Reviews
Pullman, America's Hotel on Wheels (DVD)
If you like well-documented, entertaining railroad-oriented DVDs, this one-hour-long presentation, plus an extra 24 minutes of bonus footage, is designed just for you.
Classic Trains magazine and filmmaker Rich Luckin, a well-known railroad historian and collector, have combined to present classic footage that tells the in-depth story of America’s fascination and support of the Pullman Car Company from its beginnings to and beyond the time it was broken up because of anti-trust laws.
George Pullman, a wealthy and ambitious entrepreneur grew the company through its many phases of start-up, pulling ahead of the competition, and initiating new, innovative ideas to keep the Pullman Co. in the black. Every night in the 1920s, 100,000 Pullman patrons were relaxing or sleeping aboard as many as 10,000 Pullman cars on various railroad lines nationwide.
A bevy of railroad historians were interviewed for this wide-ranging presentation, commenting on everything from Pullman’s initial wooden cars to steel cars to lighter-weight aluminum cars, as well as offering insights into Pullman and its employees through the years. The footage covers the Pullman worker’s strike, how the American Railway Union was organized, many Pullman innovations such as air conditioning, enclosed vestibules, air brakes and interline car exchanges with other railroads, among other advances.
The DVD also explains the reason for the 2,400 Pullman troop cars constructed during WWII, and finally how in 1947 Pullman cars were sold off to 59 different railroads. The last Pullman cars made were in 1956 for the Seaboard and Union Pacific, and they also made coaches for the Kansas City Southern in 1965 as well as other lightweight equipment later on.
— Don Heimburger, Heimburger House Publishing Co.