Hi:

The Pacific Southwest Railway Museum has the Santa Maria Valley Railroad #9 on display at the San Diego County Fair this month in Del mar, CA. The visitors keep asking how many of these type of cars were built, and how many survive.

Does anyone know?

Yours looks to be either a model 2100 or a 2300. As far as I know quantities of the inspection vehicles/railbuses are unknown.

Keep in mind Fairmont sold the earlier versions like many heavy truck builders did, the factory sold you a running chassis, with hood & cowl, and the owner was responsible to build the car body.

As for survivors, I think I saw one similar to yours up for sale, military surplus about 2-3 years ago. It was located at the Crane Indiana Navy Base. Of the later 3100 series, there are at least 2 still around. Ours, MEC 10/100 at the Connecticut Eastern RR Museum in Willimantic, Ct and the B&M 500 at Seashore Trolley Museum, in Kenneybunkport, Maine.

MEC 10/100


B&M 500


I think there is one guy in the New England NARCOA (National Association of Railcar Owners of America), that may also have one of the 1930's Fairmont cars

For more info on the Fairmont Inspection Cars, see the 3 links on this page marked Fairmont part 1, 2 & 3:
http://www.geocities.com/gandydancer.geo/

So what is the current condition of the #9?

Regards,

Rich C.

Only two Fairmonts show up in Edmund Keilty's "The Short Line Doodlebug" (Interurban Press 1988): yours (listed as a Fairmont Ford, which I presume means it combined a Fairmont body with a 1932 Ford Model A engine/drive), and a 1937-built Fairmont gas-mechanical 33.5' 6-wheeled baggage/12 passenger car built for the Washington, Idaho & Montana Ry., which is listed as retired in 1955. I will have to hit the other two books in this series at the Md. Rail Heritage Library tomorrow, but I sincerely doubt I'm going to find much more than these two.

Indeed, that is correct about ours. The earlier post talked about a former military one and a photo of something which looks similar.

Thank you.

Keilty, in the book covering the different manufacturers of the Doodlebugs, Interurbans Without Wires (Interurbans Special 66, 1979), says this about Fairmont:



The other two paragraphs on Fairmont simply describe the design of retractable "hy-rail" equipment for application to station wagons (remember them?) and vans.

I did not find any mention of Fairmont in Doodlebug Country whcih covers the use of the Doodlebugs by the Class 1s.

sc 'doc' lewis

Fairmount? Or Fairmont? The latter is the name of the dominant builder of speeders and hy-rails, the Boeing of that industry if you will. Didn't know they made railbuses.

The curse of Spell-Check. Corrections to original post made.

Thanks. I'm a speeder guy, and I was actually wondering if there was another car builder in the game that I hadn't heard of. The early years of speeders were quite in flux, with a lot of builders coming and going ... there were people in the railbus business who weren't in the speeder business.

Fairmont did make some fully enclosed speeders, but they really had to be nudged hard by the railroads. Coachwork isn't their thing. As such, I suspect the Santa Maria Valley unit was somebody else's carbody.

The B&M unit might be a Fairmont original... but looking at it, I think precisely one thing: L-O-U-D. Fully enclosed speeders are miserable things. I'm sure that's part of why they switched to hy-rail. Let Ford do the coachwork, get a nice quiet sprung interior... with cupholders...

McHugh Bros. - New Hope & Ivyland RR #350 12 passenger streamlined RAIL MOTOR COACH FAIRMONT
Formerly owned by Erie R.R.; Sold to Walkersville Southern RR. 9/26/92
As I recall, the body was somewhat shovel nosed and symmetrical, and made of "tin" over wood.

Our's is a tin over wood frame as well. Not well built. But, at 77 years old - looking OK.