THE PULLMAN PROJECT

Pullman Car Construction Record Database

Copyright 2001 – 2010 Thomas C. Madden

Last updated 4/13/10

This is the second “official” version of the on-line Pullman database and is designated Pull_Data_V2. All previously documented corrections, changes, additions and updates have been incorporated in this version. Additional ones will be documented and listed on the Updates page. A notice will be posted on the pullmanproject home page when new updates are available, but updates will not be incorporated in the downloadable database until the next version is issued.

For those who have altered the V1 database and want to update it to V2 rather than download the new version, all modifications and corrections to V1, formerly listed on the Updates page, can be found here. Included are 17 new corrections not previously listed on the Updates page.

A new field, <Record #>, has been added to permit sorting the database back to its original order if necessary.

COVERAGE

The database contains over 13,400 records. All heavyweight Pullmans and Tourist Cars are included, as are all Pullman-operated lightweight cars (Pullman-, Budd- and ACF-built). There is one record for each car, and a second record if the car was rebuilt or converted to a Tourist car. In a few instances there is a third record for cars that were rebuilt or converted more than once.

The database aligns with Wayner’s THE COMPLETE ROSTER OF HEAVYWEIGHT PULLMAN CARS and Randall’s three early 1980’s books on lightweight cars. It is sorted first by builder (reverse order), then by construction lot number, then by the order in which the cars appear in Wayner or Randall. Two additional spreadsheets download with the database: an alphabetical listing of all Car names, and a numerical listing of all Tourist car numbers. These latter two files are useful indexes to the Newberry’s 9500-record, 84-folder Car Construction Record collection, keeping in mind that any Car Construction Record (CCR) shown to be in Folder 0 [zero] is missing and not at the Newberry.

Disposition information in the database refers to Pullman's disposition. Many cars sold for scrap are still around - on display or still in use on tourist lines. Recounting the post-Pullman histories of these cars is outside the scope of this project. For those seeking such information, Robert Wayner's THE COMPLETE ROSTER OF HEAVYWEIGHT PULLMAN CARS, and Fr. Herman Page's listings of extant passenger cars are excellent resources.

The information in the spreadsheets is geared to the modeler rather than to the pure historian and is restricted to mechanical equipment and appearance items. More information can be found on the original Pullman documents. Assignment information, unfortunately, is not included on these car-related documents.

COMPLETENESS OF DATA

Data in the spreadsheet is taken from original Pullman CCRs, Car Shopping Cards (CSCs) and Descriptive List Update Letters (DLUs). It is only as good as the original data, but is much better than in previous versions of the database. The CSCs and DLUs contain much additional post-1950 repainting information, and disposition information on the CSCs is more complete and specific than on the CCRs.

When entries are ambiguous, they are entered just as they appear on the original documents. CCRs were intended to reflect a car’s status and not its history. Changes were usually dated and earlier entries lightly lined out, but many entries are undated, and much information is lost because earlier entries are completely blacked out, or covered with a paper overlay. The information cannot be considered 100% complete, particularly concerning post-1948 painting information, but for the fields in the database, everything on the CCRs, CSCs and DLUs has been included.

DATA FORMAT

The database, compressed to save space, contains three data files: the Main Database; an alphabetical index of all car names in the database; and an index of all numbered Tourist cars in the database. The Car name and Tourist car Indexes are also indexes to the locations of the original Car Construction Records (CCRs) at the Newberry Library in Chicago, giving the Newberry folder number and sequence of each record within the folder. As mentioned above, Folder 0 [zero] was assigned to cars with missing CCRs.

The Database and Car Name Indexes are available in three formats: EXCEL2003, comma-delimited, and SYLK. Click on the links below to download the ZIPped files in the desired format. (The database and both name indexes will download.) The database is sorted first by Builder (in descending order), then by Lot Number and Lot Sequence, both in ascending order. The data can, of course, be sorted and filtered in many ways.

NOTE: THIS INFORMATION IS MOST USEFUL WHEN LOADED IN A SPREADSHEET OR DATABASE PROGRAM THAT WILL LET YOU FILTER OR SORT THE DATA. FILTERING IS MUCH MORE USEFUL THAN SORTING, AND THE USER IS ADVISED TO BECOME FAMILIAR WITH THE FILTERING FUNCTION OF YOUR SPREADSHEET OR DATABASE PROGRAM. VIEWING THE DATA AS TEXT IS NOT RECOMMENDED.

Comments and corrections are appreciated.

EXCEL2003 Database (1.98mb)	Comma-delimited Database (661kb)		SYLK Database (990kb)
Database Home		Pullman Project Home

Tom Madden

pullmanboss (at) yahoo (dot) com