Wagner Palace Car Company, 1900.
(unbekannt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
WAGNER PALACE CAR COMPANY
The Wagner Palace Car Company was an American rail car manufacturer. The firm was founded in 1858 as the New York Central Sleeping Car Company in New York City by Webster Wagner (1817-1882), in an agreement with Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, whose New York Central Railroad used four of the original coaches.
Wagner learned the wagon-making trade from his elder brother, with whom he formed a partnership. However, that business failed, and he become a station agent for the New York Central Railroad in his home town of Palatine Bridge, New York, where he apparently came to the attention of Commodore Vanderbilt.
The Gates Sleeping Car Company was absorbed and in 1869 the firm was reorganized as the Wagner Palace Car Company. Gates was one of the earliest—if not the earliest—of the sleeping car companies. In as early as 1858, its bunk-type cars saw operation on the Lake Shore Railroad.
Sometime around 1870, a deal was negotiated by Wagner with the Pullman Car Company to utilize its berths in the Wagner cars, with an agreement that Wagner would limit its operations to the New York Central. In 1875, Pullman’s contract with the Michigan Central (a NYC subsidiary) expired, and Wagner persuaded them to switch to Wagner cars. As a result, Pullman then sued. The lawsuit went to court and during testimony it was discovered that there was a great similarity between the seats in question and those used in 1843 in cars built for the Erie Railroad by the John Stephenson Company, at which point the suit was immediately settled out-of-court, otherwise both companies stood to lose their profits.
Sadly, Webster Wagner died aboard one of his own sleeping cars in a terrible rear-end collision in 1882. Nevertheless, the company continued in business, and by 1888 was challenged in court again by Pullman, however this time they were accused of infringing upon Pullman’s vestibule patents, and Pullman clearly won the case.
In 1890 the Wagner Palace Car Company was one of the largest employers in Buffalo, and its works occupied 35.7 acres at 1770 Broadway at the east end of Broadway near Broadway and Bailey. In addition to brass finishers, the company employed many other skilled positions including blacksmiths, car builders, carpenters, carvers, marble finishers, steamfitters and a storekeeper. Many of these workers lived on the East Side of Buffalo and they probably walked, rode a bicycle or took a horse drawn street car to work.
The war between the Pullman and Wagner companies continued until, at the end of 1899, following Commodore Vanderbilt’s death, the directors of the Wagner Palace Car Company called it quits, and the company was sold to Pullman on January 1, 1900.
Reference: https://midcontinent.org/rollingstock/builders/wagner.htm
The Mid-Continent Railway Museum
The Mid-Continent Railway Museum is a railroad museum in North Freedom, Wisconsin, United States. The museum consists of static displays as well as a 7-mile (11 km) round trip ride aboard preserved railroad cars. More about the museum here.
Please visit the museum at your earliest convenience.
Website: https://www.midcontinent.org/
Mid-Continent Railway Museum
P.O. Box 358
E8948 Museum Road
North Freedom, WI 53951
Office phone: 608-522-4261 or 800-930-1385
E-mail: inquiries@midcontinent.org
The Ellsmere private railcar, built by the Wagner Palace Car Company in 1899.
(NearEMPTiness, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)
