Car

a term applied to several vehicles, but most frequently to a wagon drawn or propelled by mechanical power on some sort of a track or railway. The use of cars preceded the invention of the locomotive. The first freight and passenger cars were coaches drawn by animal power. The car drawn by Stevenson's first locomotive was a small, comfortless, wooden-seated affair, made out of an ordinary coach, very different from the palace of wood, iron, glass, and upholstery now found on American railways. In fact, the first passenger cars used in this country were the bodies of four-horse coaches set in a wheel-bearing frame, and the earliest railway cars were built on much the same model. Some were open or without a top, and some were built with outside seats on the top as well as seats inside. About 1833 the long passenger car with entrances at the ends made its appearance. It was described in England as an American contrivance built rather on the model of a ship than on that of a coach.

The first sleeping car ran between Philadelphia and Baltimore in 1838. It accommodated twenty-four passengers. In 1858 two sleeping cars were built at a cost of $5,000 for the two, for the run between Buffalo and Cleveland, but were not a profitable venture. In 1863 the first regular Pullman was built at a cost of $18,000, then considered a prodigious venture of money. The platform vestibule was thought out in 1887. Postal cars date from 1860.

The latest available statistics show that the various American railroads maintain 1,300 car shops for the repair and manufacture of cars, and give additional patronage to sixty-five car-building establishments. Over 200,000 people earn wages by building cars. Freight cars last about twelve or fifteen years. They wear out so fast that 125,000 new freight cars must be built in the United States each year. In addition, the factories expect to build about 2,000 passenger coaches and 10,000 to 15,000 new street cars yearly. Five states, Pennsylvania, Illinois, New York, Indiana, and Ohio build over half of the cars needed. A few American cars are sold abroad. The export sales for 1900 aggregated $2,558,320, chiefly to Mexico, Egypt, France, Brazil, Great Britain, Argentine, Australia, and Cuba. It is estimated that there are in the world (1900) about 225,000 passenger coaches and 3,000,000 freight cars. There is a tendency to construct cars of steel. They are safer in case of collision.

The passenger coaches of Europe are divided by cross partitions into entirely distinct compartments. Each compartment has two doors, one on each side of the car. To pass from one compartment to another it is necessary to alight from the car and walk along an outside footboard or the station platform. It is quite out of the question to pass through a train. Each compartment seats ten passengers, five facing forward and five facing backward.

At the master car-builders' convention held in 1907 it was stated that there are approximately 50,000 locomotives, 55,000 passenger coaches, and 2,000,000 freight cars in use on the various railroads in the United States and Canada. The wear and tear of this equipment was said to be about $23,420 a day, or over $8,500,000 a year.

See Railways; Locomotives, etc.