CHAPTER IX

THE OPERATION OF THE PULLMAN CAR

On the magic carpet of Bagdad the fortunate travelers of a fabulous age were transported to their destination, over valley, river, and mountain with a certainty and dispatch that has been unparalleled in the annals of passenger transportation. But the magic carpet, despite the generous measure of its service, seems to have been lost to following generations, and only its reputation, doubtless somewhat amplified by the telling, remains to set a high standard to succeeding transportation enterprises.

Service is a much-used and a much-abused word. It has manifold significance. It may be a personal thing and carry the conscientious effort of individuals eager to do for others offices which they desire performed; it may be purely mechanical and consist only in the provision of the "ways and means" to secure a desired end. It may be a combination of both; a system or organization instituted for the accomplishment of a duty or work beneficial to a community. A great railroad affords such a service. Greater in its scope than any railroad, the Pullman Company provides a more vast, intricate, and complete service to the people of the United States, a service unequaled in all the world.

A study of the scope and ramifications of the Pullman operations deserves more than passing comment; it is of interest to everyone, for everyone is to some degree a traveler; an actual or a potential Pullman patron. In preceding chapters has been traced the story of passenger transportation in America; how the first railroads offered communication only between a few closely related cities, and how later the growth of the railroads brought into direct communication practically every village and metropolis throughout the land. Then came the time when the inadequacy of such complete but disconnected service struck the imagination of a man who saw the endless miles of track of countless railroads bound together by a supplemental system to which all railroads contributed and from which they profited, and by which, most of all, the public would enjoy a service of a scope which could otherwise only be attained by an actual combination of these railroads into a single company. But the vision of the founder of the Pullman Company did not stop at the idea of a unified system. He had not only seen the discomfort and inconvenience of countless changes from one train to another at railroad junctions and the midnight gatherings on the station platform; he had seen in tired eyes the fatigue of sleeplessness; he had seen in the preponderance of male passengers the lack of a protection sufficient to permit the free travel of unescorted women; he had realized, and his realization ranks high with the thoughts of the world's innovators, that travel was a hardship and that it could be made a pleasure.

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; too much money could not be invested in it. Hand in hand with this development of the mechanical side of service he developed its extension throughout the country, by means of which it might be put into the hands of the greatest number of people for their greater convenience. Never has history more completely justified a business that from its character must be to a certain extent a monopoly. Never has competition more promptly yielded to unification.

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. But, as a matter of fact, the vast organization which makes possible the movement of the seventy-five hundred cars which comprise the present equipment holds an interest secondary only to the actual operation of the cars themselves.

There was a day when the run from Albany to Schenectady was the longest continuous railroad ride that a traveler might take. Today it is possible to travel in a Pullman car without change from Washington, D. C., to San Francisco, a distance of 3,625 miles, requiring one hundred and eighteen hours, or approximately five days.

But distance is not alone characteristic of Pullman service; equal attention is given to shorter "hauls." From Greensboro to Raleigh, North Carolina, for instance, a distance of only eighty-one miles, Pullman sleeping cars are regularly operated. Here, as in many other instances, arrangements exist whereby the passengers may retire early in the evening while the car is at rest on a siding in the station, and arise at a reasonable hour in the morning. By such service hotel accommodations are practically afforded and it becomes possible for the travelers to have a whole day for pleasure or business at one place, spend a night in which a hundred or five hundred miles are traversed, and arrive without fatigue at another place the following morning.

The hotel desk corresponds to the ticket office of the Pullman Company. Imagine a hotel with 260,000 beds and 2,950 office desks, and a total registration of 26,000,000 people each year. This is what the Pullman Company does, however, and incidentally it does it often at a mile a minute and in every state in the Union. The 2,950 offices where Pullman berths, seats, drawing rooms or compartments may be purchased include Quebec, Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Vancouver on the north; San Diego, El Paso, New Orleans, Key West, and Havana on the south; San Francisco on the west, and the seaboard towns of Maine on the east. Under normal conditions the southern limit is still further extended to fifty-six additional offices in the Republic of Mexico, as far south as Salina Cruz on the Gulf of Tehuantepec, and approximately two hundred miles from the boundary between Mexico and Guatemala, Central America.

The longest distance which it is possible to travel with a single Pullman ticket is from Portland, Maine, to San Francisco, by the way of Washington, D. C., New Orleans and Los Angeles. This cannot be done, however, in one sleeper, and changes must be made at New York and Washington. But a brief consideration of the perfect organization necessary to provide such continuous passage with berths reserved at each point of change by the mere purchase of a ticket at the starting point, grants to the Pullman Company a measure of credit due. In actual mileage the distance covered by this trip is 4,199.

As a rule the berths in sleeping cars and seats in parlor cars are on sale at the terminals of the different lines, but to provide facilities at intermediate points where the demand is sufficient to justify it, a limited number of sections are assigned for sale at such stations and tickets may be purchased from them on application. At stations of less importance and where the demand is not sufficient to assign any definite space, an arrangement exists whereby the vacant accommodations are telegraphed by ticket agents or conductors from point to point in order to accommodate passengers taking the trains at such stations. It is also possible and a very common practice to purchase a single sleeping car ticket between stations a great distance apart--for instance, between Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle, via any of the ordinary routes of travel, by sufficient notice to the ticket agent to enable his reserving the accommodations, and it is also possible to purchase under similar conditions a sleeping car ticket in Havana, Cuba, for a berth, section, or drawing room from Key West, Florida, to Seattle, Washington, a distance of 3,923 miles, taking one hundred and thirty-three hours; not, however, without change, but in connecting cars, giving continuous sleeping car service over various routes.

During the year 1916, 16,398,450 tickets of various forms were printed in Chicago and distributed to the various ticket offices, and in addition, 8,150,000 cash-fare tickets or checks were issued by conductors to travelers purchasing on the train.

In addition to offices where tickets may be purchased, arrangements exist in many thousands of smaller points whereby the public may secure sleeping-car accommodations by application to the station agent or other representative of the railroad company, who will arrange by telephone, telegraph, or letter the desired space to be called for, with a reasonable time at a designated point.

In order to extend to the public every courtesy consistent with lawful requirements and good business principles, the Pullman Company endeavors to provide prompt and careful attention to all requests for refund of fares where service paid for is not furnished, whether through the acts of its agents or employees or the passenger, or due to interruption of traffic.

Applications of this nature are usually made to the company's general offices in Chicago, but when this is not convenient, a report made to the company's representative in any of the important cities throughout the country is forwarded to the central offices and receives the most careful consideration.

It would seem of interest in this connection to state that during the year 1916, 53,743 applications, amounting to $152,446.00, were received for refund of fares, an average of one hundred and seventy-nine for each working day. Of the total number received 48,025 were considered favorably and paid, indicating the liberal policy of the company in such matters. Regardless of the amount involved, great or small, it is necessary that each case be considered on its individual merits, and the result determined with due regard to fairness to the passenger and the company, and not conflicting with legal necessities.

Probably seventy-five per cent of these requests for refunds are occasioned by passengers changing their plans or missing their train. 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.

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. In the ordinary railway coach it is a rule of "first come, first served" and the late arrival is often obliged to take a seat with a stranger. By the Pullman system, however, a call over the telephone or a stop at the local ticket office is all that is necessary to make as definite reservation of space as for a theater, and the traveler is wroth indeed when in rare instances a slip occurs and he finds his seat or berth has not been held for him and has been sold to another.

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.

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. In addition, the tip or extra fee increases the cost of the ticket, errors in "duplicate sales" are made more frequent, and a critical and unfriendly feeling is created in the mind of the passenger who has been unable to secure a "lower" on early application at the ticket office, but was able perhaps to secure one at train time from the unused tickets turned in by hotel porters. Naturally the feeling is created that the railroad or Pullman agents are holding back space for a tip or a favorite, and "playing favorites" is never popular with the public.

There are several good stories told of the action of the Pullman Company in cases where they "had the goods" on the offending hotel porters. As the company is in no sense required by law to make refund, but does so only for a convenience to its patrons, it is possible to refuse to make a refund if the case justifies the action. At a popular watering place an enterprising hotel employee figured out that on the day following Easter a large number of guests would leave on a certain popular train. Accordingly, like the theater "scalper," he purchased outright a large block of tickets on this train, in fact, every lower on the two Pullman sleepers. Fortunately the local agent of the company sensed that there was something "rotten in the state of Denmark" and made provision for two additional sleepers beyond the usual two which travel warranted. Being able to secure satisfactory accommodations direct from the agent the passengers failed to patronize the hotel porter's be-tipped and premiumed wares, and he, "stuck with the goods," tried a few days later to throw them back for refund on the Pullman Company. Their refusal cost him an even hundred dollars and broke up a peculiarly bad condition in that particular locality.

Many, indeed, are the difficulties attending the operation of a system of such magnitude, and it is only by a consideration of these difficulties that the true wonder of a service so nearly perfect can be appreciated.

The operation of a system of such magnitude as the Pullman Company necessitates an operating organization letter perfect in its detail. Such an organization cannot be built to order; it must be a development, the result of years of wearying experience and costly experiment. In the introduction to the official book of instruction provided to car employees of the company, occurs, above the signature of the general superintendent, this sentence: "The most important feature to be observed at all times is to satisfy and please passengers." It is an apparently simple commission, a natural expression of desire, but a brief investigation of the requirements necessary "to satisfy and please" twenty-six million passengers, traveling rapidly from place to place, from north to south and from coast to coast, regardless of climate or locality, discloses a service and machinery for the carrying out of that service complete beyond the realization of the most discerning traveler.

To comprehend more clearly the details of this nation-wide service it must be considered in its two aspects--the material equipment which the operation of the cars requires, and the personal service afforded by the employees of the company. To give this service 7,500 cars of the Pullman Company are operated over one hundred and thirty-seven railroads, or a total of 223,489 miles of track, reaching practically every point in the country from which or to which a person might desire to travel. To operate these cars an army of over ten thousand car employees are required, while seven thousand more are employed to keep the cars in repair, and maintain them in a clean and sanitary condition.

The Pullman Company maintains, in addition to the great plant at Pullman, six repair shops situated at various convenient points throughout the country where cars are repaired and maintained in good condition. In 1916, a total of 5,115 cars were repaired at these various shops at a cost of over five million dollars. Only by such rigid maintenance can the cars be kept in the almost invariably excellent condition in which they are found by the public.

Years ago the wearied traveler wrapped his great coat about him for his midnight journey. Later a few "sleeping" cars of primitive construction provided sheets and blankets which were stored in a cupboard in the end of the car. As these were washed only at irregular intervals, it was a lucky passenger who found clean linen for his bed, and if he did not make up the bed himself, it was the brakeman who provided this domestic service. Naturally no one thought of undressing for the night, and when the Pullman car was first introduced it was necessary to print on the back of the tickets and in the employees' rules book the warning that passengers must not retire with their boots on.

Today the Pullman Company to provide clean linen nightly for each passenger, keeps on hand 1,858,178 sheets, which are valued at $980,553.00, and 1,403,354 pillow slips worth $186,475.00. In the twelve months ending April 27, 1916, over two hundred thousand sheets, valued at over one hundred thousand dollars, and nearly two hundred thousand pillow cases, valued at over twenty thousand dollars, were condemned. And during the same period 108,492,359 pieces of linen, including both sheets and pillow cases were washed and ironed. In the matter of condemnation, it is interesting to learn that the slightest tear or stain is considered sufficient cause. These figures are staggering in their immensity, but even more amazing is the system by which these articles are provided, changed, washed, returned in traveling hotels, at times hundreds of miles removed from the nearest supply station.

In the oldtime washroom a roller towel gave satisfaction to travelers less particular than those of the present day. But now how things have changed. Two million seven hundred thousand towels are needed to supply an ever increasing demand. Three hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars was their cost and each year seventy million towels is the laundry order. When Brown has shaved in the men's washroom in good American style, he will probably wipe his razor on a towel. It is not his custom at home, but the traveler seems to have scant respect for property. That one little cut will destroy the towel for future service. Pullman towels rarely have a chance to wear out. Over a hundred thousand a year are condemned chiefly because of such usage, and, sad to relate, each year over half a million are "lost." A Pullman towel is a handy wrapping for a pair of shoes, but the annual lost charge amounts to nearly seventy thousand dollars. It is a charge that must be accepted by the company. It will not do to question a passenger's integrity.

All told, the investment by the Pullman Company in car linen amounts to $1,856,708.00, representing 6,597,714 separate pieces. And this is only for sleeping and parlor cars and a relatively small number of buffet and private cars, for the company no longer operates the diners. To provide new linen to replace the lost and condemned costs an annual sum of over four hundred thousand dollars.

But the quantities and the cost of other articles which the company provides are even more impressive. These, for the most part, are expressions of Pullman service over and above the service itself, but it is unquestionably true that by such "over and above" service is the whole service most truly judged. Who would think, for instance, that in one year 5,819,656 women's hats were protected against dust by paper bags provided by the porters. And yet these paper bags represented a total cost of $14,549.00. Smokers in the same period consumed two million boxes of matches, and over forty-two million drinking cups costing nearly eighty thousand dollars gave the modern touch of sanitation to the water coolers. Soap would naturally be considered an essential part of the service, but a soap bill for one year of sixty thousand dollars is a large order for cleanliness. So, too, is the sum of $20,000 for hair brushes and a third of that amount for combs.

Back in the dark ages of blissful ignorance of germs, railroad coaches were hallowed breeding places for sickness. But times have changed, and today it is a pretty safe remark to make that the Pullman car is more healthful than almost any place where people frequently congregate. It does not take many gray hairs to remember the days of sleeping cars furnished with heavy carpets tacked to wooden floors, of stuffy hangings, and plush upholstery, of fancy woodwork rife with cracks and crannies, and of washrooms and toilets that no amount of cleaning could ever maintain entirely innocuous.

It is difficult to enumerate the countless little details that are constantly incorporated into Pullman car construction. The berth light has been frequently changed to embody some new idea to improve its convenience and efficiency. The coat hanger, and the mirror in the upper berth are minor details, but their convenience is attested by their constant use by passengers. In the washrooms the design of the wash basins has been frequently altered to afford a more convenient resting place for the toilet articles unpacked from the traveler's bag. Even the location of a coat hook receives a consideration that would perhaps seem exaggerated to the casual outsider. Double curtains are now provided on the newer cars, one set for the lower and another set for the upper berth.

Once a month a Committee on Standards, composed of the higher officials of the company, meets at the big plant at Pullman. On a track near the main entrance, stands a car in which every practical suggestion has been incorporated for the inspection of the committee. Some of these suggestions are quickly eliminated by their experienced verdict; others, possessing apparent worthiness, are passed and are later incorporated in the construction of the next cars manufactured, when the public will become the final judge. Many of these improvements are of a technical character, and primarily affect the construction of the cars; others are of a more directly personal nature and contribute more to the comfort and convenience of the traveler. All that are passed by the committee serve to place still higher the standard that for fifty years has been constantly uplifted by the company.

As a car-building material wood has had its day, and the concrete floor of the Pullman car is tacit tribute to the sanitary properties of a widely used material. On the floor of concrete the familiar green carpet is lightly stretched to be easily removed at the journey's end, and after the floor has been thoroughly scrubbed, returned after a complete cleansing with vacuum cleaners. Instead of insanitary woodwork, the smooth surfaces of steel which form the interior of the car offer no lurking place for germs, and soap and water at frequent and regular intervals maintain a high degree of cleanliness. Of course, the porter with his portable vacuum cleaners and his dustcloth, can keep the car tidy en route, but the real cleaning comes when the trip is over and a gang of professional workers with every appliance to serve this end attacks the cars. Then not only are the carpets renovated but the prying nozzles of powerful vacuum cleaners suck up every particle of dust from seats, berths and cushions. Each mattress is given similar treatment, and mattresses and pillows are hung in the open air for the action of that greatest of all purifiers, the sun. Blankets are given a similar treatment. Water coolers are cleaned and sterilized with steam. In fact, nothing that could harbor a speck of dust is neglected.

The slight, acrid odor sometimes noticeable in a Pullman car at the beginning of a run is caused by the disinfectants which are liberally employed. A jug of disinfectant solution is a part of the equipment of every car and this is used for all car washing and particularly on the floors and in the toilet and washrooms.

To protect still further the health of the passengers, the cars are regularly fumigated with a gas which kills all disease-producing bacteria. Whenever a car has carried a sick person it is fumigated as soon as it is vacated, in addition to the regular monthly, weekly, or other schedule of fumigation for various lines and terminals. In order that the district offices may be promptly informed as to the necessity of this extra fumigation, the conductor is required to note on his inspection report the fact that a sick passenger has been carried, and the car is immediately taken out of service and thoroughly cleaned and fumigated. Moreover, if space occupied by a sick passenger is vacated en route, it must not be resold until the car has reached its terminal and has been fumigated.

To provide the necessary facilities for car cleaning, the company maintains a cleaning force in two hundred and twenty-five principal yards, and, in addition, at one hundred and fifty-eight outlying points. These yards require the service of over four thousand cleaners.

Stationed throughout the United States, in nearly every city of prominence, are six superintendents, thirty-nine district superintendents and thirty agents. These men each week make personal inspection of cars in operation with the sole purpose of keeping the service up to the highest standard. In addition, a corps of electrical and mechanical inspectors constantly inspect and test the cars and their devices, at various places, and another corps of local inspectors carefully examine every departing and every incoming train with particular attention to the appearance and deportment of the car employees and the apparatus for heating, lighting and water.

The Pullman Company is today the greatest single employer of colored labor in the world. 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. There are porters who for over forty years have been employed by the company, and of all the porters employed, an army of nearly eight thousand, twenty-five per cent have been for over ten years in continuous service. The reputation of any company depends in a large measure on the character of its employees, and particularly in those concerns which render a personal service to the general public is it necessary that the standards of the employees be exceptionally high. Such standards of personal service cannot be quickly developed; they can be achieved only through years of experience and the close personal study of the wide range of requirements of those who are to be served.

To inspire in the car employees, conductors as well as porters, the ambition to satisfy and please the passenger, rewards of extra pay are made for unblemished records of courtesy; pensions are provided for the years that follow their retirement from active service; provision is made for sick relief, and at regular intervals increases in pay are awarded with respect to the number of years of continuous and satisfactory employment.

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. But the unique position held by the Pullman Company has eliminated such a situation, and a man entering its employ looks forward to a personal development in this one concern.

During the half-century which has seen the sure and perfect development of this vast and complicated organization it is but natural to expect among the names of those who have guided its destiny many that must rank high in the business history of the country. A glance at the list of past and present Directors of the company confirms the expectation. Here are the names of men who have found high places in a variety of business activities not only in Chicago but in other great cities. The list includes:

George M. Pullman John Crerar Norman Williams Robert Harris Thomas A. Scott Amos T. Hall C. G. Hammond J. P. Morgan Marshall Field J. W. Doane H. C. Hulbert O. S. A. Sprague Henry R. Reed Norman B. Ream William K. Vanderbilt John S. Runnells Frederick W. Vanderbilt W. Seward Webb Robert T. Lincoln Frank O. Lowden John J. Mitchell Chauncey Keep George F. Baker John A. Spoor

In this same period but three men have occupied the office of president: George M. Pullman, the founder of the company, who held office from 1867, the year of incorporation, until his death in 1897, and Robert T. Lincoln until 1911, when John S. Runnells, the present president, was elected.

Pullman service has revolutionized the method of travel. Night has been abolished, the sense of distance has been annihilated; fatigue has been reduced to a minimum. In the oldest districts of the east, along the valleys of western rivers, on the wide-spread plains, among the remote peaks of the Rockies, in the deserts of the great southwest, the Pullman car, served by the same trained employees, furnishes the same comforts, and gives the same nights' repose. Improved each year in its mechanical construction, amplified in its service, better served by its attendants, it has set a high standard to the world in the development of railway travel, and in the fifty years of its development it has contributed more to the safety, comfort, convenience, and luxury of travelers than any other similar contribution that has been given to mankind.

INDEX

Berth construction, Mr. Pullman's new and radical, 99, 100

Boudoir cars, the Mann, introduced in Europe, 64, 81

_Bygone Days in Chicago_, its story of the locating of the Pullman shops, 91

_Chicago Tribune_, the, eulogy of the first Pullman cars, 46

Cleaning the cars, 152-154

Colebrookdale Iron Works, cast the first rails, 4

Construction of Pullman cars, 123-129

_Detroit Commercial Advertiser_, the, comments of, on the hotel car, 49

Dining car, the first designed by Mr. Pullman, 52; he constructs "The Delmonico," 104; railroads adopt the, 104; its operation given up by the Pullman Company, 105

Electric lighting of cars, 112-119; in England, 113-118

England, introduction of Pullman cars in, 61-63; reception of cars in, 66; "The Pullman Limited Express," 68, 69; electric lighting of Pullman cars in, 113-118

Erie railroad, gets the through Pullman service, 78, 79, 82

Europe, the Pullman car in, 61-69

Flower Sleeping Car Company, 81

Gates Sleeping Car Company, competitor of the Pullman Company, 75

Gauge, railway, standardized, 48

Heating, early, 22, 31; by locomotive steam, 119

Hotel cars, the first in service, 49, 50, 52, 103; give way to the diner, 104

_Illinois Journal_, the, comments on the first Pullman cars, 45

_Illinois State Register_, the, describes the new type of car, 43, 44

Knight car, used on eastern roads, 80

Lighting, 31, 112; the Pintsch light, 82, 112; electric, 112-119

Linen, requirements to supply the cars, 147-149

Locomotive, the beginnings of the, 5-9; the American, 11, 12

_London Telegraph_, the, comments on the dining car, 67; on the introduction of electric lighting in Pullman cars, 115, 116

Mann Boudoir Car Company, incorporated, 81; acquired by the Pullman Company, 83

Mann, Colonel, designs a sleeping car, 63; his "boudoir cars" installed in Europe, 64; his Company acquired by the Pullman Company, 83

Monarch Sleeping Car Company, competitor of the Pullman Company, 84

Napoleon's field carriage, 2, 3

Operation of the Pullman car, the, 133-158

Parlor car, or reclining chair car, the first, 58

Porter, the, of the Pullman car, 155, 156

Presidents and directors of the Pullman Company, 157

Pullman, A. B., assistant of his brother, George M., 47

Pullman car, the first actual, 32-34; rise of the great industry, 39-58; first trip of, to the Pacific coast, 53, 54; first through train from Atlantic to Pacific, 54-57; in Europe, 61-69; shop for making, established in Turin, 65; reception of in England, 66-69; imitation of, and competition from others, 73-85; acquires the Mann and Woodruff companies, 83; wins suits against the Wagner Company, 85; rapid expansion of business, 89; locates new shops at Chicago, 89-93; berth construction for, 99, 100; vestibuled trains of, 106-111; electric lighting in, 112-119; heating of, by locomotive steam, 119; how the cars are made, 123-129; the first all-steel, 123ff.; trucks for, 126; fittings, 128; operation of the, 133-158; travel distances possible for, 136-139, 146; tickets sold yearly, 140; linen required for, 147-149; other furnishings for, 149-151; cleaning, 152-154; the working force, 154; the porters, 155

Pullman, George M., birth and early years, 24, 25; first activities in Chicago, 26, 27; first sleeping-car work, 28-32; his first Pullman car, 32-34; the second car, 40; incorporates the Pullman Palace Car Company, 47; his purpose, 48; introduces the hotel car, 49; the first dining car, 52; visits England, 61; installs his cars there, 62, 66-69; establishes shop at Turin, 65; puts vestibule trains in operation, 84; locates new shops at Chicago, 89-93; builds town of Pullman, 93-95; his radical changes in berth construction, 99, 100; introduces the dining car, 103-105; invents the vestibule for trains, 106-110; his vision and achievement, 135, 158; president of the company till his death, 157

Pullman Palace Car Company, incorporated, 47; establishes shops in Detroit, 57; its business, 137, 140, 141; list of directors and presidents, 157

_Pullman, The Story of_, quoted, 94, 95

Pullman, the town of, 89-95

_Railroad Gazette_, the, on electric lighting of trains, 113

Railroad restaurants, the oldtime service, 101-103

Railroad transportation, birth of, 1-15

Rails, the first iron, 4

_Railway Review_, the, describes vestibuled trains, 109, 110; on trial of electric lighting in English trains, 116-118

Railways, the first in England, 4-7; in America, 7-15; change gauge to suit Pullman cars, 48

Reclining chair car, or parlor car, the first, 58

Repairs and repair shops, 146

Sleeping car, the evolution of the, 19-35; the early, 22, 23, 99; Mr. Pullman's first, 28-32; rise of the industry, 39-58

Stagecoach, the English, 2-4, 6

Steel, the first all-, Pullman cars, 123ff.

Stephenson, George and Robert, and the first steam engines, 5, 7, 9

_Trans-Continental_, the paper published by Pullman car tourists in 1870, 54

Transportation, birth of railroad, 1-15

Trevithick, Richard, experiments with steam locomotive, 5

Trucks, the, used for Pullman cars, 126

"Twenty minutes for dinner," failure of the system of, 102, 103

Vanderbilts, back the Wagner car, 76, 77, 84, 85

Vestibule invented, 106, 107; vestibuled trains in service, 109; trial trip, 110; welcomed in Mexico, 111

Wagner Palace Car Company, competitor of the Pullman Company, 76-79, 84; loses to the Pullman Company, 85

Wagner, Webster, founder of the Wagner Palace Car Company, 76

Woodruff sleeping car, 81; acquired by the Pullman Company, 83

[Transcriber's Notes

All words printed in small capitals have been converted to uppercase characters.

Duplicate chapter headings have been removed.

The following modifications have been made,

Page 129: "carrry" changed to "carry" (will carry from coast to coast)]

End of Project Gutenberg's The Story of the Pullman Car, by Joseph Husband