Pullman (car or coach)
In the United States, Pullman was used to refer to railroad sleeping cars which were built and operated on most U.S. railroads by the Pullman Company (founded by George Pullman) from 1867 to December 31, 1968.
It also refers to railway dining cars in Europe that were operated by the Pullman Company, or lounge cars operated by the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. Specifically, in Great Britain, Pullman refers to the lounge cars operated by the British Pullman Car Company.
The nickname Pullman coach was used in some European cities for the first long (four-axle) electric tramcars whose appearance resembled the Pullman railway cars and which were usually more comfortable than their predecessors. Such coaches (Russian: пульмановский вагон, tr. pul'manovsky vagon) ran in Kiev since 1907[1][2] and in Odessa since 1912.[3] Since 1920s tramcars nicknamed Pullmanwagen in German ran in Leipzig, Cologne, Frankfurt and Zürich.[4]
In some Western European countries in the 1940s and 1950s, some especially luxurious motor coaches were sometimes referred to as Auto-Pullmans.
In 1963, the luxurious Mercedes-Benz 600 was introduced, with a range including a long wheelbase version called Pullman. Later, stretched versions of regular Mercedes-Benz S-Class cars were also called Pullman.
In Greek and Italian, the word "pullman" is used to refer to a coach bus. In Greek, it would be spelled as "πούλμαν".
In Latin America, pullman may refer to a luxury bus as well as to a railroad sleeping car.
In the video game Sid Meier's Railroads!, Players can bid on the "Pullman's Palace Car" patent. This patent makes "Passengers pay an extra 25% to bask in its comfort."
See also
- Buses portal
- Pullman loaf, a type of long, square bread developed to be baked in the small kitchens of rail cars
- Starlight Express, a train musical in which two characters are modeled on a Pullman.
- Clerestory#Transportation, Railway Coach roof design following the Pullman American influence.
Notes
- ↑ Stefan Mashkevich. Pullman, the first four-axle car in Kiev
- ↑ Ю.Ю. Струк (ред.). Киевский трамвай за сорок лет (1892-1932). Киевский коммунальный трамвайный трест, 1933, p. 63 (in Russian)
- ↑ История Одесского трамвая (in Russian)
- ↑ Hans Bodmer. Das Tram in Zürich, 1928 bis 1962. p. 11 (in German)
References
- Welsh, Joe; Bill Howes (2004). Travel by Pullman: a century of service. Saint Paul, MN: MBI. ISBN 0760318573. OCLC 56634363.
- Barger, Ralph L. (1988). A Century of Pullman Cars, Volume I, Alphabetical List. Greenberg Publishing Company, Inc.
- Barger, Ralph L. (1990). A Century of Pullman Cars, Volume II, The Palace Cars. Greenberg Publishing Company, Inc.
External links
- The Pullman Project
- Canadian National Railways Sleeping Car No. 1683 St. Hyacinthe—photographs and short history of a Sleeping Car built in 1929.
- Chicago Historical Society's Pullman website
- Sleeping in Comfort: Pullman Fundamentals
- Pullman Prototypes—Pantagraph (Bloomington, IL newspaper)