American Pullman sleepers

Bob Hall · **Joined:** Thu Jul 12, 2007 3:37 am **Posts:** 152

Can any readers advise if they know of any American Museums who have 1890s-vintage Pullman sleepers in their collection?
Also any contacts with individuals involved would be appreciated.
Cheers, Bob

Brian Norden · **Posted:** Sat Sep 25, 2010 12:59 am

I do not believe that any Pullman sleeping cars of any time during the wooden car era survived.

We recently have a report that the body of a one-time wooden sleeping car retired by Pullman and then made into a coach my a Chicago area used equipment dealer was found. If this is the case, the frame of the car (and maybe other pieces) may date back to 1869. But it does not have the interior of a sleeping car.

There may be a few officer's (business) cars that may have originated during the wooden car era. But, these have office cars -- not full sleeping cars.

There are those of us who wish one had survived.

o anderson · **Posted:** Sat Sep 25, 2010 10:31 am

I agree it may be next to impossible to find a sleeper which survived, but I am hopeful that some of the rare wood cars of this era that remain (and there are a handful) make it into a state of arrested decay, if not restoration. Some others are only good for salvage. Here are some examples in various states:

car57 · **Posted:** Sat Sep 25, 2010 10:46 am

What about wooden sleepers in general? Is there a huge gap in the sleeper survivors? We have Wagner Palace car 'OMAHA' 10 section drawing room and sleeping car here in Cheyenne which we hope to rescue at some point. There are also a couple of rare early US built Pullman cars in the UK still, anyone fancy a repatriation excercise?

Mike Pannell

Dave · **Posted:** Sat Sep 25, 2010 12:39 pm

They stand a better chance for a future in the UK unless somebody with resources has a need to repatriate them for a specific purpose.

I think we don't have many sleepers from that era because sleepers from that era were either scrapped when steel heavyweights replaced them even on the secondary lines, or converted to other uses - work train or business car being common, or sold off to shortlines for conversion to coaches or combines since shortlines mostly didn't operate sleepers of their own. I'm more interested in the changes that happened over time than in recreations of "like new" called restorations, covers a whole lot of history, technology and economics.

dave

Jim Vaitkunas · **Posted:** Sat Sep 25, 2010 1:12 pm

The Minnesota Transportation Museum has several Barney & Smith cars built in the 1800's and early 1900s. Of note to this thread is the Soo Line Valhalla (1227) which is still in it's 12-1 configuration. Unfortunately, the car has no trucks so it sits on blocking under a tarp at MTM's Jackson Street roundhouse museum. I have no idea what the plans are, if any, to restore this car. The interior is virtually intact as I recall. Here's the link to MTM's roster page on their website. http://www.mtmuseum.org/jsr/roster/

Note the other Barney & Smith cars including the 1879 St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba combine.

Barney & Smith was late getting into steel car building which was their ultimate downfall--that, and the devastating Maumee River flood in the early 'teens spelled the demise of the company.

I am unsure whether the Valhalla was later rebuilt with a Steel underframe. I believe that's the case as the car reportedly ran on the Soo into the 1930s.

Thanks!

colfaxstation · **Posted:** Sat Sep 25, 2010 9:58 pm

Update on Valhalla:
We tried to get this carbody to the Colfax Railroad Museum but were stymied by the tight exit and uphill turn out of MTM's back lot. The car requires a house moving outfit to get out the back gate and around the uphill turn. Since we're in another state, the house movers will not handle. It would have to be transferred to a flatbed to finish the trip. The extra $20,000 in moving costs put it outside our budget. The car only has a few upper berths left and a few lower seats, and is missing some curved interior walls and the mens smoking room and restroom. We have another donor car for most of the parts, except the other stained glass dome. We are now working with the folks up in Cranbrook, B.C. to get them these parts to completely finish Soo Line sleeper car Omeemee. That car has all its upper berths, but is missing lower seats and a bunch of hardware. It should end up as a complete sleeper.
Herb Sakalaucks
Colfax Railroad Museum

Gary Gray · **Posted:** Sat Sep 25, 2010 11:04 pm

Back in the late 1970's an "interesting" gentleman named Walter Loftin owned an old Pullman observation car. It was a steel sheathed wooden sleeper-observation that he had aquired from the EJ&E. It rattled around on the N&W and Southern for a while, being displayed at various local events. It was at the Appomattox RR Festival I think in 1976, and made an appearance at the old Roanoke Transportation Museum (VMT's predecessor) in 1977. For a while it was stored by the N&W at East End Shops. The last I heard of the car (maybe 30 years ago?) it had gone to some sort of former station hotel or restaurant in Pennsylvania. Back then it wasn't in bad shape, and had a very original interior. If it still exists, it would be a great catch for some museum.

car57 · **Posted:** Sun Sep 26, 2010 12:11 am

Sadly in response to the reply about the fate of the very very rare 1860's 70's Midland Pullmans in the UK, one is now totally derelict and fit only for scrap, all three were rescued in the 70's as bodies and sadly due to total dis-interest in American style cars in the UK are not being restored or cared for. No the UK is not kind to these historic cars, and none of this type survive in the USA.

Mike Pannell

Howard P. · **Posted:** Sun Sep 26, 2010 10:24 pm

Didn't Mid-Continent have an 1890s-era 12-1 wood Pullman Sleeper? I think it may have been a car exhibited by Rock Island at the 1948 Chicago Railroad Fair.

Howard P.

Brian Norden · **Posted:** Sun Sep 26, 2010 11:32 pm

I checked out the Mid-Continent website and did not find a Rock Island passenger car. But I did find Soo Line sleeping car #1210 "Rhinelander" was built by the Barney & Smith Car Co. in May 1902. The "Rhinelander" was built as a first-class, 12 section sleeper with a smoking room and a state room. Then in 1929 it was converted into a work car. Reported to now to be privately owned and used a a bunk car.

See: http://www.midcontinent.org/collectn/woodpas/soo1210.html
Photo from the website:

Also they have a Soo Line tourist car built by B&S that dates from 1903. Another car that went into work train service.
See; http://www.midcontinent.org/collectn/woodpas/soo1257.html
From the website:

Bob Hall · **Joined:** Thu Jul 12, 2007 3:37 am **Posts:** 152

Wow, thanks everyone for responding. I'm more than a little shocked that it appears none of these cars have been saved in America.
Makes my little project over here in Australia look significant on a world scale, perhaps!
My website on this project is bobhall998.fotopic.net, in case you'd care to take a look.
I haven't updated it for a while (which I must do) and unfortunately, I wasn't able to get the photos in chronological order.
Cheers, Bob

o anderson · **Posted:** Mon Sep 27, 2010 10:22 am

Howard P. wrote:

Didn't Mid-Continent have an 1890s-era 12-1 wood Pullman Sleeper? I think it may have been a car exhibited by Rock Island at the 1948 Chicago Railroad Fair.

I looked around and saw you asked the same question a couple years ago and Boyd Owens answered:

Quote:

The Rock Island car was a coach, and it is gone from Mid-Continent.

I recall seeing a complete wood car matching that description for sale in the last ten years, maybe on ebay. I think it was located along the Missisippi somewhere in MN or something like that, but that is a fuzzy memory.
http://server.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=19777&p=83673

The thread it came from had more information about wooden sleeping cars, including these Barney and Smith cars:

A sister car to the MCRM's "Rhinelander," the "Glen Flora" is in Stevens Point, WI
http://www.rypn.org/boyd/Silver%20Coach ... Coach.html

There was discussion of a 1902 sleeper which was retired in 1936, and was a body located on the Tuscola and Saginaw Bay. It is now preserved by the Clinton County Arts Council in MI. It and a B&M wood baggage car are now part of the related Clinton Northern Railway Museum.
http://clintonnorthernrailway.org/?q=node/73

Ted Anderson · **Posted:** Mon Sep 27, 2010 10:58 am

Guess I have to weigh in. There are a lot of wood Pullman cars and some sleepers but very few in the original configuration at museums or tourist operations, most of them private or business cars. The best preserved were later steel sheathed over the wood to survive virtually unscathed well into the 20th century. It was common to rebuild them even during the wood car era because a wood car, like anything else wood, takes a beating. At the Pullman Library we run into much of what was described here. A year ago we were contacted by a UK owner of two cars, one of them an American Pullman which had been shipped over in crates and reassembled there. He lost interest when I told him we have a more complete drawing set than for most wood cars, interested only in the other, non-Pullman car. We also have a floor plan on another car with only one complete wall, stored in a shed there, an unusual compartment type with a dining section. We have quite a few Australian car floor plans for both the wood and steel eras but added up the cost includes CD on top of drawing cost to make it worth while to do and ship, waiting on getting more info to Bob Hall. We are supplying quite a few of our limited drawings, only a few thousand total, compared to what must be at the Smithsonian and to a surprising number of car restorers. They are mostly collated and the drawing index is about to be released on searchable CD but not including an equal number of plan drawings of various types: floor, side elevation, ceiling and framing. There are still wood cars from different car co's out there, but those without weather protection will constantly diminish in number. It is interesting to hear the cries when another disappears but of those who dispare few with the guts to organize a group to save them. I have done my part on two wood cars, now a steel baggage car its purpose to store documents at IRM and I am sure there are others like Bob willing to take on these big tasks, with the backing to make sure the restoration has weather protection in the end or it is for naught.
Congrats to the intrepid few! Ted Anderson

Dennis Storzek · **Posted:** Mon Sep 27, 2010 2:01 pm

The main reason there are no wood Pullman sleeping cars saved is no one bothered to save one. Most of the wood sleepers still extant are from builders other than Pullman; this is because those sleepers were more likely to have been owned by the individual railroads rather than the Pullman Co., and thus available for conversion to work cars as is the case with the Barney and Smith built Rhinlander at Mid-Continent and Omemee at Cranbrook BC, both Soo Line cars, and the ex DSS&A Sault Sainte Marie at Clinton County Mi. Actually, both the Omemee and SSM skipped the work service gig, both being sold less trucks for use as houses during the depression.

http://www.crowsnest.bc.ca/soospokane/omemeestory01.html

Pullman cars were typically not owned by the railroad, and therefore all the wood Pullmans suffered a similar fate; they were first downgraded to tourist car service, then disposed of as sufficient steel cars were made surplus by the decrease of rail travel after the stock market crash in 1929. Pullman had no need for work equipment, and the railroads had more than enough surplus wood coaches to meet their needs, so the Pullman "splinter fleet" went to scrap well before WWII.

If anything was saved, it was private or business cars that were built by Pullman, because these were seldom heavily modified and tended to be regarded as special by both railroad management and the railfans. IRM has a good example in the Nevada Northern ELY, presently carrying the name NOA, given to it by it's last owner, the president of North American Car Co. This car was built by Pullman in 1889 for the Plant System, but was steel sheathed and placed on a steel underframe sometime during her service life. The car has examples of most the sleeping accommodations offered by Pullman during the wood car era.

http://www.irm.org/cgi-bin/rsearch.cgi?coaches=Nevada+Northern=10