At this point in the construction the car is turned over to the steamfitters, plumbers, and electricians, who perform their work with the skill and dispatch bred of a long familiarity with the particular requirements of car construction. To see the Pullman car at this stage is to see a network of steam-pipes and electric conduit lacing in and out between the gaunt steel frame of the car, and everywhere the white plaster-like insulation packed into every cavity. As soon as these gangs of workmen have finished, other workers fit into place the interior panel plates, partitions, lockers, and seat frames, and the car instantly assumes a new and almost completed aspect. Meanwhile the painters have completed their work on the exterior of the car and begin the finer finish of the interior. Here coat upon coat is laid, and after each coat laborious rubbing to give the required finish. The graining, by which various woods are so faithfully imitated, is then applied, and last the varnishing. [Illustration: Type of wood-frame truck used on early cars; four wheels only, with a big rubber block over each in place of springs] [Illustration: Modern cast-steel truck; six wheels with powerful springs to take up the jars and jolts of the road] The car is now completed with the exception of the fittings. A gang of men hang curtains in the doors and windows; the upholsterers contribute the carpets, cushions, mattresses, and blankets; the various little fixtures are added, and the car is finished. _Steel! Veritably!_ One man can trundle in a single wheelbarrow all the wood that has gone into its construction. Rich Brewster green, the new paint gleaming in the sunlight, a long line of these seventy-ton steel mile-a-minute hostelries are waiting for the hour when the white-jacketed porters will open their doors in welcome to their first passengers. Above the windows the word "Pullman" in dull gold will carry from coast to coast the name of their founder. Below the windows is the name of the car, selected usually with local significance in consideration of the lines over which that particular car will operate. * * * * * In a corner of the great yards at a track end stands a little yellow car, smaller than many of our interurban trolley cars, the paint peeling from the boards that have seen the changing seasons of half a century. It is old number "9," not the earliest, but one of the early Pullmans. Perhaps there are nights, when the roar of the machines is stilled, that the ghosts of a long-past day once again walk up and down the narrow aisles, strangers to the age of steel. [Illustration: The car ready for the interior fittings. The floor is of monolith construction] [Illustration: Interior work. The steel framework for seats and berths] CHAPTER IX THE OPERATION OF THE PULLMAN CAR