Without starting a debate, interested to know mainly 1) if and where velvet fabric matching the patterns in the pictures below might be currently purchased?

These fabrics are from an armrest and seat upholstery on a Pullman Sleeper. The pictures are not at the same magnification, see the figure comments for the pattern sizes. It is unclear to me if the fabric is from the 1940's or later. Sleeper last used on Santa Fe. Background color possibly could be considered a blue (with slight green tint) with nearly black contrasting pattern.

Related questions might be 2) what is the pattern name and/or identification and 3) any good or bad experience (for preferably successful) cleaning of this type of older fabric?

You may want to start at the Newberry Library in Chicago. They probably have the equipment data cards for your specific car. It has lots of data on all features of the car. They may also have specifications for various fabrics. Can you tell us more about the project, what the specific car is, and where it is located?

At one time railroad upholstery was made using Mohair. Mohair is the fleece from goats. Apparently making a more durable material than wool from from sheep.

I don't know for how long Mohair was used for railroad upholstery purposes.

If you are interested in the original construction specifications for your car there is a possible source. In some cases the Illinois RR Museum Pullman Library can provide a copy of these. You will have to tell them the Pullman Lot (order) number. There may also be a fee.

Mohair velvet (doesn't have any pattern, so will show dust and sweater fuzz something awful - not what Pullman used) upholstery fabric at $83 / running yard (54" wide):
https://www.decorativefabricsdirect.com/Mohair-Fabric-s/561.htm

More info, and a vendor (special order only):
https://www.greenhousefabrics.com/blog/what-mohair-0







- Doug Debs

Western Railway Museum purchased mohair fabric to restore Sacramento Northern interurban 1005.

We purchased it from Arc-Com.

They have local representatives, above URL is for corporate headquarters.

I would add that upholstery fabric in the pictures I uploaded is not original to the car. I would be just guessing to say anything beyond that fabric in the pictures is different than the original. Possibly this is a fabric Pullman used at a later time period, or ATSF replaced it, or someone else?

The original upholstery was possibly Pullman Pattern 1315-84 but I doubt there is much if any of that remaining on the seats. For the moment just trying to consider if replacement of fabric on a few items is possible (replacing everything I expect would be very expensive).

The Australian-built Pullman sleeper we're restoring in Canberra had white (or cream) mohair upholstery.
From what I've been able to find, the NSW Railways used it on their sleepers starting with the American-built (but Australian-upholstered) Pullmans imported in 1891.
It was sometimes referred to as "American cloth."
When the Mann-style steel TAM sleepers were introduced in 1913, they were still fitted out with mohair and that appeared to be the case until around 1920, when leather started to replace the mohair.
As others have said, mohair was found to be exceedingly well wearing and the nature of the fibre repelled dirt.
The question of why a railway would use such a light colour has not been definitively justified by the NSWR, but I believe it was that infectious diseases in those times had to be very strongly guarded against and indeed I have instructions issued at the time on the methods of fumigating any carriages found to have carried a passenger with such diseases.
Thus, I believe white was chosen because it would show up any nasty marks, which may otherwise have gone undetected with a darker colour.
The fact that this practice continued for some 30 years says to me that it worked.
Regarding the purchase of mohair fabric, I did considerable research several years ago.
I had great difficulties tracking down white mohair. In fact, the only company who could do it were Schumachers of New York. However, the minimum run quantity was about 3 times more than we needed and the cost was about $75,000!
Needless to say, we didn't go down that path. Coincidentally, I'm expecting the first couple of cushions to be finished by our upholsterer in the next few days, but it's with a synthetic velvet, unfortunately.
One word of warning. I found in internet research, there were many cloths advertised as "mohair", but on deeper analysis they were actually synthetics masquerading as mohair.
Our friend in China were usually the main culprit.....
Cheers, Bob

Under several of my seats purchased for my 1887 car are scraps of the original material, so check that carefully you may be surprised.

Mike P

Believe me, Mike, I tried that. There was not a skerrick of old material to be found.
Those upholsterers were far too efficient for my liking!
Cheers, Bob

Years ago, I realized that Pullman used upholstery material (maybe reused) to make a weather seal on the bottom edge of the wooden window sash. It was very interesting to take a strip that looked black from road grime, etc. and clean it with plain water; then find it turning green with an upholstery pattern.