CHAPTER IV
THE PULLMAN CAR IN EUROPE
A modest paragraph in many American newspapers in February, 1873, announced the momentous news that England was soon to enjoy the novelty of Pullman transportation—"The Midland Railway Company has entered into a contract with the Pullman Palace Car Company for the equipment of their road with American drawing room and sleeping coaches." The Midland was the longest and most important of three great railroads which started from London and extended to Liverpool and Scotland, transversing the rich central counties of England where so few years before the coach horn had sounded through the hills. The adoption of Pullman equipment by this prominent railroad was singularly conspicuous.
On February 15, 1873, at a "half-yearly meeting of the shareholders of the Midland Railway," Mr. Pullman personally addressed the officers of the company. It appears that Mr. Allport, the general manager of the Midland Railway, on a recent visit to the United States and Canada, had been greatly impressed by the accommodations afforded the traveling public, and had made a particular study of the Pullman cars. Acting on his advice the directors invited Mr. Pullman to England to appear before the meeting. Mr. Pullman proposed that the Midland Company should authorize the speedy construction of carriages particularly adapted to their requirements, and a motion was carried to authorize the construction of such cars on the basic Pullman principles. It was accordingly agreed that eighteen new cars should be constructed in America and shipped to England in August and that Mr. Pullman should return to England at that time to superintend their installation.
By the contract the Pullman Company agreed to furnish as many dining-room, drawing-room, and sleeping cars as the demands of the traveling public required, without charge to the road, its compensation being in the extra fare paid for use of the cars. The road, on the other hand, received its compensation in the free use of the cars, in return for which it guaranteed to the Pullman Company the exclusive right to furnish such cars for fifteen years. As in America, the porters, conductors, cooks, waiters and other attendants were hired by the Pullman Company. Two night trains and two day trains of American cars only, were to be put on at the start. The contract was not exclusive, and other English railroads watched with interest the working out of the American innovation.
The popularity of the Pullman car at home and abroad quite naturally inspired a host of imitators. Among the first was Colonel W. D. Mann, the proprietor of the Mobile Register, who designed a sleeping car embodying certain characteristic Pullman features, but divided transversely into compartments or "boudoirs," each entered directly from the sides, and connected by a private door permitting the passage of the attendant to and through the several compartments. Each compartment contained seats for four persons, which by night could be made up into beds. The design was ingenious but failed in many vital respects to compete with the greater comfort and roominess of the Pullman car.
As the Pullman car was the first sleeping car to be installed for regular service in England, so credit should be given to Colonel Mann for affording the first sleeping car for public service ever operated on the Continent. Mann's "Boudoir Cars" were installed on the Vienna and Munich line in 1873, and their favorable reception and popularity unquestionably went far to better the trying conditions of European travel.
Interior of a Pullman car used about 1880. Here a tendency to ornamentation begins to show. Note the low-backed seats
Designed in America and introduced on the continent, the Mann boudoir cars enjoyed an almost unoccupied field in Europe, with the exception of England, where the railway managers had adopted the Pullman cars as their standard. The Mann car was developed to suit European railroads and European wants. A Belgian company was organized to introduce sleeping cars by contracts with railroad companies, somewhat like those of the Pullman Company in America. The Mann cars which were put in service in the United States between Boston and New York in 1883 were divided into eight compartments, some accommodating two persons, some four. The seats were arranged transversely instead of longitudinally. Due to their smaller passenger capacity a higher rate was necessarily charged than for Pullman accommodations.
But exclusive possession of the Continental field was not left to Colonel Mann undisputed, for during the year 1875 Mr. Pullman established a shop at Turin, Italy, and under the direction of a Mr. A. Rapp, who was sent on from the Detroit works, a number of cars were constructed for use on through trains on the principal Italian lines. The following testimonial presented to Mr. Rapp at the conclusion of the work by the men who had been employed expresses, although in none too polished English, their appreciation of the work that had been provided them.