St. Paul "Pullmans"

The Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul R. R.'s "Pioneer Limited" that left Chicago last week carried the first Pullman cars to travel over the company's rails in the 37 years since the founding of the road. President Edward F. Carry of the Pullman Co. and Receiver Harry E, Byram of the St. Paul had ended a long company estrangement inherited from the late President Roswell Miller of the St. Paul and the late founder George M. Pullman of the sleeping car company. The two men had quarreled; their followers had maintained hostilities.

For a long time after railroads became practical for travel there were no provisions for sleeping. People sat up or slept in. the floor filth. Then, in 1836 the Cumberland Valley R. R. of Pennsylvania built some bunks into a second-hand coach. Travelers could use the roller towel, basin and water provided in the rear of the car. It traveled between Harrisburg and Chambersburg, Pa. Later innovations were straw ticks, blankets, cuspidors. Travelers used their carpet bags for pillows.

In 1858 George M. Pullman was in Chicago, a successful contractor. He persuaded Chicago & Alton officials to give him two coaches to remodel with sleeping berths. His novelties were upper berths that folded up by day, clean linen, one washroom for men and one for women. So successful were these sleepers that he immediately built a "Pullman" car designed especially for sleep-traveling.

By 1867 there were 48 "Pullmans" operated in the U. S.--over the Chicago & Alton, Michigan Central, Burlington, Great Western of Canada and the New York Central. The Pullman Co., then as now, owned all its cars, shared haulage fees with the railroads. Railroads gave up their own sleeping cars for the sake of the better "Pullmans."

A rival sleeping car, the Mann "Boudoir Car" with sleeping compartments set transverse to the car length as in European railway cars, was operated between Boston and Manhattan in 1883; was expensive; could not endure before Pullman Co. aggressiveness.

The St. Paul was the last major U. S. railroad to own its own sleepers.