Pullmans Palace Car Co. - Page 3
But if comfort was king, then Pullman could not ignore the need for gourmet food and luxury cuisine. In 1868, his first dining car the Delmonico made its debut, built at a cost of $20,000 and named after the famous New York restaurant. It was 60' long, 10' wide, had two cooks and four waiters in white jackets, and could seat 48 diners. It was stocked with linens, crystal, silver and china worthy of the finest restaurants. The car was run over several railroads, but no one wanted a “non-revenue” car. So guess who helped Pullman out? The Alton was soon running Pullman’s diners on three of its trains. And they proved quite popular! {5} Gradually new manufacturing plants sprang up from New York to California. Pullman was making chair cars and dining cars under contract for the railroads themselves, but he would not sell his sleeping car. Railroads signed contracts with Pullman for operation and maintenance of the cars. They charged passengers their first class fare plus 50 cents. They hauled the cars, and paid Pullman the 50 cents plus the cost of operation and maintenance. No wonder they became jealous of his profits! (See The Pullman Sleeping Cars page for details of his lease.) By 1872, Pullman had 500 sleeping, drawing room, and hotel cars on the roads, and was building three new ones a week. {10} During the 1870s and 80s, the Pullmans Palace Car Company expanded dramatically. It bought out the competitors one by one: Knight, Woodruff, Flower and Mann all became parts of the Pullmans Palace Car Company. By 1880, Pullman cars were on nearly two-thirds of the nation’s tracks, and in 1880 Pullman commenced the erection of his great works at the town of that name, which he also founded, south of Chicago.
In 1887, George Pullman invented the passenger car vestibule and placed the first vestibule trains on the Pennsylvania Company’s trunk lines. It is interesting to note that although Pullman is credited with the invention, the patents were granted to H.H. Sessions, a Pullman company engineer.
The December 1888 issue of the Official Railway Guide startled the railroad world (and most of all George M. Pullman) with this announcement: “Union Palace Car Co.... will commence operating SLEEPING AND PARLOR CARS on about 15,000 miles of railroad in January 1889.” Formed by Job H. Jackson of Jackson & Sharp, Union Palace Car Co. was in effect a consolidation of Woodruff Sleeping & Parlor Coach Co. and Mann Boudoir Car Co. These two companies operated a total of 34 cars on about 5,000 miles of railroads in the East, South, and Midwest. Pullman lost no time. Two months later Union Palace was purchased by Pullmans Palace for $2.5 million. In 1891, Pullman began building streetcars. The car below is representative of its early product.
George Pullman died in 1897, shortly after—and many say as a result of—the great strike at his Chicago plant. He had truly tried to benefit his employees in ways he thought best, and was heartbroken when they rejected his paternalism. In 1899 Pullman expanded into the construction of freight cars and coaches for subways, the Wagner Palace Car Co. was consolidated into the firm, and the resulting business was reorganized as The Pullman Company. The Pullman Company began with property valued at $60 million. [More than $1.3 BILLION in 2005 buying power!] It had more than 2,500 sleeping, parlor, and dining cars carrying 5,000,000 or 6,000,000 passengers a year over the 125,000 miles of railroad under contract with the company. From the Newark Daily Advocate for 3 April 1901 —“Many people have wondered how much money can be made by a sleeping car. The income or earning capacity of a sleeping car is considerable. Take the run from New York to Chicago, 1,000 miles. Every road in the United States pays three cents a mile for the privilege of hauling a sleeper, and contracts to return said car in as good shape as it is received, and pay for all damages. The journey on the limited express to Chicago is made in 24 hours, therefore the car earns $30 a day for travel. If it is full, which is generally the case, receipts from berths, sections and state rooms amount to $185, making a total revenue of $215 a day. Out of this must come the wages of the porter and conductor, the former, however, usually having charge of several cars—the towels, sheets, soap, ice, etc., the whole amounting to but a small sum. Earnings of $60,000 a year per car will about cover the case.” EpilogueThe Pullman Company reached its peak during the 1920s, manufacturing new heavyweight cars at a rapid pace. Seeking to expand its freight car production, the Pullman Company merged with the Haskell and Barker Car Company in 1922. In 1924, the manufacturing department became a distinct firm, the Pullman Car and Manufacturing Corporation. In 1927, a parent or holding company, Pullman Incorporated, was created to oversee the two subsidiary firms. In 1929, Pullman Car and Manufacturing Corporation merged with the Standard Steel Car Company, forming the Pullman-Standard Car Manufacturing Company. In 1947 the Pullman Company (the operating company) was sold for roughly $40 million to a consortium of 57 railroads by order of a federal anti-trust decree. For More Information —“President Lincoln’s Private Car.” Narrow Gauge & Short Line Gazette, March/April 1994 p 42. Barger, Ralph L. A Century of Pullman Cars. Vol. 1, Alphabetical list, and Vol. 2, “The Palace Cars.” Greenberg Publishing Co., Inc., Sykesville, MD, 1988 and 1990. Beebe, Lucius. Mr. Pullman's Elegant Palace Car: The Railway Carriage that Established a New Dimension of Luxury. Doubleday & Company, Inc. Garden City, NY: 1961 Glendinning, Gene V. The Chicago & Alton Railroad; The Only Way. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, June 2002.
Husband, Joseph. The Story of the Pullman Car. Chicago, IL: A. C. McClurg & Co., 1917. Reprint 1972 by Arno Press, New York; 1974 by Black Letter Press, Grand Rapids.
Kaminski, Edward S. Pullman Standard Freight Cars, 1900-1960. Berkeley, CA: Signature Press, 2007.
Randall, W. David and William G. Anderson. The Official Pullman Standard Library. Godfrey, IL: Railway Production Classics, 1981-1995.
White, John H. Jr. The American Railroad Passenger Car. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, OH, 1978, pp. 245-66 Wornom, Douglas C. Descriptive List of Cars of the Pullman Company-March, 1961 With Supplements to June 15, 1967. Chicago, IL Owen Davies, Bookseller 1970.
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