The first attempt to furnish the railway passenger a place to sleep while on his journey was made upon the Cumberland Valley Railroad of Pennsylvania, between Harrisburg and Chambersburg. In the winter season the east-bound passengers arrived at Chambersburg late at night by stage-coach, and as they were exhausted by a fatiguing trip over the mountains and many wished to continue their journey to Harrisburg to catch the morning train for Philadelphia, it became very desirable to furnish sleeping accommodations aboard the cars. The officers of this road fitted up a passenger car with a number of berths, and put it into service as a sleeping-car in the winter of 1836–37. It was exceedingly crude and primitive in construction. It was divided by transverse partitions into four sections, and each contained three berths—a lower, middle, and upper berth. This car was used until 1848 and then abandoned.
About this time there were also experiments made in fitting up cars with berths something like those in a steam-boat cabin, but these crude attempts did not prove attractive to travellers. There were no bedclothes furnished, and only a coarse mattress and pillow were supplied, and with the poor ventilation and the rattling and jolting of the car there was not much comfort afforded, except a means of resting in a position which was somewhat more endurable than a sitting posture.
Previous to the year 1858 a few of the leading railways had put on sleeping-cars which made some pretensions to meet a growing want of the travelling public, but they were still crude, uncomfortable, and unsatisfactory in their arrangements and appointments.
In the year 1858 George M. Pullman entered a train of the Lake Shore Railroad at Buffalo, to make a trip to Chicago. It happened that a new sleeping-car which had been built for the railroad company was attached to this train and was making its first trip. Mr. Pullman stepped in to take a look at it, and finally decided to test this new form of luxury by passing the night in one of its berths. He was tossed about in a manner not very conducive to the "folding of the hands to sleep," and he turned out before daylight and took refuge upon a seat in the end of the car. He now began to ponder upon the subject, and before the journey ended he had conceived the notion that, in a country of magnificent distances like this, a great boon could be offered to travellers by the construction of cars easily convertible into comfortable and convenient day or night coaches, and supplied with such appointments as would give the occupants practically the same comforts as were afforded by the steam-boats. He began experiments in this direction soon after his arrival in Chicago, and in 1859 altered some day-cars on the Chicago & Alton Railroad, and converted them into sleeping-cars which were a marked step in advance of similar cars previously constructed. They were successful in meeting the wants of passengers at that time, but Mr. Pullman did not consider them in any other light than experiments. One night, after they had made a few trips on the line between Chicago and St. Louis, a tall, angular-looking man entered one of the cars while Mr. Pullman was aboard, and after asking a great many intelligent questions about the inventions, finally said he thought he would try what the thing was like, and stowed himself away in an upper berth. This proved to be Abraham Lincoln.
The "Pioneer." First complete Pullman Sleeping-car.
In 1864 Mr. Pullman perfected his plans for a car which was to be a marked and radical departure from any one ever before attempted, and that year invested his capital in the construction of what may be called the father of the Pullman cars. He built it in a shed in the yard of the Chicago & Alton Railroad at a cost of $18,000, named it the "Pioneer," and designated it by the letter "A." It did not then occur to anyone that there would ever be enough sleeping-cars introduced to exhaust the whole twenty-six letters of the alphabet. The sum expended upon it was naturally looked upon as fabulous at a time when such sleeping-cars as were used could be built for about $4,500. The constructor of the "Pioneer" aimed to produce a car which would prove acceptable in every respect to the travelling public. It had improved trucks and a raised deck, and was built a foot wider and two and a half feet higher than any car then in service. He deemed this necessary for the purpose of introducing a hinged upper berth, which, when fastened up, formed a recess behind it for stowing the necessary bedding in the daytime. Before that the mattresses had been piled in one end of the car, and had to be dragged through the aisle when wanted. It was known to him that the dimensions of the bridges and station-platforms would not admit of its passing over the line, but he was singularly confident in the belief that an attractive car, constructed upon correct principles, would find its way into service against all obstacles. It so happened that soon after the car was finished, in the spring of 1865, the body of President Lincoln arrived at Chicago, and the "Pioneer" was wanted for the funeral train which was to take it to Springfield. To enable the car to pass over the road, the station-platforms and other obstructions were reduced in size, and thereafter the line was in a condition to put the car into service. A few months afterward General Grant was making a trip West to visit his home in Galena, Ill., and as the railway companies were anxious to take him from Detroit to his destination in the car which had now become quite celebrated, the station-platforms along the line were widened for the purpose, and thus another route was opened to its passage.
The car was now put into regular service on the Alton road. Its popularity fully realized the anticipations of its owner, and its size became the standard for the future Pullman cars as to height and width, though they have since been increased in length.