ZZZ-Pass The Saturday Evening Post

 
 
With the help of Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, Maurice Zolotow, known more for his Broadway and Hollywood articles than transportation, describes how rapid transit came to define New York City in this excerpt from a 1945 article in the Post.

[See also: "The Looming Crisis in Mass Transit" from our Jul/Aug 2012 issue.]

Manhattan’s Daily Riot

March 10, 1945—Anything and everybody can happen on the subway in New York. Like the Bowery in the old song, the subway is today the place where they do strange things and they say strange things.

For the visitor, the subway is a bewildering experience. His eyes will be confused by the murky yellowish dimness. His ears will be racked by the crashing, clashing, grating cacophony of the trains grinding against the tracks, a noise that is magnified into thunderous reverberations by the low tunnels.

But millions of New Yorkers stolidly ride the subway to and from their jobs, and they travel—many of them standing up—an average of eighty minutes a day. The New Yorker would be perplexed if the noise and the mobs were to vanish.

As Mayor La Guardia puts it, “New York didn’t build the subways. The subways built New York.” Then he tells you that Queens was just a cow country until the subway system was extended there, and that suddenly the population quadrupled, real-estate values boomed, small civic centers grew up around each subway station, schools were built and paving laid, and apartment houses and stores and churches sprang up.

When the IRT [Interborough Rapid Transit], first of the New York subways, opened in 1904, New Yorkers greeted the new vehicles with a mixture of enthusiasm, curiosity, and fear. A hundred thousand passengers rode the IRT on opening day, and many uproariously traveled back and forth all day, just for sheer pleasure.

La Guardia sits in his office in City Hall and smiles gently when you ask him about crowds in the subway during rush hour. He has been a subway rider himself for a long time. He points to a wall map of New York City. The map is veined by the subway lines. The mayor leans back in his chair and darts his fingers at the map.

“Let me tell you this,” he says:

“Any time we don’t have crowding during the rush hour, there’ll be a receiver sitting in the mayor’s chair and New York will be a ghost town. Why, they talk about the rush hours and the crush and the noise! Why, listen, don’t you see that’s the proof of our life and vitality? Why—why, that is New York City.”

Manhattan’s Daily Riot The Saturday Evening Post

Getting Congressional approval in 1955 wasn’t the political miracle it would be today.  The economy was in better shape than now. Post-war America was generally more confident in its power to solve problems. Also, the project was launched by a popular, Republican president with strong bipartisan support.

Having grown up with the interstate system, it’s hard for a baby-boomer to sense just how extraordinary the idea was. A Post article of 1955, “The Case of the Obsolete Highways,” captures some of the astonishment Americans must have felt at the scope and farsightedness of the project.

During the past several weeks, millions of Americans have been jolted into recognizing the fact that, though we are several years into the Atomic Age, this country has never even caught up with the Automobile Age. The most official jolt, was delivered in the form of a White House message to the 84th Congress on the twenty-seventh of January, in which President Eisenhower asked for legislation energizing a special twenty-five-billion dollar, ten-year, highway-construction program. And, unless the new Congress is completely unrealistic, he’ll probably get it.

Now, everybody loves a highway program. Like the Girl Scouts, better schools and Christmas, the better-roads program is a continuing institution that has no enemies. So, if you are in favor of progress, you will probably favor this 25-billion-dollar investment

But wait a minute—twenty-five billion is $25,000,000,000! This astronomical outlay is almost 10 per cent of our national debt and represents about one third of our annual Federal Government income. In order to invest twenty-five billion in roads, every man, woman and child in the United States would have to contribute $150—in addition, that is, to the present, normal tax levies.

A president making such a proposal today would be asking for impeachment.

These "trunk-line highways" represent little more than one percent of our total highway mileage—but they carry 20 percent of our out-of-city-traffic.

This same twenty-five billion would pay our national bills for four months. Or, to phrase it for those who like superlatives —this projected twenty-five-billion outlay is the biggest, single-issue expense—aside from World War II—the American people have ever been asked to underwrite. The fact that the costs will be spread over a ten-year period does not detract a cipher from the total; actually, Americans are going to be asked to dig deep to pay for bills that have, in part, been accruing for a quarter of a century.

Is this project a Utopian dream-of-the-future or is the program necessary to America’s continued prosperity and, perhaps, to its very survival?

Does America really face a highway transportation crisis?… The basic reason for our highway traffic troubles can be found in three facts.

(1) In 1954 there were 58,000,000 motor vehicles registered in this country.

(2) Between 1941 and 1953 we added 39,000 miles of public roads to bring the national total to 3,348,000 miles.

(3) During that same period —1941 to 1953 —we almost doubled the vehicle-miles of travel on these roads and highways. Squeeze two cars or trucks onto a road area designed for one—and remember that many of these roads and highways were unsatisfactory even by 1941 standards— and you have a traffic problem that spells out wholesale slaughter on the highways, terrific economic waste, and possible disaster in the event of a national emergency.

It is estimated that in 1965 we will have 80,000,000 registered vehicles on our highways and that they will travel 814,000,000,000 vehicle-miles during that year.  This means that if we continue building highways at our current rate— we will have three vehicles on the same highway area that carried one vehicle during the stop-and-start year of 1941. If this comes to pass, 1965 may well be the year when we all get out and walk.

If this sounds appalling, just think of 1975—for 1955 is the year when we must start planning for our 1975 traffic. Two decades from now there will be an estimated 92,000,000 vehicles on our highways, and during that year you and your children will drive an estimated trillion vehicle-miles — or die trying.

In fact, the traffic estimate was a little low for 1965; 90,000,000 vehicles were using America’s highways. By 1975, the estimate was even farther off: there were 130 thousand vehicles instead of 92 thousand.

What sort of highways will we get if the Federal Government carries through with the ten-year, $25,000,000,000 program of refurbishing this 40,000-mile national network? A preview of these 1965 roads has already been afforded us by the best of the East’s toll turnpikes and the West Coast’s new freeways.

This new interstate road system crisscrossing the nation and weaving the urban centers together will be designed for the traffic pattern to be expected in each section: the roads will be multilane—eight, six, four and occasionally two lanes—limited-access highways with a median strip separating the traffic streams. There will be few lights or traffic signals, no sharp curves, no steep grades and, except in those urban feeder roads which will be made a part of the interstate program, there will be no intersections.

When completed, the interstate system would bring new efficiency to travel and reduce transportation costs for businesses. It would also provide an efficient road system for civil defense. But one of the biggest selling points for the Federal highway program was safety, as was noted in a 1956 Post article, “Coast To Coast Without A Stoplight in 1956.”

The fifteen year campaign to get our traffic moving is under way; with a little luck and lots of co-operation from everyone, we’ll be riding from border to border without a stop light or a traffic snarl by 1972. The Automotive Safety Foundation estimates that, during its first ten years of operation, the improved Interstate System will save 35,000 lives. Will you or your children be among that army of the repreived? If so, you can count the time and the money the new highways will save as just another dividend.

When A Big Government Solution Worked The Saturday Evening Post

The evening sun tinged the smoke a reddish-gray as it curled up from Gary’s steel mills. Indiana corn fields, ragged with last year’s stubble and damp with winter runoff, awaited spring planting. In eastern Ohio, night came on and the land went black. Blinking red crossing gates, the sodium lamps of main streets, and the window glow of farmhouses streamed past the window. 
Intermodal freight trains—double stacked with scores of shipping 
containers—rushed by the opposite way. After Toledo, I went back to my coach seat, wrapped myself in a sports coat, and slept to Pittsburgh, the bump and sway of the rails a familiar balm.

In the previous year, I’d ridden 26,000 miles on Amtrak trains, 
researching a book on the future of passenger rail. This coach seat to 
New York was a freebie earned from 
all the miles racked up on my Amtrak 
Rewards card. I could have flown, 
as most Americans do on business trips, but I wanted “train time”: the 
opportunity to unwind, read news
papers, write on my laptop, and zone out on the landscape.

Only 2 percent of Americans have ridden an intercity passenger train, 
not a surprising statistic considering the median age of the population is 
37 and American railroads gave up 
passenger trains in 1971, when Amtrak was created by Congress. Since that time, Amtrak has provided only a 
bare-bones national network, so for most Americans, a train isn’t a travel option. Finally, that may be changing.

Railroads and passenger trains are poised to expand in ways unimaginable just a few years ago. The $4-per-gallon gas crisis in 2008; the meltdown of the domestic auto industry; jammed and crumbling highways; stressed airports; a renewed focus on infrastructure 
improvements; the drive for a greener, more efficient economy; and the awarding of billions in federal stimulus dollars for high-speed trains all bode well for rail transportation. Even the big freight railroads, who own nearly all the nation’s rail infrastructure, have signaled a new cooperative attitude 
regarding passenger trains. They know that when the Great Recession is over, business will bloom again, and they’ll need government help to expand the infrastructure—not just for passenger trains, but for the intermodal trains that are surely taking market share from the trucking industry.

Warren Buffett, perhaps the country’s most respected investor and one with an expansive time horizon, sees American railroads as an industry 
with a bright future. Last fall, he and his investment company, Berkshire Hathaway, plunked down $26.7 billion to acquire Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway (BNSF), the nation’s second biggest railroad. It already owned about one-third of the company’s stock.

Buffet, the so-called Oracle of Omaha who promotes value investing, called the purchase “a huge bet on that company. It’s an all-in 
wager on the economic future of the United States.”

A rail renaissance is underway. “Last century was the 
automotive century. I think 
the 21st is fixing to be the 
railroad century,” says Gil 
Carmichael, a former federal railroad administrator and the founder of the Intermodal Transportation Institute at the University of Denver.

Making it happen will 
require investment. Since the 1960s, the nation has lost nearly half of its rail infrastructure 
as railroads consolidated, 
removed tracks, and abandoned whole routes. Still, 150,000 miles remain, and these tracks run from city center to city center.

Carmichael and others are promoting Interstate II, or the Steel Interstate, a plan to double and triple track 20,000 to 30,000 miles of existing freight right of way. The tracks would be grade 
separated—meaning intersecting roads would run under or over rather than across the tracks. Intermodal freights could run 90 mph, passenger trains up to 125 mph, and heavy coal and grain trains could go their own slow speed. Initially, power would come from 
diesel locomotives, but eventually the corridors could be electrified, getting juice from greener sources, such as wind, solar, and biomass plants. 
Nuclear power is back in the mix, too.

“No leap in technology is needed to electrify trains. We know how to do that. The right of ways are already in place—we just need to expand them,” Carmichael tells me. “Putting billions into a rail corridor program would 
create jobs and build for the future.”

Some states are already ahead of the curve in this regard. In 2006, Amtrak and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation spent $145 million to lay welded rail, put in concrete ties, straighten curves, erect an electrical 
infrastructure, and create a high-speed service on what’s known as the 
Keystone Corridor.

But nationwide, improving transportation infrastructure—whether it’s a 
rail line, a canal, an airport, or a highway—seldom comes quickly, cheaply, or without controversy. Congress created the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission to recommend where the country should concentrate its resources in 
the coming decades. At first, the 
commission wasn’t going to consider rail, reasoning there wasn’t enough data to compare it to highways.

Then, Frank Busalacchi, a commission member and head of Wisconsin’s Department of Transportation, formed a separate “passenger rail working group.” He gathered experts, held 
public hearings, and even got some commissioners to board a train. In its final report issued in early 2008, the commission called for spending $225 billion annually on infrastructure, 
including $8 billion to $9 billion each year on intercity rail.

“Those commissioners who thought trains were old fashioned got their eyes opened. When you look out 50 years with perhaps 100 million more 
citizens, it’s clear you cannot meet the transportation requirements of this country with just air travel and highways,” says Busalacchi. There has to be investment and a shift to more mass transportation by rail.

Without rail, the study estimated, the country will need nine new airports the size of Denver’s and a doubling of the current 49,000-mile interstate highway system.

At 5 a.m., the Capitol Limited dropped me and a handful of passengers in downtown Pittsburgh, where we had a two-and-half-hour wait 
before boarding the Pennsylvanian to New York. The station was chilly; food came from vending machines, and 
outside, the city was still asleep. I walked a few blocks but failed to find a restaurant for coffee and breakfast.

If I’d been in Germany or a dozen other First-World countries running 
national rail systems, my connecting train would have waited across the platform or arrived within minutes. The station would be busy with people, restaurants, and newsstands.

It used to be that way in America. We had grand terminals and the best rail system in the world, built in the 
19th and early 20th centuries by privately owned railroads that were subsidized by government through land grants, easements, legislation, and generous loans. Railroads made modern life 
possible and knitted together a disparate people and sprawling geography, said John Hankey, a historian and 
former curator of the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) Railroad Museum.

“Good transportation is that important. By nature, we ought to be five 
different countries. The reason we aren’t is the railroad,” he says.

But railroads also were monopolies, big corporations wielded by tycoons and Wall Streeters. Their errant ways and fearsome reputation lead to heavy government regulation. When automobiles and cheap oil came along, federal and state governments saw no need to help the private railroads. Instead, they poured billions into subsidizing roads.

The decline in train ridership was well underway by World War II, 
when military research and development in aviation—again funded by government—led to the emergence of commercial aviation. But the stake 
in the heart of the privately run 
passenger train was the interstate highway system. Those wide, concrete swaths with nary an intersection or stoplight beckoned us to hit the roads in tens of millions of gas guzzlers churned out by Detroit.

For the average American, cars 
versus trains became a simple process of substitution, even an expression of freedom. No longer captive to a big 
organization like the railroad, we could go where we wanted, when we wanted.

“We’re Americans. We don’t like to be restricted. We embraced the automobile. It would have been denying our nature not to,” Hankey says.

At the time, trains seemed passé, 
a relic of another age. Abandoned 
by passengers, their freight business 
decimated by trucking, railroads 
were in terrible shape. In 1970, the 
nation’s largest railroad company, 
the Penn Central, went bankrupt and shook the country’s financial system. Other railroads would follow unless government acted.

To avoid nationalizing the industry, Congress came up with Amtrak, an 
entity that would relieve the railroads of their passenger trains. In return, the railroads agreed to give Amtrak priority over their routes, but even today 
passenger trains frequently are shunted to sidings to make way for freights. Sometimes, it’s because there’s just one track and not enough room for all the traffic out there. No surprise then that Amtrak has a long history of poor time performance and marginal service on shared right of ways.

The problems really go back to the beginning, when Congress gave Amtrak two mandates—run a nationwide 
system and create efficiencies that would turn a profit. Amtrak has never made a profit, and in its 39-year history has lurched from one financial crisis to another. To stay solvent, it’s needed about a billion dollars a year in subsidy.

In terms of government dollars going into the transportation modes, that’s 
a drop in the bucket. But more importantly, profitability of passenger trains was a ridiculous notion to begin with, says William Withuhn, former curator of Transportation at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

“We’ve been hearing since 1971 that if Amtrak was reformed, got new equipment, or got rid of certain trains and routes, it would make a profit. It’s all a crock,” he says. “Passenger trains do not make a profit. Neither do roads or airports. That’s not the purpose of transportation. It’s national cohesion; it’s about moving people where they need to be. The reason America doesn’t have a world-class passenger rail 
transportation system is because it hasn’t paid for it.”

When the Pennsylvanian left 
Pittsburgh shortly after dawn, it took nearly five hours to reach Harrisburg 
(2 hours longer than driving the Pennsylvania Turnpike), but finally I had breakfast and a couple of newspapers to read. And for the first time, I traveled over the famous Horseshoe curve near Altoona, which was built in the 1850s to climb the Alleghenies. At the state capital, the Pennsylvanian switched out its diesel for an electrical locomotive, shook off the doldrums and cranked up to 100 mph. It wasn’t like the TGV I’d ridden in France, but it was a fast train—a demonstration of what can happen with investment. Trains aren’t just rapid but regular on this corridor—14 times daily each way—and frequency is what builds ridership. It’s the mantra I heard from rail experts everywhere—dependable, frequent, and fast service on corridors 100 to 500 miles long 
(distances too close to fly and too 
inconvenient to drive) are the sweet spots for rail.

Like Pennsylvania, a few state DOTs subsidize Amtrak service between their major cities, even going as far to 
purchase their own trains 
because Amtrak is too cash strapped to provide equipment. Washington has put $100 million into the Amtrak Cascades corridor between Portland and Seattle. Wisconsin subsidizes the Hiawatha service between Milwaukee and Chicago and plans an 
extension to Madison. Illinois will soon have 110-mph-Amtrak service between Springfield and St. Louis.

California’s efforts dwarf all others. In the past 20 years, it has invested $2.2 billion in corridor trains and created a network of feeder buses and light rail that extends Amtrak 
service to 80 percent of its residents. In January 2010, it received $2 billion of stimulus money to begin building a 200-mph-train from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Florida received $1.25 billion for a high-speed train from Tampa to Orlando. Both will run on new right of ways separate from Amtrak and the freight railroads. If these investments between the states and federal government continue, America may see its first true bullet train in 10 years and an Amtrak system that fulfills its promise. There may even be an Interstate II.

In Philadelphia, I switched to the Acela, currently America’s fastest train. Capable of 200 mph, the Acela averages just 80 mph on the Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington, 
D.C., because of curves, a patchwork electrical system, and tunnels that go back to the Civil War. The corridor 
infrastructure needs billions in rehabilitation to make it truly high-speed.

Still, more than 100 trains move along it each day, and Amtrak captures half of the air/rail market between the big East Coast cities where trains never went entirely out of fashion.

My Acela crossed the Delaware River into New Jersey, ran through the gritty streets of Trenton, and blew by the auto traffic on I-95. In the Meadowlands, the Manhattan skyline and a bright, full moon rose up on the horizon.

It took 22 hours to cover the 900 miles from Chicago. In the 1930s, the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Broadway Limited did the same run from Chicago to New York in 16 hours. And it didn’t arrive at a charmless, utilitarian Penn Station complex, but at Pennsylvania Station, a gem of Beaux-Arts style 
architecture, and truly one of the great buildings of New York.

They tore it down in 1964 in the name of urban renewal, another 
casualty of a country that allowed its passenger rail system to go to seed.

As the preservationists said then of Pennsylvania Station—never again.

Waiting on a Train The Saturday Evening Post

This photograph, by Gus Pasquarella, freezes the catastrophe that took place 295 feet above Lakehurst Air Station, amid the piney flatlands near the Jersey shore.

The time is 7:25 PM, daylight savings time, May 6, 1937. By 7:26, the Hindenburg was lying on the ground, a sagging framework of glowing steel. This single minute was crowded with tragedy, luck, and instinctive heroism.

The explosion was muffled under the mass of the dirigible so that several seconds passed before passenger realized what had happened. Several leapt to their deaths. Others waited while the dirigible slowly lost altitude, then jumped. Many of these survived the fall and began running to safety before the dirigible frame could land on top of them. Others were crushed. And others, too close to the descending inferno, were vaporized by the intense heat. Yet 62 of the 97 people aboard managed to survive the fall and the fire.

The photograph has become an icon of tragedy. Instantly recognizable, it speaks to us of the imminence and awful majesty of unimaginable disaster. It shocked Americans when it was released the following day. The horror it evoked effectively ended commercial travel by dirigible in the US and other nations. (It helped that international airplane service had begun. It was noisy and crowded, but faster and, Americans assumed, safer.)

Images of the flaming airship also had political implications. Hitler had been proud of this massive symbol of German might. The Hindenburg was a valuable tool for propaganda. In its previous ten trips to the United States, it had enabled the German Reich to fly the swastika in stately elegance in the skies over New York, and to defy the American government. Roosevelt had banned the sale of Helium to Germany out of fear it would be used for military purposes. But the German engineers had constructed an airship that used Hydrogen.

But hydrogen is extremely flammable. In a Post article, historian John Toland described how careful the German crew had been:

“The Germans were proud of their precautions.   All matches and lighters had been confiscated when passengers boarded at Frankfort.  As a further safety measure, the three catwalks, including the main one, which ran along the very bottom of the ship from bow to stern, were covered with rubber.  Those treading the narrow ‘sidewalks’ wore sneakers or felt boots to prevent static or sparks.  Crewmen who went topside between the billowing gas cells wore asbestos suits free of buttons or metal.
“And the four 1100-horsepower Diesel engines that drove the ship at a dead air speed of 84 miles an hour required no ignition.  They used a crude oil with a flash point so low that it wouldn’t burn even if a flaming match was tossed into the tank.”

But all the precautions and all the efficiency couldn’t protect the Hindenburg, or its passengers.

While the crash ended any hope for dirigible travel, the photograph produced an even greater effect; it introduced America to modern journalism. They recognized that this photograph conveyed the tragedy better than the best journalists’ efforts.  It was dreadful but it was fascinating, and it raised Americans’ expectations for greater detail and objectivity.

In addition to this photograph there was the recording of radio announcer Herbert Morrison, who was covering the event for radio station WLS in Chicago. His frantic, anguished reporting is often played in synch with motion picture footage shot at the time. However, he was recording the event onto a phonograph record, which the station intended to play the next day for an evening news program.

Toland describes Morrison’s preparations for the Hindenburg’s arrival.

“Inside a little building attached to the west side of the dirigible hanger, Herbert Morrison, an announcer from Station WLS, Chicago, checked over last minute adjustments with his engineer, Charlie Nehlsen.  They were to make a recording of the year’s first transatlantic-flight landing… and Nehlsen had just finished setting up his portable recorder.

“As the Hindenburg floated [into sight], Morrison, a small, lantern-jawed man of about 120 pounds, called out, ‘Charlie, I’m going out for the recording.’  He left the building, which also housed the Navy’s radio station, walked onto the field and began talking into his hand microphone.

“Morrison had just announced that this was Captain Pruss’ first command – though actually it was the tenth time Pruss had captained the Hindenburg on a transatlantic flight.  ‘Passengers are looking out the windows, waving.’  Morrison went on.  ‘The ship is standing still now.’

“There was now a strange quiet.  The Hindenburg’s engines were turning over slowly, silently.  ‘The vast motors,’ Morrison said, ‘are just holding it, just enough to keep it from —’

“He stopped short.  It was exactly 7:25 p.m.

The noise of the explosion was muffled to those directly beneath it, but it was strong enough to knock the whitewash from the ceiling of the room where the engineer was recording Morrison’s report. Nehlsen wiped off the record without stopping it and signaled Morrison to keep talking.

“To Morrison, it looked as though everyone on the ship and most of the ground crew would be killed instantly.  ‘It’s bursting into flames and falling on the mooring mast!’ he shouted desperately.  Tiny figures seemed to be catapulted from the dirigible, and fell.  ‘This is terrible!’  Morrison cried,  ‘This is one of the worst catastrophes in the world!’  His agonized voice trailed off into incoherence.  He turned desperately toward Nehlsen, who was watching from the window.
“The engineer gave the OK signal, ‘Keep going,’ he said in pantomime.
“’Oh, the humanity and all the passengers!’  Morrison broke into sobs.  ‘I told you —- It’s a mass of smoking wreckage!  Honest, I can hardly breathe!’  Again, he looked at Nehlsen; again Nehlsen nodded encouragement.”
“’I’m going to step inside where I can’t see it!’  Morrison said, ‘It’s terrible!  I—I—folks, I’m going to have to stop for a moment because I’ve lost my voice!  This is the worst thing I’ve ever witnessed!’

“Never had a disaster hit with the impact of the Hindenburg explosion.  Never before had photographers and newsreelmen been present to record a major tragedy, and within hours shocking pictures of the fire were wired all over the world.  By noon the next day, newsreel extras of the catastrophe were being shown in theaters along Broadway.  It was a rare showing which wasn’t punctuated by screams from the audience.

In a more ordered world, the public was protected from the direct impact of news. There were hours of intervening calm, as well as banks of editors who removed  the shock and hysteria from a reporter’s copy. The story would appear the next morning, set in cold type and couched in serious, thoughtful tones.

But Morrison’s report gave America a taste of what modern media — with its immediate and detailed reporting— would bring. It introduced the sound of emotional turmoil, the hysterical frustration of impotently watching a disaster. It was a feeling most Americans experienced on September 11, 2001.

As newspapers, then motion pictures, then television brought viewers closer to the instant and location of catastrophes, we sometimes feel the need, as did Morrison, to “step inside where I cannot see it.”

Read “Terror in the Twilight”[PDF].

“I’m Going To Step Inside Where I Cannot See It” The Saturday Evening Post

The date is more than just a turning point in railroad history. The appearance of the Pullman sleeper car wrought changes affecting American business, social class, labor unions, and race relations over the years.

1858:
George Pullman was inspired to build a rail car with sleeping berths after making a miserable overnight journey across New York state in a make-shift sleeping car.

1862:
He formed the Pullman Palace Car Company to build railroad cars in which berths would fold down from the roof at night. During the day, the berths were stowed above, not unlike overhead storage in modern airplanes, and passengers sat in comfortably upholstered seats, enjoying the luxury of wash rooms, chandelier lights, thick carpeting, and heating stoves.

1865:
Public acceptance developed slowly. The Pullman coach received much favorable publicity after Mrs. Lincoln chose a Pullman car to transport her husband’s body back to Springfield.

From June 23, 1866, issue of the Post.

1866:
The Saturday Evening Post noted in its June 23 issue, “Mr. Pullman, the projector of the sleeping-car improvement in railroad traveling, has just placed on some of the western roads new cars, with conveniences, luxuries, and ornamentation quite in advance of anything yet produced. A novel arrangement of the trucks [wheel assemblies] secures such a steadiness of motion that writing is as easily done as in a home library, and tables are provided for this purpose. One car, the ‘Omaha,’ is furnished with an organ.”

1870:
A Post writer, writing on a trip “Homeward from the Pacific Coast” made an observation about that organ. “We took our place in the luxuriant ‘Pullman Palace.’ There was a parlor organ on board, a poor wheezy out of tune thing, but as we were in the realms of sage brush and alkali again, we managed to make it serve for the getting up of quite a Sunday afternoon concert. What mellifluous sounds were wafted out upon the desert air only those on board that train can tell, but finally the most energetic of our singers were forced to desist because two refractory keys of the upper bank would insist upon singing out above all else, even when not requested to do so by touch of hand.”

1872:
By this year, the Pullman company had 800 cars running on rail lines covering 30,000 miles of country. Pullman continued to introduce luxuries to his cars, including thick carpeting, dark wood interiors, and reclining seats.

1881:
The first Pullman employee moves into Pullman, Illinois, a town owned and operated by the company. In its time, Pullman was hailed as the ultimate, enlightened community for workers. It offered employees clean, well-lit housing with indoor plumbing, gas, sewers, stores, and theaters. The rent was higher than average, but the quality of housing was generally better than in surrounding neighborhoods. The higher living standard came with another price, though. George Pullman maintained absolute control on all organization, events, and publications in his town. He also required all employees—about 3,500 eventually—to live in the company town and follow its rules.

1885:
The April 25th Post marveled at the cost of Pullman luxury:

“Few persons, as they see one of the fast express trains go by, are aware of the value of such a train. What is known as the Royal Limited Express over the Pennsylvania road, as the train is ordinarily made up, represents over $120,000. This is a rather low estimate of one of the fast expresses. Some of the palace cars are worth $18,000 and Pullman palace cars occasionally run that cost in the neighborhood of $30,000.” (That’s the equivalent of $700,000 in 2009 currency.)

1893:
In response to the depression in this year, The Pullman Palace Car Company cut employees’ wages, but didn’t drop the rent it charged employees. When Pullman workers went out on strike, union workers across the nation added their support by walking off their jobs, effectively halting rail traffic. Meanwhile, at the Pullman factory, the strike led to property damage and fights with strike-breaking employees. Ultimately, the Pullman company convinced Washington that the strike was a threat to public safety and interstate commerce. President Cleveland sent in federal troops and forcibly ended the strike in favor of management. The strike leaders were arrested, tried, and sentenced.

1894:
Yet American opinion was not wholly supportive of the government’s actions. A national commission investigated working conditions at Pullman and concluded that the forced community for employees was “unAmerican.” The state Supreme Court eventually ordered Pullman to sell its company town and end its control over worker’s lives.

1935:
The American Federation of Labor broke with its own tradition to recognize the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, a union of black Americans who serviced the Pullman coaches. For many years, the Pullman Company was the largest employer of black Americans. Black porters on sleeping cars attended passengers’ needs, made up beds, and polished shoes. It was menial work, but it offered one of the few avenues to something like middle-class life to male black Americans.

1940:
The U.S. Department of Justice brought an anti-trust suit against Pullman. It claimed that being the chief manufacturer of passenger cars and the sole agent for tickets on these cars made Pullman a monopoly. The court ordered the Pullman Company to create two separate businesses for manufacturing and passenger-traffic.

1941:
A. Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, announced to President Roosevelt that he was planning to march on Washington with members of his union and the NAACP—just as the country was struggling to prepare for war. In return for calling off the march, Randolph obtained Roosevelt’s promise to outlaw discrimination on defense-contract work and to pass the Fair Employment Act. (In 1949, Randolph pressured Harry Truman to officially end segregation within the military.)

“Pullman Hotel” by Ralph Wallace, October 16, 1943.

1943:
The reverses handed to the Pullman company were not so great that it couldn’t thrive during the war years. As a 1943 Post article relates:

“Pullman’s original pool of sleeping cars has mushroomed to a fleet of more than 7,000 perambulating hotels which last year grossed better than $113,000,000. It is units of this highly mobile pool, distributed to the different railroads to meet hour-by-hour needs, which makes possible the efficient handling of close to 75,000 passengers a day.” Today, the American Transportation Authority estimates that the number of airline passengers, in a single day, can reach 2,000,000.

As late as the 1980s, the Pullman Company was still manufacturing passenger cars for commuter trains. Ultimately, various divisions of the company were sold off to other businesses. Part of the operations, for example, are now part of the Halliburton, while other parts have been subsumed by Halliburton’s chief rival, Washington Group International.

Having weathered the shrinking passenger car industry, the Pullman Company was purchased by Tenneco, and is now in the equally challenged business of manufacturing auto parts.

Pullman Car The Saturday Evening Post

America’s longtime love affair with the big car hit a pothole last summer, when skyrocketing gas prices pushed more and more drivers toward smaller vehicles. As the price of gasoline plummeted in the fall, car dealers wondered whether the country’s rediscovered interest in fuel economy and mpg ratings would remain strong.

If gasoline is not $4 a gallon — or even $3 a gallon — is it still important to trade in your gas-guzzling wheels for something more economical? For many, the answer is still yes. Industry experts say the price of gas is likely to be all over the chart in the coming months and years, so there’s no telling when it might climb back up to uncomfortable levels. Just as important, anyone considering unloading a less economical vehicle will find that it’s not an easy deal to make when gas prices are at their peak. A time when “rightsizing” your car feels not quite as urgent may actually be the best time to do so.

Fred Rozell, retail pricing director for the Oil Price Information Service, was not surprised to see the price of gasoline crash this past fall. “We’ve been forecasting this for a while,” he says. “When it was $4, people never thought it would be under $3 again. What we’re going to see over the next few years is great volatility in fuel prices.”

Car dealers have definitely seen more interest in fuel-efficient choices, says Paul Taylor, chief economist with the National Automobile Dealers Association. “Overall, the small-car category is up 6.2 percent year-to-date,” he says. There’s also a lot of interest in crossover utility vehicles, those models that in some ways resemble gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles but are based on car chassis and, therefore, get better mileage.

“The sweet spot has been the crossover utility vehicle space,” he says. “Sales of crossovers has reached nearly 3 million in yearly volume.” Earlier this decade, people bought about that many SUVs in a year, but that volume is down by about a third now.

Why don’t more people rightsize their wheels? Some have tried but have found that their gas-guzzling trade-in is no longer worth enough to make a deal feasible, with a trade-in value far lower than the amount needed to pay off the loan. That situation may be on the mend, Taylor says, with gas prices in retreat. For example, while high gas prices resulted in lower SUV trade-in values, every dollar that the price of gas drops can add back as much as $2,000 to the trade-in value of a relatively new SUV, he says.

Of course, a lot of people who drive gas guzzlers have an all-American aversion to deprivation. They don’t want to give up the benefits of the wheels they love. But the reality is that achieving better gas mileage needn’t demand sacrifice when it comes to comfort and luxury. There are plenty of moves you can make that preserve what you love the most about your less economical car, while offering significant relief at the pump. Following are some possibilities, with fuel economy statistics courtesy of the federal government (check out fueleconomy.gov to see how your vehicle compares with others).

Escaping From Your Grand Cherokee

So you love driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee, but cringe when you pull up to the pump. No wonder. Its city/highway combined mileage is 15 mpg. Even at the more reasonable place where gas prices arrived in October, a 2009 four-wheel-drive Grand Cherokee with a 5.7-liter gasoline engine cost $4.43 to propel 25 miles. Now consider how much your wallet would appreciate a switch to a 2009 four-wheel-drive Ford Escape Hybrid. We’re still talking SUV here, but the combined mileage is nearly double, at 28 mpg. Driving 25 miles in this vehicle costs just $2.38, and the average owner would pay $1,238 less per year to keep the tank filled. The planet benefits, too: the Ford emits 6.6 tons of carbon dioxide over the course of a year, while the Jeep churns out 12.2. If you’d rather stick with a gasoline-burner, you could opt for a Pontiac Vibe crossover utility vehicle. Order it with a five-speed manual transmission and your mileage will be 24, your cost per 25 miles will be $2.77, and your carbon footprint will be 7.7 tons.

From One Flagship to Another

For a luxury ride, it’s hard to beat the Audi A8 L, with a 12-cylinder engine and a raft of amenities. But it’ll cost you at the pump — $4.88 per 25 miles — partly because it requires premium fuel and partly because its combined city/highway fuel economy is 15 mpg. On one hand, the flagship Kia Amanti is no Audi, but it does have leather seats, an Infinity sound system, a V-6 that delivers 264 horsepower, and fuel economy of 19 using regular unleaded. Make this switch and you’ll save $832 a year on fuel, and reduce your carbon emissions by about a quarter.

Gotta Have a Camry

It’s among the world’s most popular cars, and with gas mileage of 23, the Camry outfitted with a 3.5-liter engine is not too bad at the pump. But you can do even better, without sacrificing anything on amenities. Just swap it for a Camry Hybrid, watch your fuel economy jump to 34, save an average of $563 per year, and cut your annual CO2 emission from 8.0 tons to 5.4.

Another Kind of Gas

For fuel economy, the standard Honda Civic is a great option, with an average combined city/highway economy of 29 miles per gallon and an average annual bill of $1,377. Not bad at all. Honda also makes a version of the Civic that runs on compressed natural gas, which has lower carbon emissions and an average annual fuel bill that’s nearly identical, at $1,366. You’ll do best with the hybrid Civic, though, with its gas mileage of 42 and annual fuel bill of $950.

Midsize Makeover

The Dodge Avenger is a decent choice when it comes to economy, averaging 20 mpg, which translates into an annual average fuel cost of $1,995. But you’ll get just about the same interior room and even more trunk space in the Hyundai Elantra, along with fuel economy of 28 mpg. Trade in for an Elantra and you’ll save $571 per year in fuel costs, and put out 6.6 tons of CO2 annually, compared with 9.2 from the Dodge.
Keep on Truckin’

Pickups have been popular for years, not just on the farm but in suburbia. High gas prices have driven some people away from their pickups, but others have found ways to economize. If you drive a four-wheel-drive Chevy Silverado with a 6.2-liter engine, you’re looking at an annual fuel cost of $2,849. Trade it in for a Silverado 15 Hybrid 4WD and your mileage will jump from 14 to 20, while your average annual cost will drop by $854. The planet will appreciate the 3.9 fewer tons of carbon dioxide emitted by your hybrid every year.
Totally Electric and Sporty

Everyone loves the Ford Mustang, and the current models are just as cool as those from the late 1960s. You’ll pay $4.58 to drive this classic 25 miles, using the premium gas that’s recommended for maximum performance. Or, you could really turn heads behind the wheel of an all-electric Tesla Roadster. This is every bit as sporty — and powerful, too — able to accelerate from zero to 60 in 3.9 seconds. You’ll go 244 miles on a full charge, but the best part is that the same 25 miles you paid $4.58 to drive in your Mustang will cost you just 85 cents worth of electricity in your Tesla, built by California-based Tesla Motors. That’s an average annual savings of $2,239. And there’s no carbon emission at all, compared with 11.4 tons per year from the Mustang.

The Ethanol Option

There are pluses and minuses associated with ethanol-based fuels. On the positive side, your car will pump out a lot less carbon if it’s burning E85 gasoline, which is mostly ethanol. But doing so cuts your fuel economy, and it can cost more, too; so if you’re looking to pocket some savings, you may be disappointed. Consider the Chevrolet Impala flex-fuel version that lets you take your pick between fuels. Fill it with gasoline and you’ll be generating 8.0 tons of CO2 per year, compared with 6.5 if you burn E85 instead. But your annual fuel cost using E85 will be $2,884, compared with $1,736 for gasoline.

So, will American interest in rightsizing vehicles continue, with gas prices lower? The jury is still out. As Rozell with the Oil Price Information Service notes, “When the price was $1 a gallon, people didn’t give miles per gallon a thought. When it got to $1.75, people were screaming, but it was still more of an inconvenience. When it moved to $3 and $4, it was on their minds.”

Rightsize Your Car The Saturday Evening Post