[5] Sleeping cars in the usa

The first passenger cars in the USA were high in proportion to their length, and were not fitted for movement upon rails. Their characteristics have gradually changed, so as to make them longer, lower, safer, more comfortable and convenient. One of the most important railroad inventions in the USA was a sleeping car. The earliest trains had no sleeping cars. There was really no need for them, because early railroads were short; the longest journeys lasted only a few hours, and nearly all trains went in the daytime. As a number of railroads increased, it became possible to make longer and longer journeys and night travel became common. Long journeys by night were very tiresome and uncomfortable because it was almost impossible for passengers to sleep in the car seats. Steamboats and sailing vessels had good sleeping rooms, and even canal boats used for passenger transportation had bunks in which travelers could rest at night. It can easily be seen that there was a real need for sleeping cars on the railroads, and especially upon the railroads of the USA, where the distance which one might travel was so large. The earliest sleeping cars had a row of double bunks on each side. Although these cars were more comfortable for night travel than the ordinary coach, they had one large defect. They could not be used for day travel. What was needed was a car in which the seats used during the day could be converted into beds at night.

George M. Pullman of Chicago invented the modern sleeping car. He built his first one in 1859. This car was much simpler in design than the sleeping cars of today but it was so much more suitable for long-distance travel than any other kind of car in use at that time. Encouraged by the success of his first car, Mr. Pullman built а much larger sleeping car a few years later, a car which was a great improvement over his first coach. This car was named the Pioneer. George Pullman received many orders for sleeping cars. In 1879 he bought the big site of land near Chicago. On this place the city of Pullman was constructed, and there the Pullman-Standard Car Manufacturing Company still has its great manufacturing plant, which is capable of producing many hundreds of all kinds of cars a year. Practically all of the sleeping cars on the USA's railroads are owned and operated by the Pullman Company.

To be read after Lesson 4