Pullman question: What do we really know?

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Jimmy Lisle asked a question about a comprehensive source for Pullman sleeping cars used on N&W.   The S-1 and S-2 lightweight cars were built to order and owned by N&W.  The eight heavyweights were purchased from Pullman after the court ordered separation of PS car building and sleeping car operating business.  All these cars appeared in issues of The Official Register of Passenger Train Equipment as long as N&W owned them.  Why did N&W buy these older heavyweights? PS sold its car operating department to a consortium of 59 railroads in a complex stock transfer of buildings, car shops, and equipment concluded in 1947.  In general the cars previously assigned to various roads stayed on those roads.  About 6,000 heavyweight sleepers were sold off to the railroads, and the ones they didn't want stayed in a Pullman pool.  Because railroads were not equipped to operate their own sleeping car service, the cars were leased back to the new entity for operation. 

The sleeping cars that are hard to trace are like the attached photo of Norfolk County which was a 10 section-lounge car.  Before the PS breakup, The Pocahontas and Cavalier each had cars like Norfolk County running Norfolk to Chicago.  That would take at least 6 cars to cover that operation on a daily basis.  In a book listing heavyweight cars I found three more car names which would link geographically to the N&W region:  Dinwiddie County, Nasemond County, Roanoke County.  N&W didn't own any of these cars.  The cars were in service on N&W as late as 1954, but they seemed to hang around after that.  There were about 30 cars in the pool like these, and most started life with an open observation platform.  They were rebuilt in the 1930's with either an enclosed second vestibule or a "blind" end.

Abram Burnett brought up the subject of named sleeping cars.  Because sleeping car companies were separate entities from the railroads, their numbering began to conflict with existing numbers on railroad's equipment.  In the history of Pullman Company there were about 21,000 names used over 130 years.  A group called "Committee on Nomenclature" at Pullman took on the naming task.  Pullman cars were built to plan and lot number, and the names in each category were grouped accordingly.  The names were the only individual characteristic.  For the most part a common prefix or suffix would allow grouping of individual core words.  A bevy of clerks spent their careers keeping accounting and service records for a fleet of of 9,800 cars at Pullman's height.

For anyone interested in this topic I would recommend The Sleeping Car, a General Guide, BK 31 from ACL-SAL Historical Society.  82 pages, soft cover on clearance sale now for $12.  http://www.aclsal.org/store/products_current.htm

--Rick Morrison
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