Few railroads could afford to tie up capital in the cars required for such brief periods of demand; it would be an economic fallacy to pass the expense of the maintenance and constant replacement of such an equipment on to the public. To meet this situation is the mission of the Pullman Company. Of the numerous sleeping car companies the Gates Sleeping Car Company was perhaps the earliest. This car was named after Mr. G. B. Gates, General Manager of the Lake Shore Road, and with the consolidation of the Hudson River Railroad and the New York Central in 1869, these cars, previously only operated on the Lake Shore, were put in the New York, Buffalo, Chicago service. [Illustration: The latest Pullman parlor car, showing simplicity of modern car decoration, combining quiet elegance with good taste and comfort] Among the various competitors of the Pullman Company, the Wagner Palace Car Company, which succeeded, in 1865, the New York Central Sleeping Car Company, and absorbed in 1869 the Gates Sleeping Car Company, developed by far the widest and most formidable competition and continued its service over the longest period. The underlying reasons for the strength of this competition lay primarily in the fact that the Wagner cars followed more closely the Pullman characteristics, and in fact the infringement of certain basic Pullman patents by the Wagner Company was a cause of frequent litigation over a period of many years. Webster Wagner, the founder of the Wagner Palace Car Company, began his career as a wagon maker. The first cars which he constructed had a single tier of berths, and the bedding was packed away by day in a closet at the end of the car. Commodore Vanderbilt backed Wagner and became interested in his company, a connection which gave Wagner invaluable assistance and a hold on the sleeping-car business of the lines controlled by the Vanderbilt interests, a connection which enabled him for many years to be a keen competitor of the Pullman Company.