The American Railway: Its Construction, Development, Management, and Appliances

by Thomas Curtis Clarke

Immigrant Sleeping-car (Canadian Pacific Railway.)

The transportation of immigrants has recently received increased facilities for its accommodation upon the principal through lines. Until late years economically constructed day-cars were alone used, but in these the immigrants suffered great discomfort in long journeys. An immigrant sleeper is now used, which is constructed with sections on each side of the aisle, each section containing two double berths. The berths are made with slats of hard wood running longitudinally; there is no upholstery in the car, and no bedding supplied, and after the car is vacated the hose can be turned in upon it, and all the wood-work thoroughly cleansed. The immigrants usually carry with them enough blankets and wraps to make them tolerably comfortable in their berths; a cooking stove is provided in one end of the car, on which the occupants can cook their food, and even the long transcontinental journeys of the immigrants are now made without hardship.

View of Pullman, Ill.

The manufacture of railway passenger cars is a large item of industry in the country. The tendency had been for many years to confine the building of ordinary passenger coaches to the shops owned by the railway companies, and they made extensive provision for such work; but recently they have given large orders for that class of equipment to outside manufacturers. This has resulted partly from the large demand for cars, and partly on account of the excellence of the work supplied by some of the manufacturing companies. In 1880 the Pullman Company erected the most extensive car-works in the world at Pullman, fourteen miles south of Chicago; and, besides its extensive output of Pullman cars and freight equipment, it has built for railway companies large numbers of passenger coaches. The employees now number about 5,000, and an idea of the capacity and resources of the shops may be obtained from the fact that one hundred freight cars, of the kind known as flat cars, have been built in eight hours. The business of car-building has therefore given rise to the first model manufacturing town in America, and it is an industry evidently destined to increase as rapidly as any in the country.

View of Pullman, Ill.

The manufacture of railway passenger cars is a large item of industry in the country. The tendency had been for many years to confine the building of ordinary passenger coaches to the shops owned by the railway companies, and they made extensive provision for such work; but recently they have given large orders for that class of equipment to outside manufacturers. This has resulted partly from the large demand for cars, and partly on account of the excellence of the work supplied by some of the manufacturing companies. In 1880 the Pullman Company erected the most extensive car-works in the world at Pullman, fourteen miles south of Chicago; and, besides its extensive output of Pullman cars and freight equipment, it has built for railway companies large numbers of passenger coaches. The employees now number about 5,000, and an idea of the capacity and resources of the shops may be obtained from the fact that one hundred freight cars, of the kind known as flat cars, have been built in eight hours. The business of car-building has therefore given rise to the first model manufacturing town in America, and it is an industry evidently destined to increase as rapidly as any in the country.

The transportation of baggage has always been a most important item to the traveller, and the amount carried seems to increase in proportion to the advance in civilization. The original allowance of fourteen pounds is found to be increased to four hundred when ladies start for fashionable summer-resorts.

America has been much more liberal than other countries to the traveller in this particular, as in all others. Here few of the roads charge for excess of baggage unless the amount be so large that patience with regard to it ceases to be a virtue.

The earlier method, of allowing each passenger to pick out his own baggage at his point of destination and carry it off, resulted in a lack of accountability which led to much confusion, frequent losses, and heavy claims upon the companies in consequence. Necessity, as usual, gave birth to invention, and the difficulty was at last solved by the introduction of the system known as "checking." A metal disk bearing a number and designating on its face the destination of the baggage was attached to each article and a duplicate given to the owner, which answered as a receipt, and upon the presentation and surrender of which the baggage could be claimed. Railways soon united in arranging for through checks which, when attached to baggage, would insure its being sent safely to distant points over lines composed of many connecting roads. The check system led to the introduction of another marked convenience in the handling of baggage—the baggage express or transfer company. One of its agents will now check trunks at the passenger's own house and haul them to the train. Another agent will take up the checks aboard the train as it is nearing its destination, and see that the baggage is delivered at any given address.