I've started to look into sleeper cars a bit, connected with the purpose of Lex Anteinternet. In doing so, I've learned that I don't know hardly anything about them.
Pullman sleeping car, late 19th Century, early 20th Century
For one thing, I didn't know that they were an introduction, in the US, via George Pullman, of the Pullman Company. I was aware of Pullman porters, an all black occupation, but I guess I never put the two together.
I also didn't realize how spartan they could be, as i the photograph from above. My mental image of them is really based on movies like North By Northwest, which depicts really nice and private ones, and there were pretty luxurious sleeper cars at that. But there were also pretty plain ones, which makes sense in the era when town to town transportation was by train. Not everyone was on a holiday by any means.
Another thing I didn't appreciate really is that the cars usually didn't belong to the railroad itself One website on the Union Pacific notes:
How many sleeping cars did UP own over its lifetime? A quick answer would be 55 heavyweight clerestory-roof sleepers, and 191 lightweight sleepers. But a definitive number has two important considerations; the difference between operated, leased, and owned, and the difference between heavyweight and lightweight.
The difference between a heavyweight car and lightweight car is mostly the era it was built, rather than the material it was built from, meaning that cars of an earlier era were built with heavyweight materials, while newer, more modern cars were built using lighter materials. Heavyweight cars were built using riveted carbon steel body-frame construction, and concrete floors. Most were built in the 1910s and 1920s and due to their weight, were equipped with six-wheel truck and wheel assemblies. These have been known as heavyweight cars since the 1940s to distinguish them from the lightweight cars built using either much lighter aluminum or welded alloy steel, or combinations of both. Lightweight cars had non-opening windows, and full-width arch roof. Most were built after 1935 and were equipped with four-wheel truck and wheel assemblies.
Union Pacific did not own any sleeping cars until the government's forced breakup of Pullman in 1944. Until that date, all lightweight sleeper cars used by Union Pacific on their trains were "operated" by UP, but owned by The Pullman Company. After that date, sleeper cars operated on UP trains were either owned by UP, or owned by UP and its SP and C&NW partners; all were leased back to Pullman for operation.
I should have known that.
Pullman's hold on the industry was so pronounced that sleeping cars used in World War One belonged to them.
All of this no doubt just scratches the surface of this topic, about which I'm nearly completely ignorant.
No comments:
Post a Comment