Controversy

In the spring of 1954 the British Transport Commission made an offer to the holders of the ordinary shares of the Pullman Car Company. This was accepted by a majority of the shareholders and, in June of '54, the BTC became the owners of the whole of the equity of the Pullman Car Company. The Pullman Car Company also had outstanding £386,000 of an authorised issue of £500,000 of 4 ½ per cent cumulative redeemable preference stock. The owners of this stock had no voting rights and the holdings were not distributed. So the Pullman Car Company became wholly owned by the BTC subject to the rights of the preference stock, and continued to be directed by a board appointed by the BTC and the formed management remained unaltered.

The National Union of Railwaymen resisted the plan to operate these diesel-electric sets as Pullman cars, and its objection seems to based on the ineradicable impression that the Pullman Car Company was still a private enterprise undertaking. The permanent officials of the NUR should have been aware of the purchase by the BTC in 1954, but the problem persisted. Even when it was explained that the Commission owned the whole of the company equity capital, reference was sometimes made to the public holding of the Company's preference shares, and while these were publicly held the conviction would persist that it was a private enterprise.

A vital factor in the controversy was the question of manning the trains. The BTC stated that they were being introduced to retain and perhaps recapture some of the passenger traffic already lost to road and air, and the timing of the 'Midland Pullman' was especially determined to compete with the air services between Manchester and London.

As a first step to resolving the difficulties the board of the Pullman Car Company offered to abandon its separate agreement with the NUR under which there was an appreciable difference in working conditions between Pullman staff and men working in British Railways restaurant cars, and instead to adopt the rates and conditions for restaurant car staff.

At the same time an undertaking was given jointly by the BTC and the Pullman Car Company in collaboration with the British Transport Hotels & Catering Services that no redundancy should occur among restaurant staff as a result of the introduction of the new Pullman trains, and the Pullman Car Company undertook to offer all vacancies to existing restaurant car staff. The NUR made another claim in this connection. This was that the men recruited in this way from restaurant cars should be treated as being on loan from the restaurant car services so that in case of need they could revert to their former service and pickup their former seniority. It was initially agreed that this period of loan should be six months, but later the claim was made that it should be for a year. The arrangement was then changed to an indefinite basis.

Staff so recruited wore the Pullman uniform and came under the Pullman Company management for discipline, with the right of appeal jointly to the management of the Pullman Car Company and to BTC Hotels & Catering Services.

No alterations were made in the British Railways restaurant car services between Manchester and London as a result of the introduction of the 'Midland Pullman' and there were, therefore, no direct redundancy. The Pullman Car Company was able to recruit staff based on Manchester. The train was introduced manned by restaurant car men on loan and five Pullman Car Company men allotted on a temporary basis to help its establishment. These five staff included a conductor, one senior chef, and three senior attendants in charge of stocks. Similar methods were followed in the WR.

Other controversy before they were introduced was over the inadequate utilisation of each of the two new units, as one complete 6-car set, including 2,000hp of traction equipment, would have to be held continually as a spare. There was doubt over whether there would be adequate custom for the afternoon St. Pancras to Leicester return fill-in trip, meaning that the economics of operating two luxury 6-car sets would depend largely on about seven hours weekday use of just one of them between Manchester and London. This opinion was expressed in the enthusiast press in editorials and letters.

The WR would have the same problem but to a lesser extent, with two operational sets and one spare. It was rumoured before their introduction that the 8-car WR sets would be divisible into two quadruplets so that of the complete set not in revenue earning service at any given moment, one half could be despatched to works for necessary maintenance and overhaul, leaving the other half idle to serve as spare. This was an approach taken by overseas railways.

Each Midland set would only be used 5 days in every 14, and the WR ones 10 in each 21. If there had been no spare sets, the LMR & WR vehicles would still be out of use from 2 days in every 7, considered to be ample time for servicing.

There was also criticism of the timings of the proposed services in the railway press of the "Midland Pullman". Departure from Manchester was to be at 09:00 with arrival in London at 12:15, too late for breakfast and too early for lunch meaning that the two kitchens on the set would be under-used. Regret was expressed that the Manchester morning service was not run one hour earlier. This would have enabled business men to visit their offices in London before keeping luncheon appointments. An 08:00 start was not seen as too early and would likely have been appreciated by the business community. There was also concern for the future for this service and the proposed Paddington-Birmingham-Wolverhampton service because of the electrification between Euston, Birmingham and Manchester.

Not long after the sets were introduced new Pullman coaches were introduced in the ER, and this caused a bit of debate over why MkI based vehicles were used rather. The Blue Pullman sets were always quoted as experimental yet the ER did not wait to see the results of the experiments before ordering new stock.