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.
The earliest sleeping cars were mere bunk cars in which the male
passengers might recline during the night hours. Later, bedding was
furnished, but the necessity of storing it by day in a closet at the end
of the cars created a situation in which order and cleanliness were
far from practicable. By the Pullman invention, however, all this was
changed. A type of car was developed that was not only comfortable and
convenient for day travel, but one that might be quickly transformed
into a comfortable sleeping apartment. Furthermore, the new upper berth
construction made it possible to pack away by day the entire bedding,
mattresses, curtains, and partitions necessary to convert each section
into a double sleeping apartment.
With this simple mechanical innovation the inventor combined an idea
characterized by a breadth of vision that ranks with the great ideas
of the century. In few words, he conceived the thought that it would
be possible at one stroke to supplant the inadequate and inefficient
service of the day with a new service so complete in its comforts and
conveniences that no one might express a wish that the service might be
unable to fulfill.
[Illustration: View of machine section. Steel Erecting Shops]
[Illustration: Fitting up the steel car underframe. Steel Erecting
Shops]
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; it created
the comforts and privacies they naturally required. To be sure it
was several years before the new order of things received general
recognition, but the public quickly caught on. "Travel by Pullman" soon
became a popular diversion.
The story of the early years of the Pullman sleeping car has been told
in the foregoing chapters. Due in large measure to the comfort and
convenience of the cars, continuous travel lengthened, and at once
arose the necessity for eating as well as sleeping accommodations on the
through long-distance trains.
For a number of years foreign travelers in America had praised the
elaborate restaurant service afforded by certain station eating-houses.
Towns developed keen rivalry in respect to the meals provided by
their station "counters," and the station restaurants of certain towns
developed among constant travelers a reputation for unusual culinary
excellence. Our fathers will doubtless recall the glorious fame of
dining rooms at Poughkeepsie, Springfield, and Altoona, and of certain
dishes that enjoyed nation-wide reputation and might be had only at this
or that particular station restaurant.
But, on the other hand, the uninviting, indigestible nature of the
so-called refreshment offered at some railway eating stations had
long been a byword. In most sections of the country it was practically
impossible to procure a respectable meal or lunch while traveling.
Railway officials had wrestled with the subject in vain. Recognizing
the fact that the heart of the railway traveler is most susceptible to
influences reaching it by way of his stomach, they made repeated and
continued endeavors to improve the fare offered during the "twenty
minutes for dinner" stops. With a few exceptions the results were not
encouraging, and the traveling public continued its dyspeptic round
three times a day.
The station eating-house was on an unsound basis, and its disadvantages
were obvious. With the increase of the speed of through trains and the
demand for shorter running times between terminals it became quickly
apparent that a train could not be stopped three times a day to permit
the passengers to gorge a hasty meal at the station restaurant. Three
meals at a minimum of twenty minutes each was an hour lost, and twenty
minutes for eating was as bad for the passenger as it was for the
running time of the trains. There were still other disadvantages.
In addition to the delay of the train and the tax on the passenger's
digestion, there was the frequent discomfort of wet or wintry weather.
On a fine day it was well enough to "stretch one's legs," but in rain
or snow the tri-daily evacuation of the car was a decidedly unpopular
feature.
The installation of "hotel-car" service by the Pullman Company sang the
knell of the station eating-counter. The "President," a car combining
sleeping and eating accommodations, was put in service in 1867 on the
Grand Trunk Railway, then the Great Western of Canada. Its instant
success necessitated the building of the "Kalamazoo" and "Western
World," and in the years immediately following many hotel cars were put
in service.
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. Pullman constructed was aptly named
the "Delmonico." It was a complete restaurant with a large kitchen and
pantries at one end. The main body of the car was fitted up as a dining
room in which the passengers from all the cars of the train could enter
and take their meals with entire comfort. The "Delmonico" was put in
regular service in 1868 on the Chicago & Alton, and other Pullman diners
were added the same year. At about the same time the Michigan Central
and the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroads also began to operate
dining cars on their trains. To the Chicago & Alton, however, belongs
the honor of having first inaugurated the dining-car system. The
Michigan Central and Burlington did not put on dining cars until 1875.
The Chicago & Alton dining cars were run between Chicago and St. Louis,
and were constructed and managed by Mr. Pullman. The price for a meal
was $1.00. Later the Alton acquired an interest in the dining cars, and
finally assumed full control of them.
[Illustration: Making the cushions for the seats. Upholstery Department]
[Illustration: Making the chairs for the parlor cars. Upholstery
Department]
Although founded and developed, and for a number of years successfully
operated by the Pullman Company, the dining car is no longer under its
management. Due primarily to the vast increase in this particular share
of the business and the variety of service required by travelers in
different sections of the country, it became advisable to turn over to
the various roads the details of catering to their particular patrons.
On some of the leading railroads the highest type of dining-car service
is maintained and advertised as a particular feature. On other roads of
lesser prominence a corresponding degree of service may be found. It
is, perhaps, unfortunate from the point of view of the traveler that the
Pullman Company found it necessary to discontinue a service that it had
so auspiciously inaugurated.
The installation of dining-car service immediately drew attention to a
serious defect in railway train construction that had previously escaped
notice, a defect which was the more apparent in comparison with the
relatively high development of other features of train construction. By
the adoption of the dining car it became necessary for the passengers to
pass from car to car across the platform while the train was in motion,
and often during a condition of rain and snow which added discomfort to
actual danger. Where the crossing of platforms while the train was in
motion had formerly been prohibited, the railroads were now forced to
encourage passengers to subject themselves to this dangerous procedure
in order that they might avail themselves of the convenience of the
dining cars.
Attempts had been made at different times to provide a safe and covered
passageway between the cars, especially on fast express trains, but
nothing of a practical nature had resulted. In 1852 and 1855 patents
were taken out for canvas devices to connect adjoining cars and create
a passage way between them. These appliances were installed in 1857 on
a train on the Naugatuck Railroad, in Connecticut, but soon proved to be
of little practical use and were abandoned several years later.
[Illustration: The frame end posts for Pullman standard cars are made in
this section of the shops]
[Illustration: The assembling of the steel car partitions is shown in
this picture]
But in 1886 Mr. Pullman, realizing the handicap of existing conditions
to the full enjoyment of the various types of cars which he had
established, set himself to the solving of the problem by devising a
perfect system for constructing continuous trains and at the same time
providing sufficient flexibility in the connecting passage ways to allow
for the motion of the train, particularly when rounding curves. The
result of his efforts combined with those of his associates was
the complete solution of the problem and the establishment of the
"vestibule" train, practically as it exists today. The vestibule patent
was granted to Mr. H. H. Sessions, of the Pullman Company, and covered
many important features, and particularly the arrangement of the springs
which kept the cars in line in a vertical plane.
The vestibule was patented in 1887. By its application the appearance
of the train as a unit was materially increased, but of far greater
importance was the contribution which it made to safety. Not only did
the enclosed vestibule afford protection to passengers crossing the
platform from one car to another, but the entire vestibule construction
immediately gave greater safety in case of wreck by preventing one
platform from "riding" the other and producing a telescoping of the
cars.
The vestibule as designed and patented did not extend to the full width
of the car. It consisted of elastic diaphragms on steel frames attached
to the ends of the cars, the faces of the diaphragms when the train was
made up, pressing firmly against each other by powerful spiral springs
which held them in position. A further advantage of the vestibule was
the almost entire elimination of the oscillation of the cars.
[Illustration: _The vestibule was invented by George M. Pullman. This
illustration shows its earliest form which extended only to the width of
the doorway of the car. In 1893 it was extended to the full width of the
car._]
The first vestibuled trains were put in service in April, 1887, on the
Pennsylvania Railroad, and in a few years were adopted by every railroad
using Pullman equipment. In 1893 the vestibule was redesigned to enclose
the entire platform by means of a drop which lowered over the stair
openings, thus increasing the roominess of the car and utilizing every
inch of possible space.
In the _Railway Review_ of April 16, 1887, occurs an interesting
description of the first "solid-vestibuled" train. For a number of
months following, this radical innovation was widely recognized by
the press throughout the country, and Pullman vestibuled cars were
advertised by the railroads on which they were operated. We quote in
part from the article in the _Railway Review_:
This week there was turned out of the Pullman works, at Pullman,
Ill., a train of three sleepers, one dining car, and one combination
baggage and smoker, that for perfection, in detail of manufacture
and ornament, and in completeness of comfort and luxury, is
unquestionably far ahead of any train ever before made up. This
train was on public exhibition for a few days at Chicago, and on
Friday was taken on its christening trip, over a short run on the
Illinois Central Railroad. The train is intended for "Limited"
service on the Pennsylvania system.
The trial trip was a success in every way. The train went to Otto, a
short distance south of Kankakee, sixty miles from Chicago. There it
was reversed on a Y, and an opportunity afforded of witnessing its
operation on a sharp curve. The action of the flexible connection of
the vestibules was perfect. On the return trip the train was run
at a high rate of speed, and it was evident that the cars were held
very firmly together, by the springs at the top of the vestibules,
and that there was much less jarring and swaying than is usual even
on a very level track.
[Illustration: Axle generator for electric lighting of the car]
The list of business men and railroad managers who made up the party
indicates the importance of the occasion. It included:
George M. Pullman
G. F. Brown
T. H. Wickes
C. H. Chappell
J. J. Janes
Orson Smith
O. W. Potter
W. T. Baker
H. R. Hobart
A. N. Eddy
Jesse Spalding
Frederick Broughton
W. P. Nixon
John M. Clark
A. C. Bartlett
J. W. Hambleton
E. L. Brewster
Henry S. Boutell
D. B. Fiske
Willard A. Smith
Stephen F. Gale
Edson Keith
O. S. A. Sprague
A. B. Pullman
J. T. Lester
H. J. MacFarland
S. W. Doane
Murray Nelson
A. H. Burley
C. K. Offield
E. T. Jeffery
Prof. Swing
W. K. Sullivan
W. K. Ackerman
A. C. Thomas
J. McGregor Adams
J. F. Studebaker
P. E. Studebaker
T. B. Blackstone
Rev. S. J. McPherson
C. S. Tuckerman
A. A. Sprague
P. L. Yoe
A. F. Seeberger
D. S. Wegg
F. N. Finney
During the days in which the train was exhibited at Van Buren street,
Chicago, it was visited by approximately 20,000 people. The article
continues:
This fact shows that the public has a deep interest in improvements
in traveling conveniences. We do not remember that any previous
invention or improvement has ever excited such general public
interest. Mr. Pullman has again struck the popular chord.
The first vestibule train to the land of the Aztecs, the "Montezuma
Special," was naturally of Pullman construction, and began regular
tri-monthly trips from New Orleans to the City of Mexico and return,
via the Southern Pacific, Mexican International, and Mexican Central
Railway, on February 7, 1889. Four magnificent cars, electrically
lighted, comprised the train. The initial trip of 1,835 miles was made
in about seventy-one hours, and on its arrival in the City of Mexico
a banquet was given to President Diaz and his cabinet to signalize the
advent of the first international vestibule train into the capital of
Mexico.
The lighting of railway cars shows an interesting evolution. Undoubtedly
candles were used at the earliest period, but the use of oil dates back
beyond the birthday of the Pullman car. Oil lamps, at best, were a poor
substitute for the light of day. Casting a dim, yellow light, flickering
in every draught, smelling and smoking when not properly cared for, and
vitiating the car atmosphere, it was small wonder that the public showed
prompt appreciation of the first substitute that was provided.
The brilliant Pintsch light, which for a number of years had had wide
use in Europe, was first introduced into America by the Pullman Company
on the crack Erie train in the through New York-Chicago service in
1883. The gas used for these lights was of high candle power and was
manufactured from petroleum. As a car illuminant it has held its own
almost to the present day.
It is impossible to exaggerate the part played by the Pullman Company
in the development of electric lighting of cars. Without its inspired
initiative and its vast resources for practical and costly experiment
it is fair to believe that electricity would not have been successfully
utilized for this purpose for many years. The _Railroad Gazette_ of
January 25, 1889, expresses this thought:
Without extended experiments we can scarcely hope to develop a good
system of electric lighting for railroad service. Such experiments
are rather expensive, and it is only by the co-operation of
liberal-minded managers that anything like a perfect system can
be expected in a reasonable time. The Pullman Company has great
confidence in the success of electric lighting, and therefore, in
spite of the annoyance and expense of the present system, expresses
a determination to use it, expecting that something better will
result in the near future from the extended experience now being
obtained.
Although the incandescent electric lamp was introduced by Edison in
1879, following by two years the introduction by Brush of the arc lamp,
it was on an English railway in an American Pullman car supplied with
electricity by French accumulator cells that the electric light on
October 14, 1881, barely fifty years from the first suggestion of the
iron horse by Stephenson, cast its brilliant light for the first time in
a railway carriage.
The trial was made in a Pullman car, forming part of a special train
on the Brighton Railway. A number of officials of the road, a
representative of the Pullman Company, and Mr. F. A. Pincaffs and Mr.
Lachlan of the Faure Accumulator Company composed the party, and at 3:25
the train pulled out of the Victoria Station for Brighton.
Only a few months before, Mr. Faure had sent to Sir William Thomson his
little box of lead plates coated with red oxide and fully charged with
electricity. The great physicist saw at once its possibilities, and in
a relatively short time inventors were developing countless applications
of the new wonder. Its application to car lighting was an important
test.
The Pullman car on which this first experiment was made, carried
beneath it on a shelf some thirty-two small metal boxes or cells, each
containing lead plates coated with oxide. Stored in these cells was the
power to light the car. It was nothing more than the most elementary
storage battery, a far cry from the compact batteries of today and the
massive generator swung beneath the floor of the modern car.
[Illustration: The sewing room. Upholstery Department]
All the previous night a steam engine had created power to charge the
cells. In the roof of the car were twelve small Edison incandescent
lights with bamboo filaments. The light was uneven; it was "garish,"
but at the turn of a switch its rays filled the car. With pardonable
enthusiasm the _London Times_ stated that "the car on the return
journey in the evening was kept lighted the whole of the distance from
Brighton to Victoria."
It is interesting to read in the _London Daily Telegraph_ of October 15,
1885, the following mention of this important event:
Yesterday's trial was understood to have special reference, however,
to a new train, wholly composed of Pullman cars, which it is
proposed shortly to put on the service between Victoria and
Brighton, and should the experiment be deemed fully satisfactory it
is probable that the new train will from the first be fitted with
the electric light. So far as the travelers were concerned the
result was eminently successful. It would scarcely be possible to
conceive a steadier, more equable, or more agreeable light. On the
down journey the first trial was made in the Merstham tunnel, and
then in the Balcombe and Clayton tunnels. All that was needed was
to move the little switch, and instantaneously the delicate carbon
thread enclosed in the lamps was aglow with pure white light. The
return journey was made in the night, and the electric lamps were
alight during the whole distance. There had been some question
whether the supply would prove sufficient, as owing to stoppages the
special had taken a somewhat longer time than had been allowed for;
the event, however, showed that the storage had been ample. It would
be possible to generate electricity by the energy of the moving
train itself, and this has indeed been suggested to be done. By this
means enough energy could be supplied to the incandescent lamps, but
in any case the accumulator would be necessary to act as a reservoir
when the train was not in motion. It possesses, however, another
advantage equally important. Experience shows that a current of
absolutely uniform strength supplying an even and constant light
can only be derived from stored electricity. The oxide of lead which
covers the plates not only prevents leakage, but enables the supply
to be withdrawn with perfect regularity, and renders sub-division
easy. Yesterday the smoke room and lavatory of the car were lighted,
and occasionally the lights were turned off without in any way
interfering with the other lamps in the same circuit. Before
the train started on the return journey the brightly illuminated
carriage was an object of interest to many members of the Iron and
Steel Institute who visited Brighton and Newhaven yesterday.
With regard to expense, it is claimed for the accumulator and the
incandescent lamps that the expenditure would be decidedly less than
on oil, while, as to the comparative value of the two there is no
room for difference of opinion. It was the general feeling of all
who took part in the excursion that the question of the electric
lighting of trains had been solved, and that to the Brighton
Company, whatever may be the immediate results of the experiment,
would belong the honour of taking the first decisive and practical
step in the way of reform.
Four months later a correspondent of a Sheffield, England, paper,
writing from London to the _Railway Review_ of the recent trial of
electric lights on the Pullman train of the London, Brighton & South
Coast Railway, says:
There is no doubt whatever on the point that this, apart from the
question of cost, is a decided success. It is easily manageable, and
diffuses through the train a pleasant, equable light, scarcely less
agreeable than daylight. It is turned on and off with instantaneous
effect as the train enters and leaves a tunnel, and of course is
kept burning the whole of the time during the night journeys. The
electricity is stored in a number of lead plates, which are kept in
water in iron boxes in the guard's van. There are two lots, one at
either end of the train, and two mechanics in charge of them. This
discovery of the ability to store electricity for application to
lighting purposes seems to carry the discovery farther than anything
since it was first introduced. It gets over many difficulties which
seemed insuperable--especially the important one of the great waste
of power which is illustrated every night at the Savoy Theatre--and
would be applicable to the introduction of electricity for household
use.
At the Savoy, when the exigencies of the play require that the
lights should be turned down in the auditorium, there is no
cessation of the enormous power required to produce the full effect.
What happens is that by a mechanical contrivance, the electricity
is carried off from the light and goes to waste. With this system of
storing, electricity can be used just like gas, as much or as little
as people chance to want. Another great advantage is the freedom
from jumping, inseparable from the action of the driving power of
the steam engine, or of the motion power of water. The lights of the
Brighton train burn just as steadily as gas, an effect not in any
way obtained where the light is maintained directly by the driving
power of steam.
But after all, the question of gas vs. electricity will resolve
itself into one of cost, and it is here where gas will inevitably
hold its own. The fundamental principle of the electric light is
that for a given exertion of power you obtain a given proportion
of light, neither more nor less. For every hour it is burning
there will be required a certain exactly-ascertained proportion of
revolutions of the steam engine, and therefore, if the whole town is
lighted it can be done only at a strictly proportionate expense to
the lighting of a single house. As to what that expense will be, as
compared with gas, the Brighton train would, if we had an idea of
the actual figures, afford a precise means of information. I met on
the train a well-known gas engineer, attracted, like myself, by the
novelty of the experiment. What the electric light cost he was
not able to say, but when we take into account the capital sunk
in plant, involving a steam engine with the necessary buildings,
consumption of coal and necessary employment of skilled labor, it
must be something considerable. Against this is the bare fact that
the Brighton train could be lighted with gas for the double journey
at the cost of 10d. It is a physical impossibility that electricity
should ever come anywhere near this, and that probably explains
the singular phenomenon that at the time when electricity is making
conspicuous advances in public favor, the value of gas shares is not
only steadily maintained, but is actually rising in the market.
[Illustration: The steel parts used for interior car finish are all
standardized, and are formed by powerful presses]
[Illustration: Another large press at work on the forming of steel
shapes for the interior framing of the cars]
The present method of heating an entire train with steam from the
locomotive was satisfactorily tested out in the winter of 1887, and
was generally adopted the following year. By this improved system the
individual heaters in each car were abolished, and a source of much
discomfort and complaint was removed. The Pullman cars were immediately
altered to benefit by the new system.