CHAPTER 17English Anxieties

Despite the potential for growth Albert regularly trumpeted, further Pullman expansion in Britain was proving arduous. His work with the Midland Railway in the mid-1870s attracted positive attention, and the cars he placed on that line initially operated profitably, leading to overly optimistic assessments of the future. But other major railways in Britain took a wait-and-see attitude, and income on the Midland proved seasonal and unreliable. As a result, the three companies running the main east-coast line between London and Scotland, the Great Northern Railway (GNR), the North Eastern, and the North British, baulked at the standard fifteen-year Pullman contract. Ambitious for more contracts and cognizant of the impatience of his British investors, George begrudgingly acceded to a Caledonian Railway request to mix overnight Pullman customers with day travelers to meet that line's minimum requirement of eight passengers per car.¹ Even that initiative proved short-lived, and Pullman demanded that trains be made up exclusively of Pullman cars.

The three east-coast companies drove a hard bargain and contract negotiations took several years to finalize. The North British had built the first sleeping car used in Britain, and GNR had experimented with a Mann Boudoir car in 1874.² The two railways thus negotiated from a position of strength. Their executives understood that sleeping-car demand was far from predictable, and they learned that the company took larger profits from his contracts than the railways operating Pullman cars. Though dining cars were popular with passengers, they often operated at a loss to the railway companies.³

The relationship between Pullman and GNR was rocky, and George did not help matters. At first, he overestimated the likelihood of striking a deal, writing to the Pullman superintendent in London, H. S. Roberts, that because Pullman cars “will introduce a radical change in the means of travelling” in Britain, “we should not have much difficulty in closing matters with the Great Northern Railway.”⁴ This was a miscalculation. When Roberts sent GNR general manager Henry Oakley plans for new sleeping cars for east-coast runs, Oakley was unexpectedly slow to respond. He asked his board of directors to consider a short-term experiment with Pullman sleeping cars if that company could “provide some less cumbersome carriages than those now run on the Midland.” He did concede the likely popularity of Pullmans on services from London to Scotland, especially in winter, because they were well heated and passengers would appreciate the personal attention (“cleaning boots, brushing coats”) from porters.⁵ Always obstinate, George did not want to change the contract terms in case it set a precedent for other companies. Deadlock ensued.

Oakley eventually told Roberts that GNR would be willing to undertake a one-year trial with Pullman cars, adding that the Midland's fifteen-year contract was too long. GNR preferred seven-year increments, with the right to cancel on one year's notice. Roberts kicked the matter upstairs, and George Pullman exchanged letters with Oakley, contradicting the latter's assertion that Pullman cars regularly ran empty on the Midland Railway. Oakley did acknowledge to his board that officials in the operating departments of the three east-coast companies were “somewhat impressed with the superiority of the Pullmans over our own carriages for sleepers” but continued to push for favorable terms. George dug in and would not accept anything less than a standard fifteen-year contract.⁶ The impasse persisted.

Deteriorating relations between Pullman and the Midland Railway exacerbated George's English anxieties. Sleeping-car loadings proved devoutly and unchangeably seasonal, falling well below expectations Albert had helped to establish. Cracks appeared as early as July 1877, when the Midland refused to pay Albert's salary and expenses for his most recent trip to England, as George believed they had agreed.⁷ Six months later, the Midland chair, Edward S. Ellis, informally told G. M. Clements, London solicitor for Pullman's Palace Car Company (PPCC), that his company would seek to renegotiate the terms of their contract to relieve them of “the burden” of running Pullman cars. Ellis even threatened to seek legal means to “dissolve” the agreement if PPCC proved unwilling to accommodate the Midland.⁸

The risk of losing the Midland contract convinced George Pullman to accept a one-year trial on the east-coast line between London and Edinburgh. He promised Oakley that Pullman would modify future cars to GNR specifications if a permanent deal were secured. This would entail shortening the sleeping cars and reducing their weight, details he left to Roberts to work out, which the latter did after negotiations with Oakley over the status of Pullman employees in the event of accidents (they were to receive the same treatment as company employees) and the obligation of the three British railway companies to purchase the cars should they terminate the contract early. Worried about running Pullman services at a loss and confronted by a weakening national economy, Oakley then forced Roberts to accept a six-month trial and convinced the other two companies on the east coast to allow the experiment to proceed, especially when he learned from his peers that demand for luxury berths on trains to Scotland would be greater than the supply. To facilitate the experiment, the Midland loaned some of its Pullmans to the east-coast companies, proof of lower-than-expected demand on that line's Manchester to London service. GNR overhauled the cars at its Doncaster works by installing air brakes compatible with its other equipment. Oakley had no intention of operating Pullman-only trains despite George assuming that would be the case.

The trial runs began in August 1878 and were sufficiently successful that GNR agreed to lease three cars for a year and, in 1879, to operate a dining car on one train in each direction to Leeds. This innovation led one newspaper to beseech other railways to follow suit. Dining cars, it claimed, were literally lifesavers because “irregular dining hours, beyond all doubt, have shortened the lives of many prosperous and active men of business who were little past middle age,” a story of which Albert himself would have been proud.⁹

Oakley and his directors continued to view George Pullman as an irritant and behaved as if Pullman sleeping cars had been forced on them by a combination of George's wily tactics and fabricated public demand. In this, Oakley was hardly alone. Jay Gould questioned having to pay the Pullman supplement while trying to make sense of Union Pacific finances and Collis P. Huntington of the Central Pacific simply refused to operate Pullmans on his line until public and private lobbying forced him to do so.¹⁰ GNR tried to cancel a provision in its Pullman contract restricting the railway's ability to build and operate its own sleeping cars, but George steadfastly demanded an exclusive deal. The scale of the profit Pullman earned on wine sales in its dining cars, which could reach 50 percent, vexed GNR officials, but when GNR announced a plan to build and operate its own dining cars, Pullman superintendent Roberts lost his cool on George's behalf. Writing to Oakley, he exclaimed that Pullman had “acted in the firm belief that in view of what we had done for you, your Company would find it to your advantage to deal with us for the future.” He also aired a concern that if GNR replaced the Pullman dining car with its own version, the public would perceive Pullman as “not a success.”¹¹ Roberts knew how George Pullman guarded the company's reputation and acted as its first line of defense.

Behind Roberts's anger lay the fear of failing in the Pullman Company's ultimate aim: a monopoly on sleeping-car travel in Britain. Stating that goal may have undermined Pullman, and Albert was partly to blame. His regular, ongoing, and highly fictionalized accounts of how close Pullman was to running on British main lines established unrealistic expectations in Chicago and fear of Pullman market dominance in Britain. The idea of a monopoly also reflected the company's business practices in the United States, which translated poorly to the British Isles. Roberts ultimately conceded to George that the Pullman Company had no legal right to complain if GNR decided to void the exclusive clause in its contract and operate its own dining cars. Pullman solicitor G. M. Clement believed that GNR would be acting in bad faith should it do so, warning Oakley that it would lose out when Pullman served “all the great lines of railway from London.”¹²

The threats fell on deaf ears. George, exhibiting the type of pigheadedness that made him a figure of hatred in corporate and labor circles, ordered his officers in London to refuse to renegotiate contracts.¹³ Oakley persisted, telling GNR chief mechanical engineer Patrick Sterling that Pullman cars were overpriced despite being “admirably made” and “likely to remain good working vehicles for years to come.” Unhappy about Pullman's business methods, Oakley complained of the “difficulties” incurred in dealing with George personally and suggested GNR buy the cars in order to “get rid of the interference of that Company altogether.” Sterling agreed, writing to Oakley that the carriages were well built and likely to last “perhaps till the fashion changes.” He recommended buying the cars at the price Pullman set. He estimated the cost of maintaining them as treble those built in GNR shops because of the “profuse use of inlaid wood and other decorations, such as silver plated handles, which are constantly requiring renewal.” GNR's solicitor, Henry Nelson, echoed Oakley's lack of enthusiasm about working with Pullman. Writing to Oakley, Nelson accused PPCC attorney G. M. Clement of offering nothing more than “a heap of dogmatic verbiage” during contract negotiations and agreed with Oakley that “it will be wise to get rid of Pullman and preserve our independence.”¹⁴

To regain their “independence,” Oakley advised the GNR directors to purchase the seven Pullman cars running on the line. Even this apparently straightforward transaction generated turbulence. Sterling changed his mind about the value of Pullman cars, halving his original estimate. Negotiations stalled. GNR eventually sent a check to Pullman for one of the cars, the Prince of Wales, but the company returned it. John Miller, the new PPCC manager in London, informed Oakley that the check did not include the costs of damages and repairs to the dining car.¹⁵ A further year of negotiations saw the two sides back at square one, but eventually Pullman accepted what GNR was willing to pay and GNR agreed in principle to include an additional amount to settle a claim regarding the fire damage to the Prince of Wales.¹⁶

After all of that, GNR ultimately refused to buy the Pullman cars. The railway's delaying tactics irritated Miller. Writing to Oakley, he said that George Pullman “is not very much inclined to sell the carriages on your line” but that he would reluctantly sell four cars for £6,100 total, plus the cost of repairs to the Prince of Wales and an additional fee for spare parts.¹⁷ Sterling was also in a revisionist mood, estimating the depreciation for three carriages at £500 and an additional £400 to £500 for the Prince of Wales. He told Oakley that “our own new sleepers are very much preferred by the public” and recommended against buying “the old Pullmans.” Oakley agreed and returned the cars to the Midland Railway.¹⁸ GNR, in cooperation with the other two other companies operating between London and Edinburgh, had continued running its own sleeping cars throughout the trial period, claiming they earned double the income of the Pullman sleepers.¹⁹ Thus ended the Pullman experiment with the east-coast line until the twentieth century.

The anxiety and frustration of negotiating with hard-nosed British railway executives illustrated the often-transitory effects of Albert's work. The Prince of Wales had been built for the Midland and transferred to GNR with tremendous optimism, but the hoped-for east-coast contract never fully materialized. Ornate Pullman interiors required frequent maintenance, and their size and weight restricted their use to a few main lines. The Pullman monopoly in Europe proved impossible to attain, even in England. As with many other projects, Albert's overblown rhetoric and high hopes dashed against the rocks of reality, although his work meeting with journalists, carrying them on excursion trains, boasting of the superiority of American products, and planting stories in the press did succeed at one level: the Pullman name had become a byword for luxury on both sides of the Atlantic. One British newspaper reported that Pullman cars “enabled stay-at-home members of the British public to realise something of the pleasant conditions of travel enjoyed by their American cousins,” and some passengers, despite the perceptions of GNR executives, went out of their way to experience Pullman splendor.²⁰

Working in England had bolstered Albert's reputation and profile in Chicago business circles. Even though his investment record was generally poor, he remained a well-known and well-liked figure. His Atlantic crossings ended in 1878, and he remained thereafter in the United States. Adolph Rapp replaced him in Derby. George did solicit ideas from Albert about redesigning cars for the British market, but the brothers thereafter communicated infrequently, and Albert had clearly been eclipsed within the company.²¹ In Chicago, though, he had become something of a celebrity in his own right. He lent his name to product endorsements and posed as an expert on all things railroading. Being a Pullman had its rewards, and Albert was determined to take full advantage.