S. Berliner, III's Rail-Auto Page keywords = model rail auto train critter
Updated: 25 Jan 2005, 16:25 ET
(Created 31 Aug 2000)
[Ref: This is railauto.html (URL http://home.att.net/~Berliner-Ultrasonics/railauto.html )]

S. Berliner, III's

Rail-Auto Page

Consultant in Ultrasonic Processing
"changing materials with high-intensity sound"
Technical and Historical Writer, Oral Historian
Popularizer of Science and Technology
Rail, Auto, Air, Ordnance, and Model Enthusiast
Light-weight Linguist, Lay Minister, and Putative Philosopher

RAIL-AUTOS and other Oddities

primarily intended for MODEL RAILROADERS
and just plain rail nuts

This site has now been visited

times since the counter was installed.

NOTE: It would appear that my pages are limited by AT&T, without warning, to 30kB! Thus, I have been forced to add this continuation page and separate pages to fit the lengthy Berlinerwerke saga in HO and Z scales.

INDEX

See the model RR page, et seq.

[I seem to have my Critters Page and this one fairly well scrambled; so what! Enjoy them both!]

(22 Jan 05)

This unit hummed along at the Dinger Sugar Mill in Java; did that make it a "Humdinger"? I claim it is either a motor car with a box cab or a boxcab with a motor; I'm not sure which; it looks like a boxcab that slipped backwards on its chassis (maybe the traction motor blower blew too hard or the radiator fan blew backwards?)!

Similarly, there is a '46 Dodge, such as you may never have seen, on my Chrysler Page 3 (there are more photos there):

(photo © 1999 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved).
[Thumbnail image - click on the picture for the full image.]

as well as this gem from the Colorado Railroad Museum, Rio Grande Southern narrow-gauge Rail Truck #6 (pictured at the CRM in 1986 by V. G. Aylward):

Image from George Elwood's Fallen Flag Railroad Photos
[an old Pierce-Arrow 36 6-Cyl. car obtained 1/1934 and modified with a Chevrolet 6-cyl.
engine in 1952, and again with a 1957 Chevrolet 6-cyl. engine installed 6/1988.]

There were a whole raft of these "geese", Pierces, Buicks, and what-have-you, on the RGS and D&RGW and other such western roads.

From my Model Railroad Page 3 (more there) comes this model of a real thing, a Lesney Matchbox VW Microbus (one of the few Matchboxes actually in HO scale), grafted on an antique Marx slot car chassis (new, then) with brass HO RR wheels with phosphor bronze wipers, ending up as a 250mph VW railcar! She's now some 35 years old and still runs like a well-oiled (albeit noisy) watch:

There actually WAS a Long Island Rail Road prototype inspection car and here is a picture of that bus (I can NOT make out the date on that NYS license plate), cropped slightly from a mildewed old, contemporary photo I'd forgotten I had! Unfortunately, I have no idea who took it ('twasn't I), but it shows, in all her glory, LIRR #1040, the VW Rail Bus inspection car, which had a tiny turntable bolted underneath on a hydraulic jack; one drove up to a crossing, jacked the bus up, spun it 90° by hand, dropped it onto the rails on its teeny Hi-Rails, and awaaaaay we went (I'm told it actually still survives as a private vehicle and there is another)! (22 Jan 05)

Also from my Model Railroad Page 3 (more there on this one, also) is this odd-ball antique rail bus, a synthesized 1917 White Rail Motor (repli-)Car at the Whippany Railway Museum:

(Photo 01 Aug 00 by and © 2000 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved.)
[Thumbnail image - click on the picture for a larger image.]

There's a classic old Mack railbus at the Strasburg RR; I didn't even remember it! Thanks to Wayne Betty (by specific, written permission), here she is:

{artificially lightened to show the hood and grille; better copies to follow}.

Here's an old Peruvian railcar and railbus courtesy of Trains Unlimited, Tours; oil-electric boxcabs will be shown on my Boxcabs Tours page and all TU,T photos are shown, by country, on the Trains Unlimited, Tours Photo Gallery (off site on my private domain, sbiii.com, at http://www.sbiii.com/tutours.html)

Here are a few gems from Robert Wayner's Railroad Work Equipment and Special Service Cars:

(from Railroad Work Equipment and Special Service Cars, Robert J. Wayner, NY, ca. 1989)
[Thumbnail image - click on picture for larger image.]
B&O Chicago Terminal Speeder #4.

[This also looks like a boxcab locomotive but isn't.]

(from Railroad Work Equipment and Special Service Cars, Robert J. Wayner, NY, ca. 1989)
[Thumbnail image - click on picture for larger image.]
St. Louis Valley Southern motor car #M-200 with standard automotive drive train,
shown ca. 1950; later used in ballast service out on the plains of Colorado.

(16 Sep 04)

Now, this is a critter what's a critter; others appear throughout my RR pages.

(from Railroad Work Equipment and Special Service Cars, Robert J. Wayner, NY, ca. 1989)
[Thumbnail image - click on picture for larger image.]
Ma & Pa 1926 Rickenbacker rail motor car pulling weed sprayer - another critter.

HELP! - this railcar was supposedly donated to some Pennsylvania museum;
can anyone out there tell me where it ended up?

This has to be one of the best railcar critters ever! It's a U. S. Gypsum twin- ChryslerChrysler critter, and Hemi powered, no less!

(from Railroad Work Equipment and Special Service Cars, Robert J. Wayner, NY, ca. 1989)
[Thumbnail image - click on picture for larger image.]

The end facing us, at least, is a '53. That crate must have FLOWN!

Stay tuned as I dredge up more of this drivel for your edification!

If you like model railroading nonsense (and good tips), take a gander at Jim Wells' incredible
[The AW NUTS Magazine site of the A.W. N.U.T.S. Garden Railway Society is no longer available.] (25 Jan 05)

THUMBS UP!

THUMBS UP! - Support your local police, fire, and emergency personnel!

S. Berliner, III

To contact S. Berliner, III, please click here.

Return to Top of Page