The Story of the Pullman Car

by Joseph Husband

The sewing room. Upholstery Department

All the previous night a steam engine had created power to charge the cells. In the roof of the car were twelve small Edison incandescent lights with bamboo filaments. The light was uneven; it was "garish," but at the turn of a switch its rays filled the car. With pardonable enthusiasm the London Times stated that "the car on the return journey in the evening was kept lighted the whole of the distance from Brighton to Victoria."

It is interesting to read in the London Daily Telegraph of October 15, 1885, the following mention of this important event:

Yesterday's trial was understood to have special reference, however, to a new train, wholly composed of Pullman cars, which it is proposed shortly to put on the service between Victoria and Brighton, and should the experiment be deemed fully satisfactory it is probable that the new train will from the first be fitted with the electric light. So far as the travelers were concerned the result was eminently successful. It would scarcely be possible to conceive a steadier, more equable, or more agreeable light. On the down journey the first trial was made in the Merstham tunnel, and then in the Balcombe and Clayton tunnels. All that was needed was to move the little switch, and instantaneously the delicate carbon thread enclosed in the lamps was aglow with pure white light. The return journey was made in the night, and the electric lamps were alight during the whole distance. There had been some question whether the supply would prove sufficient, as owing to stoppages the special had taken a somewhat longer time than had been allowed for; the event, however, showed that the storage had been ample. It would be possible to generate electricity by the energy of the moving train itself, and this has indeed been suggested to be done. By this means enough energy could be supplied to the incandescent lamps, but in any case the accumulator would be necessary to act as a reservoir when the train was not in motion. It possesses, however, another advantage equally important. Experience shows that a current of absolutely uniform strength supplying an even and constant light can only be derived from stored electricity. The oxide of lead which covers the plates not only prevents leakage, but enables the supply to be withdrawn with perfect regularity, and renders sub-division easy. Yesterday the smoke room and lavatory of the car were lighted, and occasionally the lights were turned off without in any way interfering with the other lamps in the same circuit. Before the train started on the return journey the brightly illuminated carriage was an object of interest to many members of the Iron and Steel Institute who visited Brighton and Newhaven yesterday. With regard to expense, it is claimed for the accumulator and the incandescent lamps that the expenditure would be decidedly less than on oil, while, as to the comparative value of the two there is no room for difference of opinion. It was the general feeling of all who took part in the excursion that the question of the electric lighting of trains had been solved, and that to the Brighton Company, whatever may be the immediate results of the experiment, would belong the honour of taking the first decisive and practical step in the way of reform.

Four months later a correspondent of a Sheffield, England, paper, writing from London to the Railway Review of the recent trial of electric lights on the Pullman train of the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway, says:

There is no doubt whatever on the point that this, apart from the question of cost, is a decided success. It is easily manageable, and diffuses through the train a pleasant, equable light, scarcely less agreeable than daylight. It is turned on and off with instantaneous effect as the train enters and leaves a tunnel, and of course is kept burning the whole of the time during the night journeys. The electricity is stored in a number of lead plates, which are kept in water in iron boxes in the guard's van. There are two lots, one at either end of the train, and two mechanics in charge of them. This discovery of the ability to store electricity for application to lighting purposes seems to carry the discovery farther than anything since it was first introduced. It gets over many difficulties which seemed insuperable—especially the important one of the great waste of power which is illustrated every night at the Savoy Theatre—and would be applicable to the introduction of electricity for household use.

At the Savoy, when the exigencies of the play require that the lights should be turned down in the auditorium, there is no cessation of the enormous power required to produce the full effect. What happens is that by a mechanical contrivance, the electricity is carried off from the light and goes to waste. With this system of storing, electricity can be used just like gas, as much or as little as people chance to want. Another great advantage is the freedom from jumping, inseparable from the action of the driving power of the steam engine, or of the motion power of water. The lights of the Brighton train burn just as steadily as gas, an effect not in any way obtained where the light is maintained directly by the driving power of steam.

But after all, the question of gas vs. electricity will resolve itself into one of cost, and it is here where gas will inevitably hold its own. The fundamental principle of the electric light is that for a given exertion of power you obtain a given proportion of light, neither more nor less. For every hour it is burning there will be required a certain exactly-ascertained proportion of revolutions of the steam engine, and therefore, if the whole town is lighted it can be done only at a strictly proportionate expense to the lighting of a single house. As to what that expense will be, as compared with gas, the Brighton train would, if we had an idea of the actual figures, afford a precise means of information. I met on the train a well-known gas engineer, attracted, like myself, by the novelty of the experiment. What the electric light cost he was not able to say, but when we take into account the capital sunk in plant, involving a steam engine with the necessary buildings, consumption of coal and necessary employment of skilled labor, it must be something considerable. Against this is the bare fact that the Brighton train could be lighted with gas for the double journey at the cost of 10d. It is a physical impossibility that electricity should ever come anywhere near this, and that probably explains the singular phenomenon that at the time when electricity is making conspicuous advances in public favor, the value of gas shares is not only steadily maintained, but is actually rising in the market.