Pullman Car Company

[Anonymous]

I know that Pullmas was the big boy on the block when it came to passenger cars. But I've noticed that many of the cars have Pullmans name at the top and the cars name at the bottom. Did the railroads own those cars, or where they leased out by Pullman? Thanks for the help.

Dave

[Jetrock]

They were leased out by Pullman to various railroads, primarily their sleepers. Pullman also made cars for sale to other railroads.

[wjstix]

There could be many different permutations, but generally the name in the middle of the letterboard indicated the car's owner. So if the car said "PULLMAN" in the middle of the letterboard and nothing else was on it (except a car name or number) it was owned and operated by the Pullman - that is, they owned the car, and Pullman porters worked in it. One advantage Pullman offered is a customer could ride on one car across several different railroads, since Pullman cars ran virtually everywhere at one time.

If a railroad name was in the middle of the letterboard, with a small "PULLMAN" at either end of the letterboard, it usually meant the railroad owned the car, but Pullman operated it. Even many railroads who owned sleepers found it more economical to hire Pullman to operate the car, so Pullman provided the porters, linens etc. (Pullman also operated dining cars and other cars.) This lettering scheme was very common after the Pullman cars were sold off c.1950 to the various railroads.

But...this isn't an exact science, there were many different variations, plus some roads had Pullman owned/operated cars painted in a particular railroad's paintscheme, perhaps even having a train name instead of PULLMAN in the letterboard.

[Philcal]

Pullman both operated and built sleeping cars into the 1940s, when, as a result of an anti-trust suit brought by the govt, they got out of the operating business. The sleeping car business was sold to the individual railroads. Pullman continued to build both freight and passenger cars into the 1970's. Pullman built an order of Superliner equipment for Amtrak, and then exited the passenger car business. They continued to build freight cars though.