years.

The South Park had double pane windows with only the tiniest rounding of the upper pane. It had not true board-and-batten siding, but a very distinctive type of paneling (see below). The platform roofs had the bullnose profile which seems to have been typical of Pullman-built cars. The South Park’s wheels were unusually large for a narrow gauge car, being 30" in diameter (compared to the usual 24" or 26") and were of a new type called “paper wheels.”

HISTORY

Pullman Palace car South Park was the first narrow gauge sleeping car built by the Pullmans Palace Car Company. It was the first of four cars built in October and November of 1879 as Pullman’s lot #61 for service on the Denver, South Park & Pacific Railroad. The other cars in lot #61 were the Bonanza, the Leadville and the San Juan. All were built to Pullman plan 73, which was modified a year later and apparently used thereafter only in the modified form.

The South Park, delivered in October 1879, together with the three Pullman Palace cars delivered a month later, were probably used more-or-less as parlor cars until the South Park began regular daily service to Leadville nine months later (June 1881), and possibly even after. These cars were not owned by the South Park, but were operated under contract with the Pullmans Palace Car Company (see The Pullman Sleeping Cars page for details).

We have no information as to which of the cars was operated on what routes, but apparently there was enough traffic that just before sleeper service was inaugurated between Denver and Gunnison the next year (October 1882), two more sleepers had to be assigned by Pullman.

The sleeping car business was lucrative, and Pullman was making most of the money, so many of the railroads forced Pullman to form “associations” that gave them a share of the profits. The Union Pacific did this in May 1884, and ownership of the South Park passed to the Union Pacific Association. The South Park was accordingly neither numbered or renumbered by the Union Pacific in 1885.

In July 1887, sleeper service to Gunnison was discontinued, with the sleeper going only as far as St. Elmo. But in November sleeper service on the Gunnison Division was completely discontinued.

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In January 1889, the two newer sleepers ( were withdrawn from the Association to be rebuilt for service elsewhere.

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By 1890 there must have been no sleeper service left, because it was proposed that the idle narrow gauge Pullmans be used on the night freight to Leadville. The idea was shelved, perhaps because of the absurdity of someone trying to sleep at the end of a train of freight cars jerked along by link-and-pin couplings. The only use of the Pullmans was on specials, and on the Alpine excursions which involved overnight travel for two nights. [Poor

In March 1892, the South Park and the remaining two of the four original Pullman sleepers were sold by the Association to the Union Pacific Railroad. They were converted to coaches, and in September of that year sold to the Union Pacific, Denver & Gulf. DSP&P Pullman South Park would, for a short time at least, be UPD&G coach #176.

(Looking at the floor plan of #910 as presented by the C&S passenger car diagram, and comparing its appointments as a private car with those as a Pullman Palace sleeping car, we doubt this “conversion” amounted to anything more than removing the upper berth apparatus and replacing the lavatory facilities at either end with additional seats and the more standard small toilet area.)

Continued