All Aboard with the Pullman Porters

In 1864 President Lincoln’s son Robert Todd slipped off a platform and was almost flattened by an oncoming sleeper train. At the last moment a man grabbed him by his collar and pulled him to safety. Robert Todd recognized his savior as the famous Shakespearean actor Edwin Booth. A year later Edwin’s brother John Wilkes killed Abraham Lincoln in Ford’s Theatre.

President Lincoln’s body was transported back to his home, Springfield, Illinois, on a modified train, stopping in 11 cities along the way, where public viewings and remarks were arranged. Along with eulogies for the slain president, newspapers ran stories on the train itself because a new, larger, more elegant sleeping car was included. A Pullman sleeper car. For more than a century after the company’s founding by the industrialist George Pullman in 1859, in large part because of the publicity from Lincoln’s funeral train, “Pullman” was a household name, synonymous with “excellence.” And after George Pullman died, in 1887, Robert Todd Lincoln took his place as the president of the Pullman Palace Car Co.

After the Civil War, George Pullman hired ex-slaves to work on his trains as porters, employing thousands of African-Americans, more than any other company in the country. Many of the ex-slaves were schooled in service in the homes on Southern plantations, and George Pullman, employing his business guile, knew they’d accept next to nothing in pay. Tough working conditions and long hours were standard — practices Robert Todd continued during his tenure, exploiting many of the very men his father fought to free. In 1925, with the help of the labor activist A. Philip Randolph, the porters organized the first all-black union, the Brotherhood of the Sleeping Car Porters. The union’s methods served as a model for the civil-rights movement. In 1969, a year after King was assassinated, the Pullman train service stopped.

In 2012, another president from Illinois, Barack Obama, was elected to a second term and Pullman Rail Journeys, a company out of Chicago, started running Pullman trains again. They restored original cars and re-create the full experience, replete with porters.

Ed Ellis, CEO of Iowa Pacific, the parent company of Pullman Rail Journeys, sits behind a long black desk in his downtown Chicago office.

“My mother was on the last flight of this particular plane,” he says, explaining how he became interested in trains. “After the in-flight meal they had a cake celebrating how many miles it’d flown. Just as they blew out the candles the plane lost power and went into a dive. The pilot pulled up about a hundred feet from the ground and landed safely. My mother kissed the tarmac and never flew again. So when I was a kid we went everywhere by train.”

Ellis speaks with a salesman’s charm, enthusiastic and savvy. He’s worked in the rail industry since the ’70s and at one point served as a vice president at Amtrak. Model trains sit on his desk with pictures of his family in exotic locales. Iowa Pacific operates many different excursion rail journeys, the Polar Express — at Christmastime — being the most popular in both England and the United States.

When asked about the complex history of labor and civil rights of the Pullman porters,

Ellis says, “Many former porters I’ve spoken to were proud. They saw the country, learning about new places. It was a window on the world neither white nor blacks had ever seen before. Not to say they didn’t need a union, a way to talk to management in a way that management needed to listen. The Internet has changed that. It’s not as difficult for employees to make themselves heard.”

His cell phone rings and he silences it.

“There’s a lot of sensational discussion that black porters were underpaid and overworked. I don’t look at it that way, and most of the old porters I know don’t look at it that way. They were honored. They would say, ‘Wages were low, but I was good and my tips were good.’ It’s easy to write stories about what this all meant.”

Why do Pullman again?

“Because Pullman is America,” he says. “Pullman isn’t Disneyland’s version of America Pullman trains served 100,000 beds a night in the ’50s. Pullman was the first national brand. Before McDonald’s fixed a burger the same way, Pullman porters made beds the same way every time, served beer the same way. Captains of industry rode Pullman trains, Hollywood starlets, but also the guy visiting his sweetheart. It’s how soldiers went to war. What made them the same were the Pullman porters.”

Pullman Rail Journeys agrees to let me to shadow one of their porters, Gary Lightfoot. My train departs the next day.

At 8 p.m. sharp Mark Greismann, the conductor, announces, “All aboard.” He wears an exact replica of the original Pullman conductor’s uniform: a navy,blue, military-style coat with brass buttons and the standard-issue dark-blue Pullman hat with a name plate that reads, “Conductor.”

Gary Lightfoot is a tall, portly man who, in his white uniform and porter’s cap, looks every bit the classic African-American Pullman porter. He whisks away my bags before I can even introduce myself.

As the passengers board the train, Greismann shows them to their rooms and says the bar car is open all night, until we reach New Orleans.

Lightfoot has already put the passengers’ bags in compartments above their berths. Coats are on hangers, and a blue Pullman gift bag waits on the sink, full of soaps and shampoos. He comes by to ask if I need anything, shows me how the sink works and adjusts the air-conditioning. I introduce myself and tell him I’m here to shadow him.

“I’m shy,” he says and laughs. “Maybe try the new guy.” Before I can change his mind, he’s on to the next room.

Beginning in the 1860s, porters carried small brown Pullman Co. manuals that cataloged their duties in detail. They were required to know everything from how to perform first aid to repair the furnace. In the early years they were forbidden to sleep, sometimes working 24 hours straight, catering to the passengers’ every need no matter the hour. Later, they were allowed to take the empty beds but could only use blue blankets laundered separately from the passengers’ gold-colored blankets. The color lines were literally drawn. Porters had to know the 12 steps to pouring a beer, remember how a passenger took his or her coffee, and know the official way to make the beds. They were also instructed not to make eye contact with passengers and to face away when moving aside for a lady to pass, but always smile.

Porters were to be present and invisible at the same time.

After clearing dessert and washing the dishes, waiters Larry Mathus, Jeremy Kniola and Jeremy Johnson and chef Mark Guzman eat dinner in the kitchen, below the dining room. Greismann, the conductor, joins them.

I ask how they found the job.

“Craigslist,” they say in unison.

This is a small run, only three cars, but at full capacity there would be a conductor who oversees all operations, a steward (described by Pullman Rail Journeys as being like a maitre d’hotel), an executive chef overseeing four cooks and two waiters, a car attendant who does a bit of everything, and one porter. The porter performs various duties. He carries bags and explains the amenities of the train (as I’ve seen Lightfoot do already), cleans the rooms, makes up the berths at night, sweeps the cars, stocks drinks and snacks in the bar car. But he’s also expected to perform any of the other services and assist the other members of the dining car crew in making drinks and taking orders.

“What were you doing before this?” I ask the guys in the kitchen.

“I was the manager of a Blockbuster, but it went out of business,” Greissman says. “I’ve always loved trains, though. My wife hates them, so I didn’t get to ride them much. Then I found this job. A dream come true.” The waiters worked in upscale restaurants, and Guzman was a chef for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. He says he’s used to the travel: the circus moved around the country by train.

Around 3 a.m., after walking back and forth for an hour in search of Lightfoot, I find him helping a passenger look for a lost book in her room. Lightfoot finds the book wedged between the bed and the window. I ask him what was the strangest request from a passenger he’s ever heard, but he just laughs in reply.

The working conditions on the new Pullman trains are in stark contrast to the old days. Today, porters only work one run a week. Our train carries about a dozen passengers, as opposed to the original trains’ serving 100,000 beds a night all across the country. The crew says the hourly wage is low, but they make it up in tips, which are pooled at the end of each trip, and they have benefits. It’s been hard to find a job in today’s economy and they’re happy to have one.