Pullman train (UK)

Pullman trains in Great Britain were mainline luxury railway services that operated with first-class coaches and a steward service, provided by the British Pullman Car Company.

The first Pullman Railway Coach to enter service in the UK was in 1874, after an assembly of imports from the US, in an operation pioneered by the Midland Railway, working with George Pullman's Chicago company. The coach "Midland" was of Clerestory Roofed design with balconies at both ends. The concept of luxury coaches spread to the other UK railway companies thereafter.

The PCC was formed in 1882 and named after the Pullman concept pioneered in the United States by the American railroader George Pullman. The company entered into contracts with the railway companies to operate Pullman services over their lines.

Pullman trains offered more luxurious accommodation than ordinary mainline trains. The PCC had its own workshops at Brighton. Pullman Car manufacture was also carried out by Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Company and Metropolitan Cammell Carriage and Wagon Co.. The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway was the first UK railway company to operate a complete Pullman train, the Pullman Limited, which started on the London to Brighton route on 5 December 1881.

As Mr Smail recounts "...In 1906 the LBSCR introduced three new thirty-five ton twelve-wheelers Princess Ena, Princess Patricia, and Duchess of Norfolk. These last three cars were the first Pullmans to be painted in the now familiar umber and cream livery. Hitherto the Brighton Pullmans had been painted dark mahogany brown with gold lining and scrollwork. Some of the older cars had the name in an oval panel on the side. In 1903 Mr. Billinton changed the colour of the ordinary L.B. & S.C.R. coaches to umber brown with white or cream upper panels, and in 1906 this colour scheme was also adopted by the Pullman Car Co., with the name of the car in large gilt letters...".

This was the beginning of the tradition of PCC services operating with a brown-and-cream livery and named carriages, which continues to the present day. Pullman trains were mostly locomotive-hauled, although from 1932 the electrified Southern Railway and its successors operated electric multiple units, the British Rail Class 403 as the Brighton Belle.

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