Welcome to

Welcome to

THE PULLMAN PROJECT

A compendium of Pullman passenger car information

for the railroad historian and modeler

and

Gateway to the downloadable Pullman database – now over 13,460 records!

Welcome to THE PULLMAN PROJECT. Our purpose is to develop and present information on every Pullman-owned or operated heavyweight and lightweight passenger car throughout its service life, from the first steel car, JAMESTOWN in 1907, through Budd-built DREAMLAND in 1958. This will enable the railroad modeler and historian to know what any car looked like and how it was equipped, from delivery until it left Pullman control.

The principal resource on this site is the Pullman database. Information in this database comes from original Pullman Car Construction Records (CCRs), Car Shopping Cards (CSCs) and Descriptive List Update letters (DLUs). The CCRs and CSCs are housed at the Newberry Library in Chicago. There is one CCR per car, and entries on a CCR track all aspects of a car's equipment, furnishings and appearance throughout its life. There is also one CSC per car, but only for heavyweights that were still on Pullman’s roster on 1/1/37. There are CSCs for many cars with missing CCRs, and records have been added to the database for approximately 1000 cars whose CCRs were not in Pullman’s files. Over 200 DLUs were issued between 1942 and 1969, primarily detailing paint scheme and ownership changes. There is not yet a single source for DLUs, but thanks to the generosity of Ralph Barger and Bob Wayner I was able to assemble a complete set.

Additional resources have been developed and can be accessed from the Table of Links below. These range from single page ruminations to extended analyses. Most of these were inspired by a desire to understand how Pullman's design and construction practices evolved - a desire sparked by the CCR data.

The project, and this site, will always be works in progress. Not all of the links below are active, but material is in at least rough draft form for all of the listed topics. Other topics will be added. All CCR, CSC and DLU data has been entered in the database but corrections and augmentations are continuing. Look in the "What's New" section below for periodic updates.

What's New

August 10, 2007: Twelve database records changed, one new record added, noted on Updates page.

June 1, 2007: One database typo found, noted on Updates page.

May 27, 2007: One database typo found, noted on Updates page.

April 30, 2007: First “official” database posted. Follow the database link in the table below to download Pull_Data_V1. Henceforth all changes will be documented and posted.

April 30, 2007: Email address changed, now in non-harvestable format at bottom of each page. Old address abandoned due to spam overload.

April 30, 2007: Mexican/US and US/Mexican car name cross-reference index link activated.

April 30, 2007: Underneath equipment drawings added for 3523A 6-3 and 3958 14-Sec Pullmans

Table of links

Pullman Car Construction Record database	Pullman's Descriptive Lists of Cars
Heavyweight Pullman body styles	Air Conditioning topics
Rebuilt Heavyweight Pullmans	HW Pullman brake systems
HW Pullman car ends	HW Pullman vestibule steps
Prewar Lightweight Pool Cars	Photo Gallery
Mexican/US and US/Mexican car name cross-reference index	Rivarossi, Bachmann & Branchline Pullmans Compared
Hobby manufacturers and vendors	Railroad idiosyncrasies
The Divestiture of 12/31/48
Pullman Underneath Equipment Layouts

Tom Madden

tgmadden (at) worldnet (dot) att (dot) net