Pullman train cars, the epitome of luxury Palace Cars, Superliners (284 of these), sleeping cars and passenger train cars, 1859-1981

When the legendary director Cecil B. DeMille first saw the baroque interior, he supposedly said, "Tell the madame I'll have a drink, but I'm too old to go upstairs."

Original owners of Pullman Palacecars were EF Hutton, the Vanderbilt's (at least 3 of them, Harry, Willie, and Alice had one of their own... cattle barons bought them too.
The most famous stock holders of the Pullman company were JJ Astor, Ellen Banker, Chauncey Depew, Jay Gould, Julia Grant, John Hay, Henry Morgan, J Pierpont Morgan, JD Rockefeller, Russell Sage, Robert Schell, William Scott, and Alice, Cornelius, Fred and William Venderbilt


These are steam locomotives at the factory to move the cars around. Not big, because they weren't moving a whole train

I've posted one photo somewhere in the past of a vehicle like the one above... can't recall where it is. This was just to move things about at the factory
The above shows the accordian wall device to allow people to travel between cars without being exposed to the outside soot from the locomotive exhaust and weather
Above and below show the factory method of moving the cars sideways on the "Table"








The above cutaway is similar to the Pullman Progress poster detail pieces below



the above poster has been put to use on a website http://thelibrary.org/lochist/frisco/history/pullman.cfm so that you can click on each of the railcars (like you see below) and get a full page, big detailed look at them, and their description.

the guys in the above photo are the Chicago White Sox

All of these unless noted otherwise, are from one website http://www.pullman-museum.org/cgi-bin/pvm/newGetSubjects.pl?subject=Pullman%20Train%20Cars which has much much more to see. This is just a quick look at the elegant luxury of the fortunately wealthy from 1860-1940's and the signature way of traveling in style and opulance that very few ever could manage.

One of the above articles in 1981 said about 500 Palace cars remained, and only about a handful were upgraded to Amtrak standards of new mechanical and electrical features to get pulled along by the Amtrak trains in America .

I guess very few were ever exported tot he wealithiest of other countries, but that those may have greater numbers that are allowed to ride the rails for he right price, condition irrelevant.

President Lincoln's son, Robert Todd Lincoln, assumed charge of the company after the founder, George Pullman died, 1898-1911, and renamed it 'Pullman Company.' Lincoln preferred a simple elegance to Pullman's previous luxury cars, and began revising the way Pullman cars were created. During Lincoln's tenure, Pullman purchased the Wagner Palace Car Company, and the Union Palace Car Company

The company continued to produce quality train cars. It suffered immensely when automobile ownership began to eschew passenger train travel, but continued working with freight cars and other means. It acquired the competition and enjoyed much success. The History of Pullman Cars eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/about_5142619_history-pullman-cars.html#ixzz1QPNwmuMD

For a big gallery of full size hi-def, hi-res photos of the restored Pullman at the Nethercutt Museum I visited a couple months ago: http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2011/05/private-pullman-palace-railcar-century.html

This whole post is due to a link from Mary D, she is writing a book that involves the characters using Pullmans, and shared the link with me to share with all of you. Thanks Mary D!