Pullman question: What do we really know?

[NW Mailing List]

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


Moderator:
 http://nwhs.org/mailinglist/2016/20160131.Pullman_NW_Norfolk_County.jpg
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