The comforts and conveniences of travel by rail on the main lines now seemed to have reached their culmination in America. The heavy T-rails had replaced the various forms previously used; the improved fastenings, the reductions in curvature, and the greater care exercised in construction had made the trip delightfully smooth, while the improvements in rolling-stock had obviated the jerking, jolting, and oscillation of the cars. The roadbeds had been properly ditched, drained, and ballasted with broken stone or gravel, the dust overcome, the sparks arrested, and cleanliness, that attribute which stands next to godliness, had at last been made possible, even on a railway train.
Dining-car (Chicago, Burlington, & Quincy Railroad.)
The heating of cars was not successfully accomplished till a method was devised for circulating hot water through pipes running near the floor. The suffering from that bane of the traveller—cold feet—was then obviated and many a doctor's bill saved. The loss of human life from the destruction of trains by fires originating from stoves aroused such a feeling throughout the country that the legislatures of many States have passed laws within the last three years prohibiting the use of stoves, and the railway managers have been devising plans for heating the trains with steam furnished from the boiler of the locomotive. The inventive genius of the people was at once brought into requisition, and several ingenious devices are now in use which successfully accomplish the purpose in solid trains with the locomotive attached, but the problem of heating a detached car without some form of furnace connected with it is still unsolved.
But notwithstanding the high standard of excellence which had been reached in the construction and operation of passenger trains, there was one want not yet supplied, the importance of which did not become fully recognized until dining-cars were introduced, and men, women, and children had to pass across the platforms of several cars in order to reach the one in which the meals were served. An act which passengers had always been cautioned against, and forbidden to undertake—the crossing of platforms while the train is in motion—now became necessary, and was invited by the railway companies.
It was soon seen that a safe covered passageway between the cars must be provided, particularly for limited express trains. Crude attempts had been made in this direction at different times. As early as the years 1852 and 1855 patents were taken out for devices which provided for diaphragms of canvas to connect adjoining cars and form a passageway between them. These were applied to cars on the Naugatuck Railroad, in Connecticut, in 1857, but they were used mainly for purposes of ventilation, to provide for taking in air at the head of the train, so as to permit the car windows to be kept shut, to avoid the dust that entered through them when they were open. These appliances were very imperfect, did not seem to be of any practical advantage, even for the limited uses for which they were intended, and they were abandoned after a trial of about four years.
In the year 1886 Mr. Pullman went practically to work to devise a perfect system for constructing continuous trains, and at the same time to provide for sufficient flexibility in connecting the passageways to allow for the motion consequent upon the rounding of curves. His efforts resulted in what is now known as the "vestibuled" train.
Pullman Vestibuled Cars.