While researching something, found this in an article describing how Pullman was moving to "aluminum" sleeping cars.
However, even back then, the decline in rail travel was predicted...because of (read the clip....)
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I wonder if that decline had more to do with the depression than other forms of travel.
just showing the headline from the paper...
@rplst8 posted:I wonder if that decline had more to do with the depression than other forms of travel.
And the slow decline of war-generated traffic due to end of the Great War.
there were other factors involved.
the personal automobile was probably the most significant. wasn't Henry Ford's goal to produce a vehicle just about anyone could own? roads became far more improved as a result. now families didn't have to rely on a railroad's schedule. plus they could go 'door to door' on their own.
Although the 1920s are often cited as the peak of passenger rail traffic, in fact ridership declined pretty much every year from the end of WW1. Auto traffic, better cars, better (paved) roads, were a big factor. A lot of the reason for the new streamlined - air conditioned cars of the 1930s was to try to stem that steady drop.
Was that aluminum Pullman the semi-streamlined sleeper-observation car, George M. Pullman?
The George M Pullman was in the Pullman pool but spent long periods in the western USA, on the Union Pacific during the late 1930's through World War II, and then on the Santa Fe Chief in the postwar years, and then on the UP and the ATSF as a pool car when a regular observation car was in the shop.
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