Honoré Daumier had drawn and painted images of rail travel since the 1840s, focussing on the people traveling. His numerous paintings of First, Second, and Third-Class Carriages are realistic observations of the public experiencing this new means of transportation. Pieces of The First-Class Carriage depict the highest social class through a rosy painting and show distance physically and emotionally between the passengers. The Second-Class Carriage contains middle-class passengers with the overall painting being brighter and more spacious and people in this have more control over their destinies by painting the passengers closer to the window. The Third-Class Carriage depicts in dull color a quality of life people that were beginning to disappear through the industrial revolution.
Daumier's series of lithographs, The railway was published in the French magazine Le Charivari from 1843 to 1858, including prints published in December 1856 with the captions Travellers showing less and less appreciation for traveling in third-class in the winter and Interior of a third-class railway carriage in winter.