CHAPTER V

THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

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. The success of the Pullman car necessarily brought competition. It was wholesome that such competition should arise. If a car more convenient than the car of Mr. Pullman's invention could be devised, it was right that it should be given the test of public opinion. That no car constructed along different basic lines survived, established the right of the Pullman car to its preeminence. That certain cars patterned after Mr. Pullman's basic ideas, and in most cases directly infringing on his patents, received a degree of popularity again reflects creditably to the Pullman car.

Distinct from the innovations afforded by Pullman car construction, the universal service of the Company afforded the public a new service of equal value. 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. By competition, the value of such a service was tested; tested alike by the individual railroads and their patrons. That each and every competing company ultimately retired from the field, and that practically every railroad in the United States has today contracted with the Pullman Company for its standardized service, is tacit recognition to the worth of the service rendered.

There are still other reasons why the control of sleeping and parlor service should be delegated to a single company. Due to the vast area embraced by the boundaries of the United States and the wide range of climate which these boundaries contain, there are many railroads which require during certain months of the year a larger number of cars to transport their through passengers than in others. Other roads require an equally great number of sleeping and parlor cars during other months, as for instance those roads which carry the winter tourists to the South and Southwest in winter as opposed to the roads which feel the peak of passenger travel in summer when the vacationists are headed for the Atlantic coast resorts or the northwestern mountains. Again, there are special occasions, like great conventions, when the railroads touching the convention city must have hundreds of sleeping cars above their normal needs.

Few railroads could afford to tie up capital in the cars required for such brief periods of demand; it would be an economic fallacy to pass the expense of the maintenance and constant replacement of such an equipment on to the public. To meet this situation is the mission of the Pullman Company.

Of the numerous sleeping car companies the Gates Sleeping Car Company was perhaps the earliest. This car was named after Mr. G. B. Gates, General Manager of the Lake Shore Road, and with the consolidation of the Hudson River Railroad and the New York Central in 1869, these cars, previously only operated on the Lake Shore, were put in the New York, Buffalo, Chicago service.

Among the various competitors of the Pullman Company, the Wagner Palace Car Company, which succeeded, in 1865, the New York Central Sleeping Car Company, and absorbed in 1869 the Gates Sleeping Car Company, developed by far the widest and most formidable competition and continued its service over the longest period. The underlying reasons for the strength of this competition lay primarily in the fact that the Wagner cars followed more closely the Pullman characteristics, and in fact the infringement of certain basic Pullman patents by the Wagner Company was a cause of frequent litigation over a period of many years. 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.

Early in June, 1881, suit was brought by the Pullman Palace Car Company against the New York Central Sleeping Car Company and Webster Wagner, claiming $1,000,000 damages for infringement and use of patents in the construction and use of Wagner sleeping coaches. The bill stated that in 1870 the Wagner Company began building sleeping cars, and for several years its coaches ran only on the New York Central Railroad and its various branches. The company finding it impossible to build satisfactory cars without using the Pullman patents, contracted with the Pullman Company to use certain of its patented improvements. This arrangement was made with the distinct understanding that the Wagner Company was to run its cars only over the New York Central Railroad. For five years this arrangement was satisfactorily carried out. But in 1875 the Pullman Company's contract with the Michigan Central Railroad expired and the Wagner Company secured the contract to run the cars between Detroit and Chicago, thus making a through connection for the Vanderbilt lines between New York and Chicago.

By this new routing of the Wagner cars direct from New York to Chicago and the elimination of the Pullman cars from the Chicago and Detroit service, an opportunity offered for some other road to avail itself of the Pullman service and effect a through Pullman service between New York and Chicago.

The Erie was the road that grasped the opportunity. By arrangements with the Baltimore & Ohio and several other roads, through Erie trains between New York and Chicago, comprising Pullman hotel coaches, sleeping cars and drawing room cars were put in service on November 1, 1875. A circular published in Chicago announcing the new arrangement said:

From the first of November, the Pullman hotel and drawing room coaches, for many years so popular on the Michigan Central line, will be withdrawn from that route, and with new and increased improvements will thereafter run exclusively on the Erie and Chicago line, forming the first and only Pullman hotel coach line between Chicago and New York.

The success of the new Erie Pullman coaches was immediately assured. The hotel cars especially were a great attraction. These were divided into two compartments, in one of which the kitchen was located, the other compartment being utilized as a sleeping car. First-class meals, including all manner of game and seasonable delicacies, were served on movable tables placed in the sections. In fact, the _New York Tribune_, in commenting on the new Pullman equipment, asked: "Should the Erie have a monopoly of such comforts? Why does not Wagner imitate or improve upon Pullman?"

These cars were nicknamed "French Flats."

All the modern conveniences of a first-class house are condensed into one of these hotels on wheels. The beds at night are put away to make room for spacious seats by day, between which a table is placed, covered with damask cloths and napkins folded in quaint devices, at which four may sit with ease. 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. But this may come, too, as last summer an excursion party of ladies and gentlemen took a hair-dresser with them over the Erie to Niagara Falls, and two or three ladies actually _had their hair crimped_ while traveling thirty or forty miles an hour! At this time, while game is plenty in the West, the Pullmans, with their facilities, and two fast trains each way per day, are able to make a bill of fare and serve it in a style which would cause Delmonico to wring his hands in anguish. The service is on the European plan; that is, you pay for what you order, and we give the prices of the principal articles, to show at what a reasonable rate one can take a superior meal of fifty or a hundred miles long: Prairie chicken, pheasant, and woodcock, whole, $1; snipe, quail, golden plover and blue-winged teal, each 75 cents; venison, 60 cents; chicken, whole, 75 cents; cold tongue, ham, and corned beef, 30 cents; sardines, lobster, and broiled ham or bacon, 40 cents; mutton and lamb chops, veal cutlets, or half a chicken, 50 cents; sirloin steak, 50 cents, &c. Every traveler who has missed his dinner to catch a train will rejoice in knowing that a warm meal awaits him at the cars, and that he can wake up in the morning and choose his time for breakfast, instead of bolting it down at the twenty minutes' convenience of the railroad company.[2]

[2]: _New York Commercial Advertiser_, Nov. 30, 1875.

Some time prior to 1861 sleeping cars were being operated over the Camden & Amboy and Baltimore & Ohio railroads. These cars were known as "Knight" cars, after their designer, E. C. Knight. The "Knights" were built at a cost of about $7,000, and were regarded as the handsomest things on wheels. As in the bunk cars, all of which found their model in the sleeping arrangements of the canal boat, the berths were only on one side of the car and consisted of a triple tier of two double and one single berth; an arrangement later changed to one double and two single berths.

The Woodruff sleeping car also was designed about this time by T. T. Woodruff, Master Car Builder of the Terre Haute & Alton Railroad. In this car both sides of the car were utilized as in the Pullman car, and the sleeping accommodations consisted of twelve sections, six on a side. A company was formed to operate the Woodruff cars in 1871, with a capital of $100,000.

The Flower Sleeping Car Company was another characteristic competitor. This short-lived company was organized in 1882 in Bangor, Maine, with a capital of $500,000. The seats in this new car were placed in the middle instead of on the sides of the cars, thus leaving an aisle on each side instead of one in the center. Claims were made that a freer circulation of air would result, and a news item of the _Times_ further recommended this unique construction as more convenient to families, the berths being so arranged, side by side, that two could be made up into a double bed.

Mann's Boudoir Car Company was incorporated in 1883, with a capital of $1,000,000, and experienced considerable popularity due to their unique arrangement, which has been described in a previous chapter.

In 1883 the Erie Railroad realized the long entertained ambition of entering Chicago on its own rails. To accomplish this, the Erie had leased the New York, Pennsylvania & Ohio Railroad and built the Chicago & Atlantic. Through connection was actually made May 15, on which date freight traffic was begun.

The train by which the Erie inaugurated the passenger business over the new trunk line was probably the most complete and elegant train ever to that time constructed. All of the cars were of Pullman manufacture and consisted of a baggage car, second-class coach, a smoking car, and first-class coaches and sleepers that were "models of perfection and beauty, as might be expected where the Pullman Company had _carte blanche_ to produce the best possible." Each coach was lighted with the new Pintsch lights. The smoking car deserves more than passing mention, for it was the first one ever constructed of Pullman standard. The car was equipped with upholstered easy chairs, and a "refreshment buffet" moistened the throats of the smokers.

Early in 1889 the Pullman Company acquired the control of the Mann Boudoir Car Company and the Woodruff Sleeping Car Company, including the entire car equipment and plants. By this acquisition a long step was taken for the unification of sleeping car service, and the further development of a uniform and widely extended scope of operations. For years the success of the Pullman Company's service had been too generally acknowledged to escape the notice of enterprising railroad men, and these two companies were fair examples of the numerous competing companies that were organized. But the success of the Pullman service was based on an idea of too wide conception ever to be successfully imitated. 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. By the purchase of this combine the Pullman Company added about 15,000 miles of road to that already operated, and by that many miles extended its through car service. The only remaining sleeping car companies of any importance outside of the Pullman Company were the Wagner Company, belonging to the Vanderbilts, and operated over the Vanderbilt lines, and the Monarch Sleeping Car Company, which operated entirely in the New England States with the exception of one Ohio line. A newspaper of the time commented on the merger, and closed with the verdict: "While this will add to the volume of the Pullman business, it will also render the service upon the absorbed lines far more efficient and satisfactory for the traveling public."

In 1888, Mr. Pullman had put in operation his vestibule trains, which immediately met with extraordinary favor and patronage. In a very few days the Wagner Company also advertised a vestibule train and were promptly met with an injunction holding the Wagner appliances to be an infringement of the Pullman patent. After another hearing, the injunction was superseded, the Wagner Company giving an unlimited bond, signed by the Vanderbilts, to pay any damages ascertained by the courts.

After months occupied in taking the evidence of travelers, expert mechanics, railroad officials, prominent citizens, and others, a final hearing was had. The judges, owing to the vast interests involved and the legal difficulties presented, took ample time for consideration, but finally adhered to their first conclusion. The main feature of the Pullman vestibule system was the Sessions patent, without which the vestibule system was worthless. The court declared this invention to be of the highest order of utility, not only as shown by the testimony in the ease and the adoption of the patent by the principal railroads of the country, but also by the acts of the Wagner Company in appropriating the device, and in the tenacity with which they clung to it in the courts under an immense bond for any damages to result, and so, in April, 1889, the United States Circuit Court delivered its opinion in favor of the Pullman Palace Car Company in its long and stubborn fight with the Wagner Palace Car Company.