This month, we climb aboard BNSF Railway’s business trains, inspection cars, and other such special, “non-revenue” movements with Associate Editor Justin Franz. While examining present-day operations, these sorts of trains are almost as old as railroading itself. One of the more fascinating aspects is the so-called “business car.”
Most business cars were constructed from the 1880s through the 1930s, during a time when the railways were the fastest and most important form of transportation in North America. Externally, they often looked much like the lounge and observation cars that capped the tail end of many premier passenger trains of the day. Their function and purpose somewhat differed, however. While a lounge car might provide entertainment, refreshments, and sometimes luxury bedrooms for first class passengers, the business car was open only to company executives and their guests.
Internally, almost every business car had bedrooms, a kitchen, and a dining room, as well as a bathroom (sometimes with a shower, or even a full bathtub), and often included a dedicated office and a lounge area. In short, a business car was a self-contained mobile home and office. We might be tempted to think of it as the ancestor of the recreational vehicle, and to some degree it is, but a more accurate comparison might be to a Gulfstream G-IV private jet. Like executive planes in our era, the business car was often meant to pamper its riders with the finest luxuries and the highest quality.
Many business cars were constructed for company executives. Consider the Oneonta, constructed by the Pullman Palace Car Company for C.P. Huntington, one of the financiers of Central Pacific Railroad (later Southern Pacific). Huntington used the car as a traveling personal headquarters, as well as a means to move his family about. The New York Times, in Huntington’s obituary, described the car as “a mansion on wheels” suitable to “traveling in princely style.” At some point, Huntington expanded this into a two-car set, with the kitchen, quarters for more servants, and a deep stock of fresh food and fine wine.
Of course, not all business cars were quite this fancy, and not all belonged to the robber barons at the top of the company. Financial officers, division superintendents, and other regional managers often had more modest, yet still quite comfortable, cars assigned to them. In the time before major hotel chains, such equipment ensured that company leadership would be able to travel in comfort wherever business required them to be, and not be stuck relying on whatever accommodations might be available locally.
While there are still business trains, the use of business cars has become rarer and rarer over time. This is partly because there are now many options for both business travel and employee lodging. It is also linked to the steady consolidation of the railway industry. In 1940, there were more than 130 big, “Class I” railway companies in the U.S. alone, each with its own executive staff and corporate leadership, and most of them had at least one business car, if not several. Today? There are six Class Is left on the continent, and thus orders of magnitude fewer people to even use such cars. The development of faster forms of transportation has also cut into the business car’s turf. By the middle of the 20th century, the business car, where it still existed, was less likely a conveyance for the brass hats, and more likely an entertainment venue for shareholders or potential shippers. To see one pass today is to have a rare glimpse of railroading’s past, and a nod to the rich traditions of glamorous private passenger trains of the past.
—Alexander Benjamin Craghead is a transportation historian, photographer, artist, and author.