Showing posts with label Pullman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pullman. Show all posts
Thursday, June 25, 2026
Saturday, June 20, 2026
Gary took his 9 year old grandson to Greenfield Village last Wednesday where he took his first train ride behind this beauty, DT&I Locomotive #7 the 1897 Baldwin Locomotive from the Henry Ford Museum, which is running under its own power for the first time in 83 years.
the Ford Motor Company bought the DT&I, and of course Henry Ford transformed it into one of the best managed and financially successful railroads in the country.
Ford’s reason for the purchase of the DT&I was to extend its terminating point of Flat Rock to Dearborn and use it to help supply his new sprawling complex, the Rouge Plant.
This ultimately supported Henry’s vision to have a manufacturing facility where coal, iron ore, rubber and all raw materials required to construct an automobile, would come in one end of the Rouge and a completed vehicle would roll out the other end.
To accomplish this, the rolling stock (80 locomotives, 2,800 freight and 24 passenger cars) would have to be completely rebuilt to Fords impressive standards.
A new building was constructed (the Fordson Shop) at the Rouge to facilitate the rebuild and maintenance of the new acquisition. The facility was opened in 1921 with a staff that eventually reached 475 men with the first locomotive to undergo a Ford transformation being DT&I engine Number 7.
It was completely stripped down and inspected. Anything that needed it was replaced. Aesthetics were also a part of the transformation; drive rods were draw filed and polished, exposed iron pipes were replaced with bright copper, new boiler jackets were finished in a lacquered Russian Iron and the outside of the metal tires were painted white.
The private rail car the “Fairlane” was ordered by Henry from Pullman in 1920 for 160k.
They owned and used it for 20 years, and made about 400 trips with it
Ford owned the railroad until June of 1929 when he became irritated with the intervention of the Interstate Commerce Commissions over shipping rates and other issues. The DT&I was sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad for $36 million. Besides the profits and rate advantage enjoyed during the Ford ownership he turned his initial $5 million purchase price and approximately $8 million of improvements into an impressive $23 million profit.
Number 7 was not a part of this sale
Ford owned the railroad until June of 1929 when he became irritated with the intervention of the Interstate Commerce Commissions over shipping rates and other issues. The DT&I was sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad for $36 million. Besides the profits and rate advantage enjoyed during the Ford ownership he turned his initial $5 million purchase price and approximately $8 million of improvements into an impressive $23 million profit.
Number 7 was not a part of this sale
Thank you Gary!
Saturday, June 06, 2026
you've never heard of Ike Tigrett... but he was amazing, and his grandson did something you know a bit about, he founded the Hard Rock Cafe and the House of Blues (thank you George!)
Ike's 3rd private rail car, the 50, was found by his son, and restored
Architectural Digest ran a feature on it
https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2011/10/patron-tequila-express-1927-railcar-of.html is the link to the story on the DeJoria railcar, where I had posted this photo in 2011 https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeslifestyle/2012/03/26/all-aboard-patron-billionaire-john-paul-dejorias-golden-era-railcar/
https://vimeo.com/726168299?fl=pl&fe=sh to watch the video
After 20 years of Hard Rock Cafe ownership, Tigrett sold his interest, and 4 years later he founded the House of the Blues, by partnering with Dan Ackroyd, Disney, Aerosmith, Chase and Harvard for funding
Friday, May 22, 2026
Sunday, May 03, 2026
Western Union had a timekeepers railcar to maintain the massive telegraph infrastructure that ran along railroad tracks. Starting around 1914, Western Union established specialized cars, often converted from old Pullman coaches, to serve as foreman/bunk and kitchen/dining cars for their crews.
In 1877 Western Union first received time signals via telegraph form the US. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. after hiring a clockmaker to transmit U.S. Naval Observatory time on the hour over the company’s network.
A system sent signals over the telegraph lines several minutes before each hour of the day, followed by a pause and finally a last “click” directly on the hour. Every hour, on the hour, minute hands on clocks across the nation would snap to “12”, ensuring accurate, standardized time everywhere.
Stations clocks received that signal from the railroad head quarters from the master telegraph clock, keeping station clocks on calibrated time for each time zone.
The station manager would make adjustments to the other clocks and watches as needed and document the adjustments. The traveling time piece keeper stopped to maintain the clocks to keep them oiled and running perfectly, and serviced railroad employee pocket watches as well.
Yard masters and station masters collected broken watches and got them fixed or exchanged when the Western Union timekeepers car stopped.
The station manager would make adjustments to the other clocks and watches as needed and document the adjustments. The traveling time piece keeper stopped to maintain the clocks to keep them oiled and running perfectly, and serviced railroad employee pocket watches as well.
Yard masters and station masters collected broken watches and got them fixed or exchanged when the Western Union timekeepers car stopped.
Monday, February 09, 2026
Wednesday, December 31, 2025
The end of WW2, was a situation that the military had no idea how to deal with... how to demobilize the troops, the Army had 8M men, the Navy had 3Million, and the railroads needed employees back on the job (one of my few long form reading posts if you're interested)
When WW2 ended the Army analyzed its qualifications
for discharges based on the labor needs in industrial areas, such the railroads.
50 percent of the physicians in the service did not see combat service or deal with casualties but did purely administrative work.
The end of the war drawing near seemed to evoke deep civil yearnings of the people, and to stimulate the desire to return to normal, everyday things. It awoke at the same time the darker side of their natures; they became less trusting; more inclined to doubt. Particularly they now suspected the purity of motive of the military. Reasons advanced for a position, or offered in way of an explanation, accepted without qualm in former times, were more likely to be questioned now. It was, after all, the temper of the times.
At the time of Japan's formal surrender, there were millions of idle men sitting around camps. This angered the men in the camps; it angered wives and parents; and, most assuredly, it angered Congress. It was an intolerable state of affairs, and Congress took it upon itself to determine why in the old Army phrase there were men who were "busy doing nothing."
(after this debacle, congress learned how many medical staffers were needed back in the states, but were stuck overseas with nothing medical to do, learning the nomenclature of the M1 rifle, the machine gun, the carbine, the hand grenade, close order drill, compass reading, map reading, first aid and sanitation; inspecting latrines, kitchens, and fly traps (not making any of this up, Sept 1945, congressional record) but I'm not going to repost all that, it's at the link if you want to dive into it page 131 https://d.lib.msu.edu/etd/23619)
50 percent of the physicians in the service did not see combat service or deal with casualties but did purely administrative work.
The problem became
particularly acute in early July when transportation
authorities found it necessary to move the thousands of
redeployed veterans from Europe to the United States.
Several things became quickly apparent. Either the rail roads were not sufficient to handle the vast number of servicemen or there were some monumental mistakes in scheduling, as members of the armed forces found it necessary
to wait an inordinate amount of time before they were loaded
on board a train.
Adding to an already unpleasant situation,
too, was the general crowding on the trains: extremely long
lines to the dining cars, and in the mornings and evenings,
lines to the restrooms.
Equipment was poor: lights did not
always work; seats were sometimes torn. And particularly irksome to servicemen was the discomfort of traveling
great distances without Pullman cars.
The hot July weather
did not help matters, either.
During this hot month of July a series of incidents
happened that dramatized some of the problems of redeployment - incidents that were publicized by the newspapers.
In
Memphis, for example, an irate railroad worker Carl Cannon
spotted a group of German prisoners of war traveling in
Pullman coaches. This was a newsworthy item, for there were
literally thousands of GI's home by now who had ridden miles
and miles in French box cars (the notorious 40 and 8) and
who could not understand why enemy prisoners of war in this
country did not travel in the same fashion.
Unknown to
Cannon perhaps was that these were hospital cases and psycho-
neurotics.
At any rate, he chose to call the local newspaper,
and one of the supervisors of the railroad sought to stop
him, which spoke better of the supervisor's courage than it
did of his wisdom, for Cannon was a 300 pound former athlete
and one time boxing coach of Mississippi State. Cannon said it was necessary for him to "slap down" the supervisor before he could make the call.
Within about a week's time from the incident that
happened concerning the German prisoners of war, a rather
voluble Colonel (Peter DePaulo, in a post a couple after this) in the Transportation Corps spoke out on
some of his ideas concerning the transportation of GI's.
It was far from adequate, according to him, and he was
particularly condemnatory of the railway equipment which
he classified as strictly "toonerville."
The Colonel's
statement which was picked up and spread by the newspapers
aroused national attention, and many people thought that
they recognized the Colonel's name, which may have been the
case, for Lieutenant Colonel Peter DePaolo was the winner of the 1925 Indianapolis 500.
The Army definitely did not appreciate
the Colonel's remark and quickly sped him down the road to
a rapid retirement. The Official explanation was that the
Colonel had more than the sufficient number of points to
be discharged. No explanation was given as to the actual
number of points that he possessed; however many, they
were more than enough.
Much less spectacular than any of these incidents,
but cumulatively more important perhaps were the letters
to Congressmen, phone calls and letters to newspapers, and
the private gripes of GI's that railway transportation was inferior.
Some blamed the railroads for the situation;
some, the Army, and some, the Office of Defense Transportation. The Mead Committee opened hearings to determine
just what the situation was with the railways, with the
hope of making some meaningful and constructive suggestions.
The Committee found, as had been maintained by the
ODT, that there was a shortage of labor on the railways and
tried to secure from the Army a pledge to furlough or
discharge men to work on them.
The Army was reluctant to
do this; they needed railway workers themselves during this
period of redeployment. They had already furloughed some
during the month of June, and, most of all, they did not
want to interfere with the point system.
The Committee
stressed that there were many former railway workers who
were not working on the Army's railroads and asked that
these be released. To stress the wisdom and practicality of furloughing these men, the Committee repeated the
observation of the Director of the CDT that one good railway
worker at work on the railroads was worth a hundred railway
workers in the Army. But the Army was still reluctant to
release them.
This particularly angered the Chairman of the
Committee who stated that there were a number of areas of
which he was aware (Iran for one) where railway labor
battalions were being phased out. Nor could the Chairman
‘understand, as he later told the newspapers, why American
Soldiers were used on the French railroads at a time when there was wide-spread unemployment throughout France.
There was to be sure, a shortage of all railway
cars, but the shortage of Pullman cars was particularly
acute. Undoubtedly, the wear and tear involved in
transporting hundreds of thousands of troops was probably
the most significant reason for this, but apparently there
had not been a sufficient number of them manufactured during
the war.
Burton K. Wheeler said on the floor of the Senate
that many of those that had been manufactured during the
war had been sent to South America.
Senator Scott Lucas of
Illinois reminded the Senate that the Committee to
Investigate the National Defense Program had in the past
opposed the manufacture of additional Pullman cars as a
luxury that was not in the spirit of the war. At any rate, the ODT did its part, and called for the transfer of 895
Pullmans that had been used for civilian service and ordered
the manufacture of an additional 1000 cars.
Meanwhile, back at the war Department, pressure was
mounting. For a period of several weeks, the Army had been
taking a beating in the newspapers. Thoughtful articles
such as that which appeared in the New Orleans Times
Picayune tried to be fair and understand the Army's position
but at the same time stressed the importance of having the
nation's railways operate as efficiently as possible, which
the Army could help with the release of railway workers.
The last day of July the Army finally relented and announced
that it would release 2,063 men engaged in work in railway
shop battalions, and 1,362 men involved in active railway
service in Europe would be released to work on the railroads
in the United States.
A few days later with the hope of
scurrying up more workers, Patterson wrote the Deputy Commanding General of the Army Air Force and reminded him
that the previous June the war Department had asked for the
furlough of 4000 railway workers of which the Air Force was
expected to furnish 1,755, but as of the date of the writing of the letter (Aug. 2) had only furnished 814
In view
of that, Patterson asked the Air Force to speed up its
efforts. Within two weeks of the time that the Army began
the acceleration of its efforts to discharge some men and
furlough others, the war ended. There were no further
demands on the Armed Forces to release men to work on the
nation's railways.
The debates that were conducted over the nation's
coal mines and railroads, and where to get men to work them,
were indeed acrimonious at times. Unfortunately the Army
alienated a number of the members of the Mead Committee and
much of the general public, as well as drawing the ire of
prominent Senators as well.
Edwin Johnson of Colorado
accused it of hoarding manpower;
Robert Taft said that Army
policy was blind, stupid, and stubborn.
Kenneth Wherry of
Nebraska said that the Army was deliberately keeping men in the military in order to influence Congressional policy
toward the Armed Forces.
The end of the war drawing near seemed to evoke deep civil yearnings of the people, and to stimulate the desire to return to normal, everyday things. It awoke at the same time the darker side of their natures; they became less trusting; more inclined to doubt. Particularly they now suspected the purity of motive of the military. Reasons advanced for a position, or offered in way of an explanation, accepted without qualm in former times, were more likely to be questioned now. It was, after all, the temper of the times.
Congressmen realized this, and to an
extent they were even responsible for it, but they welcomed
the opportunity it gave them to reassert the civil power over the military; to curb the ambitious officer; to demand
economy in expenditures; to question the need of personnel;
to set limits on the numbers of officers and men.
At the time of Japan's formal surrender, there were millions of idle men sitting around camps. This angered the men in the camps; it angered wives and parents; and, most assuredly, it angered Congress. It was an intolerable state of affairs, and Congress took it upon itself to determine why in the old Army phrase there were men who were "busy doing nothing."
The most vocal suspicion was that the armed forces wanted to remain large because the number of officers and the availability of promotion were dependent on the size of the armed services. The brass wanted to hang onto their jobs, which were better than anything they ever had in civilian life, and the number of officers was dependent on the size of the Army.
(I could go on, the rest of this dissertation for a doctorate of philosophy is extensively filled with facts from congressional records, newspapers, letters from soldiers, etc but I don't think it relates to my focus on vehicular stuff)
(but if you want to read about the absolute shit show the Army was engaged, get to page 123 of https://d.lib.msu.edu/etd/23619 for the info on cutting lawns with bayonets,
picking up
cigarette butts and mopping floors, clean the rifles of officer
candidates, and pick up leaves in one place and put them in
another ((Instead of getting demobilized out of the Army now that the war was OVER))page 128 the Navy shamefully wasted manpower and
equipment and spoke of transports flying from coast to coast
carrying sandbags
Keep in mind, that the German and Italian POWs were moved to the states to provide labor camp workers... I shit you not. One was in my hometown of Sidnaw Michigan. https://www.facebook.com/LostInMichigan.net/posts/the-small-town-of-sidnaw-in-the-central-western-upper-peninsula-was-home-to-one-/1230126111804201 Another was Camp Perry, I posted about that https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2025/04/one-of-ww2-merci-train-cars-is-at-camp.html
Monday, September 15, 2025
a 113-year-old Union Pacific box car that had been sinking into the ground of Cheyenne for 75 years, is getting a shot at restoration by a train nut who is also restoring a Pullman and Utah’s 1949 “Merci Car” in a workshop inside an old Atlas Missile silo site
An outfit car, sometimes called a camp car, provided housing and cooking facilities for railroad construction and maintenance workers and their families.
Thursday, October 03, 2024
After a 10-month restoration, former Lehigh & New England office car No. 100 is ready to start carrying first-class passengers for its new owner, the Everett Railroad of Pennsylvania
He stored it indoors in a former freight-car repair shop, but left it untouched from its days as an eating house, including two gaping doors torched into one side to provide patrons and waitstaff access to the main restaurant building.
https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/restored-lehigh-new-england-varnish-ready-to-roll/
Monday, March 27, 2023
this is gorgeous, thank you Terry! Richard Lawrence, retired Canadian boat builder, and former Vancouver shop teacher, spent a year and a half building this luxurious recreation of an 1890s Pullman Palace railway car
Thursday, January 05, 2023
this 1911 Pullman heavyweight passenger car was purchased in 1995 by Al Sauer, who spent 25 years completely restoring the car to its condition in the 1930s. He donated it to the Illinois Railway Museum, a volunteer owned and operated train museum, the nation's largest railway museum,
originally built in 1911 as a 12-1-1 (12-section, 1-drawing room, 1-compartment) sleeping car named Lenover.
It was generally assigned by Pullman to use on the Pennsylvania Railroad.
In 1931 it was rebuilt in Pullman's "betterment program" as a 10-3 (10-section, 3-double bedroom) sleeping car and renamed Villa Real.
The car was retired in 1950 but was used by the military between 1951 and 1953 for use carrying troops during the Korean War.
In 1953, Villa Real was sold to the Wabash as its car 4318 but was leased for use in Mexico.
It was retired in 1957 and rebuilt by the Wabash into the Decatur, Illinois wreck train foreman's car.
Later owned by the Norfolk Southern, the car was auctioned off in 1995.
Saturday, June 04, 2022
Max and Morris Grabowsky founded Grabowsky Motor Company in Michigan in 1900. the changed the name several times, to Grabowsky Power Wagon Company, then Rapid Motor Vehicle Company.
A popular myth / urban legend was that the GMC logo stood for the Grabowsky Motor Company, which didn't exist after 1904, here's why:
in 1902 Max Grabowsky sold his first truck to the American Garment Cleaning Company of Detroit.
Later that year, the Grabowsky Motor Vehicle Company was reorganized as Rapid Motor Vehicle Company in 1904
Named for the serendipitously named street their new assembly factory was located at, Rapid Street, abutting the Grand Trunk Western Railroad tracks on the south side of Pontiac, Michigan. The Rapid Street Plant was the nucleus of what would become the Pontiac West Assembly complex.
By 1904, Rapid would turn out 75 trucks from the factory in Pontiac.
During 1908, General Motors founder William C. Durant began buying up Rapid's stock and the company soon found itself being represented by GM's sales force. GM was growing quickly and brought Rapid fully under the corporate umbrella in 1909 - the year that a Rapid truck made headlines by climbing to the top of Pike's Peak.
The GMC logo - which stands for General Motors Truck Company - was first seen on trucks in 1912.
Monday, January 03, 2022
Wednesday, April 14, 2021
Nellie Bly, you might have heard of her, but until today I hadn't heard about her 'Around the World in 72 Days' book in 1890, inspired by the 1873 book Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne, and her newspaper owner, Joseph Pulitzer, needing a publicity stunt for his tabloid newspaper, the New York World.
Pulitzer, whose name now means excellence in journalism, via the prize that is awarded to the writers who do an exceptional job in journalism (I don't think bloggers get any chance, sadly) was the owner of a tabloid, and would run whatever could get sales of his paper.
He was going to send a man to challenge the 80 days story, as nearly 3 months of daily reports, from a grand adventure, would be sure to boost sales. When Nellie Bly heard of this, she insisted that she be sent instead, and threatened to do the stunt for the competition, faster than any man Pulitzer would send, if she weren't chosen.
“I approached my editor [at The World newspaper] rather timidly on the subject,” Bly said. “I was afraid that he would think the idea too wild and visionary.”
Nevertheless, she pitched traveling around the world to beat Fogg’s 80-day world record, and she hoped The World would host her. Cockerill informed her the idea had already been bandied around the newsroom and said the assignment was best suited for a male reporter who wouldn’t need to be chaperoned and wouldn’t drag along loads of suitcases.
He told her that her gender would make the trip impossible. "No one but a man can do this," he told her. "Very well," she replied, "Start the man, and I'll start the same day for some other newspaper and beat him." He eventually conceded.
She made such a convincing argument, what else could he do? but realize she was more motivated to succeed than anyone else that could be sent.
For 72 days, as she jumped cargo ships, trains, tugboats, and rickshaws, newspaper readers had been following her progress in one of the most highly publicized journeys of all time.
On November 14, 1889, she boarded a steam ship and began her 24,899-mile journey. She only had the dress she was wearing, a sturdy overcoat, several changes of underwear and a small travel bag carrying her toiletry essentials. She carried most of her money (£200 in English bank notes and gold in total as well as some American currency) in a bag tied around her neck.
To hype the story, the newspaper organized a “Nellie Bly Guessing Match” in which readers were asked to estimate Nellie Bly’s arrival time to the second, with the Grand Prize consisting at first of a free trip to Europe and, later on, spending money for the trip.
On her travels around the world by train, steamship, rickshaw, horse and donkey, Nellie Bly went through England, France (where she met Jules Verne in Amiens), Brindisi, the Suez Canal, Colombo (Ceylon), the Straits Settlements of Penang and Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan.
Verne wished her luck, saying, "If you do it in seventy-nine days, I shall applaud with both hands."
When she'd traveled nearly all the way around the world, and arrived on the California coast, in San Francisco, she was greeted with a single-car train to speed her across the country, express, all the way, without the drag of all the extra cars slowing down the locomotive and wasting coal.
When The World newspaper did not give her a raise or even a bonus for her work after she returned, she resigned from her position at the newspaper. If she was to be a product, she would ensure that nobody else was making money off her.
At the time, Bly was 26 years old, single, and one of the most famous women in the world.
She launched a paid speaking tour to promote a memoir describing her experiences during the trip. When the World acquired new owners a few years later, they wooed her back with the salary and prestige she knew she deserved.
https://www.heinzhistorycenter.org/blog/western-pennsylvania-history/nellie-bly-a-race-against-time
https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/brand-new-world-nelly-bly%27s-record-defying-travels
That's just one example of how cool she was, another is that during the strike at Pullman, Bly was the only writer to report on it, and she did so from the workers perspective.
Tuesday, February 09, 2021
Friday, January 29, 2021
Sunday, February 02, 2020
Blue Mountain Lake Museum has a beautiful Pullman once owned by New York millionaire August Belmont
https://www.theadkx.org/exhibitions-events/life-in-the-adirondacks/
Adirondack Experience, The Museum on Blue Mountain Lake (ADKX) is exploring the spirit, history, culture, and people of the Adirondack region. Life in the Adirondacks is the largest permanent exhibition on ADKX’s stunning 121-acre campus. The immersive installation combines authentic objects from ADKX’s collections—including guide boats, vintage railway cars, and a naturalist’s cabin—and interpretative materials with leading-edge digital technologies and hands-on activities. ADKX is located in Adirondack Park, the largest protected natural area in the contiguous 48 states, comprising six million acres (one fifth of New York State) of forested mountains, pristine waterways, and 105 towns and villages.
Canoes, stage coaches, a train car, a station wagon, and a snow mobile are on display and visitors may tour a private railroad station and Pullman car, with audio soundscapes, that once transported millionaires and L and N Railroad executives like August Belmont, Austin Carin, and Henry Walters.
The interior of the private railway car once owned by New York millionaire August Belmont; the car includes parlor and dining spaces, bedrooms with bathrooms, and a kitchen
https://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/adirondackmuseum
Monday, January 06, 2020
Tuesday, December 17, 2019
Railroad train stations that now operate as hotels, with sleeper cars as the rented rooms
Brussels’ Train Hostel was designed in collaboration with artist François Schuiten and the Belgian National Railway Company. Sections of retired trains were cut up and incorporated into the building itself, while the interior was decorated with memorabilia sourced from donors and local vintage markets.
The Crowne Plaza downtown Indianapolis, (aka Union Station).
https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/destinations/2018/05/01/historic-train-stations-converted-into-hotels/566277002/
https://savingplaces.org/stories/stay-on-the-sleeper-car-at-these-historic-train-stations-turned-hotels#.XflWAWRKiUk
https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/ayqsvh/hotel_i_stayed_at_was_formerly_a_train_station/
https://www.tripadvisor.ie/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g37209-d88164-i238073184-Crowne_Plaza_Indianapolis_Downtown_Union_Station-Indianapolis_Indiana.html
https://www.boutiquehotels.co.uk/guides/boutique-hotels-brilliant-themes-experiences/
https://www.booking.com/articles/europe-train-hotels.html
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