In my experience Filipinos were assigned to Pullman cars which were equipped for limited food/beverage service but also had part of the car devoted to sleeping accomodations. When such cars were staffed with only one attendant, that individual had to do two jobs, sell food and drink as well as act as porter for the sleeping accomodations. I always assumed that African-Americans were never allowed to hold jobs which required handling money, and whites were never employed as porters, hence the use of Filipinos on such cars.

Pete Schmidt

I set up an exhibit on Pullman Porters and dining car crews for several years in the late 1990s at the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis. There are several books I would recommend for anyone trying to do the same. Here are a few (I'm not near my files at the moment):

A Long Hard Journey: The Story of the Pullman Porter
by Pat McKissack, Fredrick McKissack – 1989 –juvenile book

Pullman porters and the rise of protest politics in Black America, 1925-1945, by Beth Tompkins Bates

The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters: Its Origin and Development By Brailsford Reese Brazeal- 1946 - the best overall history still

Brotherhoods of Color, by Eric Arnesen, covers many unions involved with black railroaders, including several for dining car crews, a recent book.

Marching Together, Women of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, by Melinda Chateauvert, another part of the story.

Here's another source which may be helpful.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/325 ... eum01.html

Sloan

There is a very well written book-Brotherhoods of Color which documents the struggles of African Americans in their rise in the ranks of railroaders. They suffered alternately at the hands of management and the white unions-management using them as a check on the power of unions such as the BRT, BLE and BLF&E. I don't recall the author at the moment, but it is a release from the Indiana University Press.