I'm a volunteer with Delaware's Wilmington and Western Railroad. We have several 1914 Pullman passenger cars which have the original Hale and Kilburn seats. They are presently covered with a kind of cane or wicker material. Several of these are in bad shape. I have experience doing cane and wicker work on furniture but am seeking help to learn about the seats and how to repair them.

Is there a web site where I can find out more about these seats? Does anyone know if the cane/wicker was the original kind of seating fabric?

On examination it appears as if the cane/wicker may be bonded to a fabric backing. Am I seeking this correctly or has time welded the cane/wicker to a separate backing material?

I really appreciate hearing from someone who knows about these seats or, even better, has successfuly done a restoration of one.

Dr. Richard,

I could be wrong, but if I remember correct, the material you are looking at is actually a Vinyl or Naugahide derivative.

If the cane pattern is flexable, but not movable, then it is what I am refering to. Also if the `cane' is breaking cleanly in 90% of the places, and not exposing a fiberous core, then it is synthetic.

Take care,

Rich C.

One of the benefits of ARM membership is that they held a seminar on this exact subject at the 2004 Convention in Ogden, Utah.

Donald Curry at Seashore pulled together all his resources and information on seat caning and did an excellent demonstration of the process.

He has assembled a nice CD with slides, source list and commentary that you can get for a check for $5.00 to cover the costs. He's donating the material and time to Seashore Trolley Museum.

Drop him an email at dgcurry@gwi.net

Seashore Trolley Museum
Seat Cane CD
P. O. Box A
Kennebunkport, ME 04046

Andy,

Thank you for the rapid response. I am really quite new at all of this and am still feeling my way into the resources that exist. I will investigate membership.

I retired last winter and didn't begin work with the railroad until July. The idea of repairing the seating did not arise until after our regular season. We've had a really rough time the past few years. We suffered several big storms that destroyed all but one of our bridges and all but 2 miles of our track. We sustained about 6 million in damage. So virtually all the money we can raise is going into infrastructure repairs.

With my background in cane/rush/wicker seating this looked like something I could do that would improve our public appearance while saving the railroad some money.

Thanks so much for the lead. I'll make the contact.

Richard

Thanks for the tip on caning the Hale & Kilborn seats. I will order a copy of the CD for the IRM Electric Car & Passenger Depts just in case they don't have it, and one for myself. Although there is always something of this nature going on, it's a good thing to have a reference on hand, because that capability can suddenly disappear! I am sorry to miss the seminar as the meeting was outside our capability this year. For your information, although the 1906 B&M car I am working on had type 97 H&K's (castings or finished seat available from the Strasburg RR), I am restoring type 197 H&K's that happened to be available, and eventually should go into our Soo Line Pullman Palace Car combination when money is available for the B&M cafe-coach replacements. We do have the overall drawings in the Pullman Library for both the fixed and walkover type 197 with mahogany arms. I have seen other, later H&K seats so there is always a chance we may have what someone may be looking for. The seat type should be visible on the seat base in case someone might need the drawings.
Ted Anderson, IRM volunteer and Pullman Library curator

Andy,

I suggest that you contact Donald Curry at the Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport, Maine. He has just done the "Year of the Seat" on their collection. It seems that there is only one loom in China that still makes transit weave cane fabric.

My own observation is that those seats were red or greed plush fabric rather than cane originally.

Ted Miles

Hi,
I'm just new to this group, and don't have any affiliation with a museum, but I do have a Hale & Kilburn seat in my collection of artefacts... when I got the seat, it looked like it had been in a barn for 50 years, the seat-bottom had been reupholstered with some sheet vinyl type material, but the back of the seat appeared to be original (or at least a very old re-uphoilsering job), It was a red plush fabric as Mr. Miles mentioned, stuffed with what appeared to be horse-hair (on top of the original springs and tin.... I really should have taken a bunch of pics as I dissassembled it!

HOpe this helps,
Pete.

I have noted rattan and mohair plush upholstery used within cars obtained on the same order. Particularly, the San Diego and Arizona obtained a baggage-coach and a couple of coaches from Pullman in 1917.

Builder's photos in the collection of CSRM show that the coaches came with cloth upholstery, probably mohair plush. The combine was delivered with Rattan upholstered seats. Probably the combine was designated for smokers and the harder rattan was less likely to burn or obsorb smoke.

My question is, which cars are you in fact talking about. The Lackawanna Booton cars were restored inside and out over the last several years with all seats being replaced with new materials with the exception of one car, the 571, which at the time was still not owned by the railroad.

410, 581 and 603 had their old and worn out rattan seats replaced by a local woman in the 1997-99 years. The only reason the 571 was not complete after is was purchase outright was due the the woman moving to Florida.

The one thing I noticed about the replacement material, was that it had a different, thinner backing and that it was prone to tear easily especially if one of the screws came loose on the botton of the seat backs (the frame that slides onto the reversable arm)

The new seats were never stained or varnished like the old ones were which I believe helped seal and protect the wicker itself. The Railroad liked the lighter color of the seats and therefor left them as delivered.

I believe that the 571 had most of the old (better condition) seats from the other 3 cars that we not sent to be redone, placed into it. I think that they also pulled out some of the seats from the "PRSL" car that were still in good shape.

First let me appologize for the great lag between when you sent your response and this reply. I thought I had set up this message so that I would be contacted when anyone repied to it. It just occurred to me today that I had not heard anything in a while so I came back to the RPNews to see if I had msssed anything. Looks like I did.

As it happens I was over to the W&W RR office today speaking with them about these seats. I learned what you had in your message. They told me of the woman who worked on the seats years ago and how she indicated that the cane material she was able to find was inferior in quality to the material she took off the older seats. There was no mention of the fact that she did not varnish the finished product but I was told that she manufactured the replacement fabric by glueing cane to canvas.

W&W has recently gone through all the coaches to gather any seats needing attention. All have been transferred to coach 571.

You seem to have some good knowledge of what took place in the past so I'd appreciate any further information you might have. If you are still volunteering with W&W I would be interested in working with you on this project.

Thank you for responding and please accept my appology for not noticing this sooner.

Richard