И. А. Курбасова Е. И. Силантьева

TEXT С. SLEEPING CARS
(1) One of the most important railroad inventions is sure to be a sleeping car. The earliest trains had no sleep­ing cars. There was really no need for them for the early railroads were short, no journey lasted more than a few hours. As railroads increased in number and better cars were built, the passengers could make longer journeys, and night travel became possible.

f (2) We know of the modern sleeping car having been invented by George M. Pullman. G. Pullman built his first car in 1859 remodelling a stage-coach body for this purpose. This car did not look like the cars we are familiar with and was much simpler in design. However, it proved to be so much more suitable for long-distance travel that passengers gladly paid the extra money for travelling in it.

(3) Encouraged by his success, G. M. Pullman built a far longer sleeping car which he named the "Pioneer". When the "Pioneer" was first taken from the shop, it appeared to be too wide and too high for many of the bridges and station platforms. But the officials were so greatly pleased (довольный) with this car, that they decid­ed to rebuild the bridges and platforms.

(4) After having solved the problem of sleeping cars, Pullman turned his attention to providing passengers with food. He was the first to design and build the so-called "hotel" car, which was followed by a "restaurant" car. The hotel car contained at one end a small kitchen from which passengers could be served meals (еда) in their seats. Pullman's restaurant car may be regarded the forerunner of the modern dining car which is found practically in all of today's long-distance trains.