The _Pioneer_ was not only wider and higher than other passenger cars, it was also wider and higher than the clearances of station platforms and overhead bridges. But when the country was reduced to the deepest distress because of the death of President Lincoln, the fame of Pullman's _Pioneer_ was already widespread, and it was suggested that the fine new car should be the funeral coach of the martyred president. This involved cutting wider clearances all the way from Washington by the way of Philadelphia, New York, and Albany to Springfield, Ill.; and gangs of men worked night and day making the needed changes. Pullman knew that the increased convenience of an attractive car built upon proper proportions would justify these changes in the long run, and it is significant that the height and width of the Pullman cars to-day are those of the _Pioneer_; the changes have been made in the length. Not long after that car had carried President Lincoln to his grave, General Grant started on a trip west, and the Michigan Central Railroad anxious to carry him over its lines from Detroit to Chicago, widened its clearances for the same celebrated car. After that there were several paths open for the big car, and work was begun upon its fellows. It went into regular service on the Chicago & Alton Railroad; and the Pullman Palace Car Company was formed in 1867. The alphabet soon ran out, and the company to-day operates between four and five thousand cars in regular service. There is a popular tradition, several times denied, to the effect that Pullman for many years gave his daughters $100 each for the names of the cars, and that that formed the source of their pin money. [Illustration: AN INTERIOR VIEW OF ONE OF THE EARLIEST PULLMAN SLEEPING-CARS] [Illustration: INTERIOR OF A STANDARD SLEEPING-CAR OF TO-DAY] While the dimensions of the car were largely set, improvements in its construction have gone steadily forward, as has been told in an earlier chapter. The interior of these luxurious modern cars has not been neglected. From the beginning they have been elaborate in rare woods and splendid textile fittings. The advancing era of American good taste has done much toward softening the over-elaboration of car interiors--the sort of sleeping car that George Ade used to call "the chambermaid's dream of heaven." The newest cars present the quiet elegance and good taste of a modern residence. Nothing that may be added in wealth of material or of comfort is omitted, but the foolish draperies and carvings that once made the American car the laughing-stock of Europeans have already gone their way.