Again, when I checked into my Pullman space on some night trip I was intrigued by something very different- the unintentionally comic solemnity of the duet between the unctuous bass of the Pullman conductor and the baritone of his railroad colleague. “Low-er seven in car two-twenty-nine,” one would chant; and the other would respond, in almost liturgical antiphony: “Low-er seven in car two-twenty nine.”