Flintlock76And today, a doomed "Doodlebug."
https://condrenrails.com/FSVB/Midland%20Valley/images/0139-1.jpg
and was rebuilt with a RPO section keeping the GE gas engine just before WWII. Many more sophisticated things built much later didn't soldier through to 1954.
Compare the original and the photo du jour with
Compare the original and the photo du jour with this, from 1944:
https://condrenrails.com/FSVB/Midland%20Valley/images/KO&G-M23-Calvin-OK-10-18-44-John-B-Fink.jpg
Frankly though, I think I'd prefer this... if the interior even remotely lived up to the exterior:
https://condrenrails.com/FSVB/Midland%20Valley/rr0955.jpg
Note the use of the term 'automotrice', to be made famous much later in France, used here before WWI.
And before Doodlebugs, there was the McKeen Railcar. A bit ahead of it's time, but for sheer coolness you can't beat it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HYECpTcLyU
Problem with the McKeen was that it was streamlined backward, like Loewy's '50 Studebaker Commander, and it had a drivetrain with little concept of effective suspension ... let alone high-speed suspension.
Woulda been interesting to see what the Stanley's and Fred Marriott might have done with one of them, though... and while it wouldn't have worked right, with the original suspension in the Pendulum Car...
Woulda been interesting to see what the Stanleys and Fred Marriott might have done with one of them, though... and while it wouldn't have worked right, with the original suspension in the Pendulum Car...
... but still, it's not half as cool as the original design here:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gASe_MneZZc
(which, incidentally, marks the close of the first era of development of high-speed railcars... but I won't digress.)
CSSHEGEWISCH It should be remembered that motorcars were among the first steps leading to the demise of steam locomotives.
It should be remembered that motorcars were among the first steps leading to the demise of steam locomotives.
Yep.
Taking a tangent track: Alco or Electro-Motive?
I like Alco's diesels best. Even though I live very close to where EMC was.
Same me, different spelling!
I look at it as the motorcars helped prolong some passenger service. That passenger service would have gone away along with the steamers in short order.
Though this type was never used in a railroad application, here's a pair of Becky's hometown diesels still hard at work today:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=I5idpqsQYvA
Sounds kind of like a cross between a EMD 567 and a Detroit 71.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
'Dude, the engine room on that vessel impresses the hell out of me! Talk about spit n' polish! And the deck's so clean you could eat off it! And the look of the wheelhouse, polished paneling and brass as well.
There's a lot of pride in that ship, and it shows!
pennytrains CSSHEGEWISCH It should be remembered that motorcars were among the first steps leading to the demise of steam locomotives. Yep. Taking a tangent track: Alco or Electro-Motive? I like Alco's diesels best. Even though I live very close to where EMC was.
Me like!
Oh yeah! "Railroading for all eternity" as the late Don Ball would have put it.
And today, a "Ghost Train!"
Ghost train all right, like a wraith in the night and under a full moon too. Great, moody, atmospheric shot! Like something out of a classic "Film Noir."
Today's shot? Wow! Exactly what Lucius Beebe was talking about when he mentioned "Burning of Rome" smoke effects.
Railroad management seeing that would, as Lucius would put it, have "An attack of the vapors." But we railfans sure love it!
Flintlock76Today's shot? Wow! Exactly what Lucius Beebe was talking about when he mentioned "Burning of Rome" smoke effects. Railroad management seeing that would, as Lucius would put it, have "An attack of the vapors." But we railfans sure love it!
Smoke plume is much more steam than coal. I don't think company would be that upset - if the smoke plume was solid black they would be jumping up and down as they should be in the picture pennytrains posted.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Would be oil smoke from the UP loco?
pennytrains Would be oil smoke from the UP loco?
I don't think so, I enlarged the picture and it looks like a coal tender.
Balt's probably right, that smoke plume's more "salt and pepper" than "midnight black," but I think it might still raise a few eybrows with management. But what do I know? I wasn't there.
Could the engine have been sanding the flues?
Or the crew saw the photographer and turned the oil valve to the 'smoke screen' position.
This locomotive class was designed to burn low-rank lignite and would have 'too much boiler' if fired on normal bituminous. I suspect this is related to the snuff-dipping action.
This was 1943; oil conversions wouldn't come until 1946.
Where did they get the lignite coal from? That IS a CN locomotive, isn't it? I thought it was CV at first.
No Father, Friday's engine was CN, Wednesday's is Union Pacific. Lotsa lignite out UP's way!
And today, an Erie "Doodlebug!" That's something you don't see every day. I'm guessing it's a mid-day run, the heavy Wanaque-Midvale to Jersey City commuter runs were typically steam powered when that photo was taken.
Flintlock76And today, an Erie "Doodlebug!"
Close, but no cigar... I rode the 5012 at the Ohio Railroad Museum in Worthington, Ohio back in the '60s:
Erie_5012_MC by Edmund, on Flickr
A pretty gutsy-looking machine.
Regards, Ed
gmpullmanA pretty gutsy-looking machine.
Overmod gmpullman A pretty gutsy-looking machine. To some people, any self-propelled railcar before the RDC era was a 'doodlebug', even PRR 4666 or ATSF M190, and arguably the Stout railcar and its contemporaries like the Michelines. I suspect there were plenty who carried this over into the early streamlined motor-train era.
gmpullman A pretty gutsy-looking machine.
To some people, any self-propelled railcar before the RDC era was a 'doodlebug', even PRR 4666 or ATSF M190, and arguably the Stout railcar and its contemporaries like the Michelines. I suspect there were plenty who carried this over into the early streamlined motor-train era.
One assumes the name originated in the sound of the large relatively slow running gasoline engines which gave a distinctive sound resembling the insect.
One imagines that the diesel engines of later cars sounded different and the name would have died out.
In Australia, a common name for railcars was "Tin Hare", a name given to the mechanical lures used in Greyhound racing.
This was derived from the appearance of the cars rather than their sound.
The sight of a relatively small self propelled car running through open country at relatively high speed reminded people of the mechanical lures.
Peter
M636COne assumes the name originated in the sound of the large relatively slow running gasoline engines which gave a distinctive sound resembling the insect.
They are also weirdly angular and ugly, only walk backward, and are known for following irregular paths seemingly at random.
Something I had not known is that there was a beloved variant 'hoodlebug' used in Pennsylvania to descrive one of the PRR cars.
Overmod M636C One assumes the name originated in the sound of the large relatively slow running gasoline engines which gave a distinctive sound resembling the insect. But in the United States, doodlebugs are ant lions, vicious larvae of a particular kind of lacewing, and they don't make noise. They are also weirdly angular and ugly, only walk backward, and are known for following irregular paths seemingly at random. Something I had not known is that there was a beloved variant 'hoodlebug' used in Pennsylvania to descrive one of the PRR cars.
M636C One assumes the name originated in the sound of the large relatively slow running gasoline engines which gave a distinctive sound resembling the insect.
But in the United States, doodlebugs are ant lions, vicious larvae of a particular kind of lacewing, and they don't make noise.
Clearly my knowledge of USA entomology is deficient.
The name doodlebug is unknown in Australia.
In England, the name doodlebug was given to the German V-1 pilotless aircraft and I understood that this was due to the distinctive buzzing sound of the pulse-jet engine. I'm not sure what insect this may have been named after.
Even the term "bug" is much less common in the UK (and Australia), "beetle" being used more commonly for small insects other than ants.
Positive proof that we don't speak the same language. That being said, I manage to maintain some fluency in British English by surfing the BBC News website regularly.
OK, I figured it out.
There are two doodlebugs. The European one is also called the 'maybug' and the German word for that insect is Maikafer... a term the Germans applied to the pulse jet V1 for, you guessed it, that June-bug buzz.
Not even remotely related to the American context ... it's a good story, though.
M636C in Australia.
I have an interresting anecdote about "falling on my bum" in front of an Aussie.
Login, or register today to interact in our online community, comment on articles, receive our newsletter, manage your account online and more!
Get the Classic Trains twice-monthly newsletter