Those Pullman "napkins" are actually towels that would have been in every bedroom, roomette and washroom.
They're a neat detail to add to a car, filling up those empty shelves in the bedrooms and roomettes. I had found references to Porters describing folding up the towels in triangles; I then found not only an image of the towels folded in triangles, but (in a heavyweight) being displayed standing up on the racks!
http://americanhistory.si.edu/archives/ ... 8181-2.jpg
http://americanhistory.si.edu/archives/d8181b.htm
Later, I found a promotional article in 1950 extolling the new Nickel Plate Pullman cars (which of course, included our 'City of Lima'). Photos of a roomette show the towels on the shelf above the sink.
In the 1952 "Instructions to Porters, Attendants and Busboys", discussion of the multitude of towels to be deployed is listed on pages 62-64.
"In private room accommodations the setup of towels is as follows:
rooms having only one bed.........4 towels
rooms having two beds...............6 towels
rooms having three beds............ 8 towels
master room…..6 towels plus 2 large and 2 small bath towels
In rooms having overhead towel racks or shelves, towels shall be folded triangularly and placed with the point to the front. In rooms having toilet cabinets or recessed shelves, towels shall be folded into a square and placed in stacks of two or three, spaced evenly on shelves in an orderly manner".
So, how do you fold the towels? Doesn't say. We played around, and came up with a method for doing it, for what it's worth:
http://webusers.warwick.net/~u1042417/Pullman.htm
For excursion use, we substitute 15" x 26" herringbone-weave Barbers' Towels, with the blue stripe to approximate their appearance with an item you wouldn't mind people wiping their hands with!
John Isaksen
Erie Lackawanna Dining Car Preservation Society
|