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Bargains are also available in private cars, of which Pullman has 16 in commission, five laid up. It still costs $75 per day with a minimum of $200 to indulge in that most luxurious form of land travel. But it used to be necessary to pay the full rent for the time the empty car spent on the return trip. Now the return charge is only one-half. The railroad charge has also been cut from 25 full fares to 15.
During the Kentucky Derby last May all of Pullman's private cars were chartered but usually about only four are in transit simultaneously about the country. If a tycoon prefers his own car, Pullman will build it for him, as it has done for 226 people and companies in the past, at a cost of $65,000 up. Henry Ford spent $200,000 on his Fair Lane. Last private car built was the Wanderer, for the late Harry Payne Whitney in 1930.
It would be difficult to assemble a more impressive aggregation of wealth than is represented by the men on Pullman's board: J. P. Morgan and his partner George Whitney; Richard K. Mellon and two Mellon lieutenants; George F. Baker and a vice president of his First National Bank; General Motors' Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr.; Harold S. Vanderbilt, Montgomery Ward's Sewell Lee Avery. President of Pullman is David Anderson Crawford, a husky, popular gentleman of 55 who works hard and plays money-golf in the low 80's. During the winter at Chicago's University Club he plays racquets with his friends, using a soft ball. He calls it "pansy racquets."
* Some roads still operate a few of their own sleepers locally. Gulf, Mobile & Northern owns five; Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific, 25, all painted orange-yellow. Canadian National and Canadian Pacific own all their sleepers and parlor cars.