Travel by Pullman: A Century of Service

by Joe Welsch and Bill Howes

At the height of its popularity in the 1910s and 1920s, Pullman carried more than 35 million passengers annually on a fleet of 9,000-plus sleeping and parlor cars from Puget Sound to Key West and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0760318573
• ISBN13: 9780760318577
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: Motorbooks International
• Length: 156 Pages
• Weight: 2.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 10.3" x 10.3"

Customer Reviews

Best single book ever written on the Pullman Company

This book is an operating history of one of the world's most significant, complex and least understood railroad transportation companies. It is not another book about Pullman's wonderful Pullman porters who are already the subject of numerous other books. To put it another way, in 1920 the Pullman operating company employed roughly 23,000 employees, among them were 7,200 Pullman porters - this books tells the story of the porters and those other 15,800 employees who have been ignored in every other book on Pullman. It also explains most other aspects of how Pullman operated as a provider of first class rail service. Something no other book has done. Until this book arrived on the scene understanding what Pullman actually did as a company and how it worked was virtually impossible. Now that it exists, it puts all the other books on the Pullman porters in the context of who they worked for, what they did for a living, why they did it and why they eventually lost their jobs. Pullman porters are pictured at work in about 20% of the book's images - 25 different images - including archival company color footage of Porters at work which I've never seen before; a two page sidebar explains the porter's history and social importance while an entire chapter detailing an overnight trip in a Pullman car, written by a former railroader, spends considerable time explaining what a porter actually did enroute. This book was nominated for the national book award of the Railway and Locomotive Historical Society - twice. To quote Trains Magazine publisher Kevin Keefe, "My company has a fine railroad library, and a recent check of the card catalog turned up 37 books about Pullman. But almost all of them concerned some niche or subchapter of the Pullman Story.....none attempts to wrap the entire enterprise into a comprehensive, comprehensible whole. Until now. With Travel by Pullman.....Bill Howes and Joe Welsh have done the Pullman Company proud." The books co-authors Bill Howes headed the B & O Railroad passenger department and was one of the last director's of the Pullman Company. Joe Welsh, a professional transportation planner, is an award winning transportation author who has written 14 books.

Excellent Presentation of Pullman Service

This is a wonderful book! Very thorough, excellent photos/graphics, well written text. Absolutely a must for anyone interested in overnight train travel; what it was, and what it could be.