Early in 1889 the Pullman Company acquired the control of the Mann Boudoir Car Company and the Woodruff Sleeping Car Company, including the entire car equipment and plants. By this acquisition a long step was taken for the unification of sleeping car service, and the further development of a uniform and widely extended scope of operations. For years the success of the Pullman Company's service had been too generally acknowledged to escape the notice of enterprising railroad men, and these two companies were fair examples of the numerous competing companies that were organized. But the success of the Pullman service was based on an idea of too wide conception ever to be successfully imitated. The success of the company engendered competition; its success resulted only in a comparison of service injurious to the imitators. Behind all this lay the fundamental reason for Pullman supremacy. Created to give a standardized service everywhere for the convenience of travelers, it was quickly apparent that competition was but a reversal to the old order--the more companies, the less uniform service. About a month previous, the Mann Boudoir Company and the Woodruff Sleeping Car Company had joined hands and formed the Union Palace Car Company. By the purchase of this combine the Pullman Company added about 15,000 miles of road to that already operated, and by that many miles extended its through car service. The only remaining sleeping car companies of any importance outside of the Pullman Company were the Wagner Company, belonging to the Vanderbilts, and operated over the Vanderbilt lines, and the Monarch Sleeping Car Company, which operated entirely in the New England States with the exception of one Ohio line. A newspaper of the time commented on the merger, and closed with the verdict: "While this will add to the volume of the Pullman business, it will also render the service upon the absorbed lines far more efficient and satisfactory for the traveling public." [Illustration: The first step in the building of the car. The center construction in position, and the framework assembled] In 1888, Mr. Pullman had put in operation his vestibule trains, which immediately met with extraordinary favor and patronage. In a very few days the Wagner Company also advertised a vestibule train and were promptly met with an injunction holding the Wagner appliances to be an infringement of the Pullman patent. After another hearing, the injunction was superseded, the Wagner Company giving an unlimited bond, signed by the Vanderbilts, to pay any damages ascertained by the courts.