HARDWOOD RECORD 



29 



faster. The burden of increased traffic was throwing too terrific a strain 

 on the materials which went into his cars — especially his freight cars. 

 A halt seemed to be Indicated. 



Then the men whose business it is to court headaches in solving trans- 

 portation problems set themselves to work in the car building shops, bent 

 en devising some way of cuffing and kicking the irremovable limit farther 

 down the avenue. They hit upon a new idea. Why not substitute steel 

 for wood in the manufacture of cars? 



Such a plan would involve the installation of costly additions to exist- 

 ing plants, would practically revolutionize the business of car construc- 

 tion. But they decided the experiment was worth making. It was made. 

 The steel car proved successful in operation, and car builders set about 

 making over their vast plants to meet new conditions. 



It was an undertaking of really herculean proportions. But when have 

 American business leaders hesitated to undertake a project merely be- 

 cause it involved mnch thought and millions of money? The far-sighted 

 builders saw that the first steel car had wrought a revolution in car 

 construction really comp.irable to the revolution in naval construction 

 brought about by the "Monitor."' Steel had been pitted against wood, 

 and steel had shown its immense superiority. 



The Pullman Company, already the greatest car manufacturing cor- 

 poration in the world, saw that the steel car had come to stay. It began 

 \o prepare itself for the new task of building steel cars — freight cars 

 first and afterward sleeping and passenger and baggage and mail coaches. 

 It secured the services of the foremost steel constructors obtainable. 

 It caused new shops to be erected at the Pullman works and added to its 

 equipment all the most modern steel working machinery. 



The Pullman standard car has always been acknowledged to be the 

 highest type of passenger car constructed. The new steel cars are now 

 turned out by the largest and most efficient single car building plant in 

 the world. 



The Pullman plant covers an area of approximately 450 acres. On this 

 vast tract there are scattered over 



100 buildings — a small city — and 



these are connected, one with an- 

 other, by 100 miles of tracks. 



The normal output of the works is 

 15 sleeping cars and 35 passenger 

 cars a week. The freight shops have 

 a capacity of 100 steel and 50 wooden 

 cars a day. 



A rolling mill is operated in con- 

 nection with the plant, having a ca- 

 pacity of 400 tons of iron of all sizes 

 a day. 



The brass foundry has a capacity 

 of 50 tons of brass castings a month. 

 Fifteen thousand men are em- 

 ployed at the present time, but when 

 the plant is being operated at full 

 capacity from 20,000 to 25,000 em- 

 ployes are on the company's pay roll. 

 You observed that the freight shops 

 have a capacity of 100 steel cars a 

 day. These cars are built in a new 

 shop recently completed and equipped 

 . with every convenience. 



The main building consists of an 

 erecting shop 1,200 feet long and 400 

 feet wide. The wheel and axle de- 

 partment occupies a separate build- 

 ing 360 feet long and 90 feet wide. 

 The power house, with its latest 

 "Parsons" type Turbo generators, is 450 feet long and 80 feet wide. All 

 these buildings are of brick, steel and concrete construction and abso- 

 lutely fireproof. Electric transmission lines, oil, air and water-pipe lines 

 are carried through the buildings in underground conduits. The ma- 

 chinery is driven by electric motors and hydraulic power, and the various 

 departments are equipped with overhead electric traveling cranes and 

 hoists. 



The idea underlying the substitution of steel for wood in the construc- 

 tion of passenger coaches is that the steel coach is much safer. The 

 designers in drawing their plans sought to combine maximum strength 

 with minimum weight. 



The Pullman standard steel underframe, which is the basis of the car. 

 i<! unique in design and is unequaltd. The central member is composed 

 of steel plates 26 inches in width, re-enforced by steel angles, forming a 

 strong center gird»r of the 'Fish-Belly" type, to which at each end" is 

 riveted the combined bolster and platform, cast of steel in one piece. The 

 side sills are 5-inch Z bars. The center and side sills are strongly con- 

 nected by four cast steel cross ties, with braces of pressed steel at in- 

 tervals. The steel roof, with joints arranged to provide amply for ex- 

 pansion and contraction, is separately built and completely finished 

 before application. 



The Pullman car works were built in 1880. At the outset only sleeping 

 and parlor cars were built, but later on the plant was extended to include 

 the building of all types of passenger and street cars as well as freight 



RESULT OF COLLISIOX AT ODESSA. 

 The dining car was driven more than one-half its length into the all- 

 steel sleeping car, sweeping the sleeping passengers in their berths to the 

 other end of the car, where most of them were found lifeless. 



cars. The Pullman name has long been a synonym for excellence in car 

 building, but the Pullman Company has never turned out cars of which 

 it had such just reason to be proud as the cars which are now being 

 manufactured in the steel car works. 



The foregoing is a story full of ' ' glittering generalities, ' ' but it is 

 verj- unconvincing. The railroad man who spends the money of his 

 company for steel cars may be required to tell why he spent it. and 

 the story is still less convincing to the average traveler in demon- 

 strating that he has any increased safety in riding in a steel car. It 

 is an advertisement, in the vernacular of the college student, that 

 may be branded as "B. S." but as it is the maiden effort of the 

 Pullman Car Company in spending any money for esploitation, per- 

 haps it will do better in future efforts. 



The advertisement states 'that the idea underlying the substitution 

 of steel for wood in the construction of passenger coaches is that 

 the steel coach is much safer. This might have been the underlying 

 *-Jea, but has it been demonstrated in actual practice? 



FIEEPKOOF QUALITIES (?) 



In much of the literature discussing steel cars, great stress is laid 

 on the fireproof qualities of steel cars. On the desk of the editor 

 of Habd-svood Record is a specimen of the strawboard material which 

 is employed in PuUman sleeping cars in lieu of the laminated wood 

 panels formerly employed. This material may not be strawboard, 

 but it bears evidence of strawboard being the base of its manufacture. 

 It is stated that many "all-steel Pullmans" are taken back to the 



Pullman plant with great fre- 

 quency to have these eeUings re- 

 placed with others, as the vibration 

 of the car has jarred and broken 

 the original installation loose from 

 its fastenings, and even disin- 

 tegrated the entire panel. If one 

 touches a lighted match to a sec- 

 tion of this material he will find 

 that it is not a fireproof or fire- 

 resisting material, but as a matter 

 of fact it is very inflammable. It 

 wiU ignite with all the ease with 

 which a bundle of white pine shav- 

 ings will take fire. 



A recent piece of literature on 

 the subject of the construction of 

 steel cars says that every portion 

 of the car is fireproof save the 

 sash, which is still made of wood, 

 as it was found that the vibration 

 of the car broke the glass when 

 steel frames were employed. Just 

 consider, if you please, the effect 

 on the human body of riding in an 

 all-steel constructed coach where the vibration is so great as to 

 shatter the glass in the car if the sash be made of metal. 



This subject of the frailty and weakness of steel cars has been 

 pretty thoroughly threshed out in these columns, and it is certain that 

 the publicity given through Hardwood Eecord, and by means of 

 the hundreds of magazines and newspapers which have republished 

 the matter in whole or in part, has been svifficient to awaken a 

 national discussion on the subject of the relative merits of the all- 

 steel type of passenger cars vs. the steel under-frame wood cars 

 previously used. 



Up to a recent date every railroad wliieh was employing steel cars 

 advertised this fact extensively, as a source of added safety and 

 comfort to its patrons, but during the past month it is very notice- 

 able that about the only railroad that stUl has the temerity to 

 exploit its all-steel passenger equipment is the Pennsylvania Company 

 and its allied lines. Of course, the Pennsylvania Company is a good 

 deal deeper in the steel car game than any other railroad, as it is 

 said to have two thousand all-steel cars in commission. It is said 

 on good authority that the New York Central line, which still has 



