Dylan, I think your Mom would go ballistic. You would be grounded and without computer privileges until you're 37 or so.

Hmmmm..... so when do you want to come and get it?

Howard P.

(sorry, simply couldn't resist :-O )

At great personal risk of going 'off topic'- A story I read in my formative years went something like this:

A freshly-minted, over-enthusiastic deck officer had just been assigned as Third Officer on a Merchant Marine vessel. He had been on board for just one full day when he wound up in this conversation with the Chief Engineer: (Scots accent optional-)

Chief: "So tell me, son, when you were a child, did you have one of those little steam engines that ran on alcohol?"

Third: "Yes, I did, most kids had them."

Chief: "Did you ever get it to run right, say, for more than a minute at a time?"

Third: "No, the fire was always going out, or a screw would come loose."

Chief: "Well, until you can get one of those little engines to run, I don't want you to criticize or question anything my engineering staff does."

EDM

Give the bloke some credit. At least he didn't propose rolling it home on its own wheels.

Yes, believe it or not, I once saw some idiot deluded enough to try taking a caboose down a highway a mile or three on its own wheels. He was invoiced thousands for the roadway repairs, as I recall.

That's interesting... I wonder how the ticket read (presumably destruction of public property through unconventional means). Besides, if that truck is going to be scrapped, someone should see if it's worth saving. Basically, I'd keep it in my back yard, and give the truck a coat of spray paint to keep it from rusting appart (we've got a pickup that the frame has rotted in half, so...), and maybe someone who's with a group trying to restore a doodlebug would need a truck, so it makes an option. If there is a price tag (everyone has a price), how much would it be?

I'm told it should be about 15 tons.

You can probably get $2-3K for it if the scrapper's hungry. Unless you have a friend with the "right stuff," moving it any real distance will cost you in the low four figures. (Have you priced diesel these days?) Then once it's in your back yard, then what? At least if you spend three or four grand for an MG or rusty El Camaro, it has a prayer of being useful for a trip to the store/beach/prom and more people will be interested in buying it after you're done with it, which is more than I can say for this thing. (And that's the primary reason why there are FAR more car, boat, and plane enthusiasts than railroad enthusiasts--you can run/drive/fly it where YOU want.)

This reminds me of the time I got permission from a short line to remove large cast-iron crossbucks from a soon-to-be-refitted branch for resale for fundraising for a museum. The problem was that to remove the crossbucks (the giant seven-foot "Look Out For The Locomotive" ones) intact without fatalities required a truck with a compact boom crane. I found a friendly short line in another state willing to loan out one of their trucks for the mission, but as they put it, "You realize that this truck eats about a gallon of fuel every two miles or less......" The numbers just didn't work, even when diesel was $1 a gallon. Some of the signs then got stolen by people who pushed/pulled over the posts; others were removed and sold locally by the railroad.

Well, moving it is easy. We have a family friend in the construction buisness that has trailers that are easily able to take 15 tons, so that's the easy part. While a car could do more, at least I'd same something that may be of use to another preservation group, or that could be used as an educational tool by the group I'm working with now on the depot in East Brookfield. Really the only problem I forsee is my limited budget at the moment (around $230 at the moment, so nowhere near the truck's scrap value), although I have applied for a summer job which could help (at $8 per hour for 20 hrs a week. Not to bad for a high school student). Either way, there is always someone that could use the truck.

Every part off of a locomotive or a passenger car could be used by someone else; but how long are you going to store it and how well are you going to advertise the said part? You could have a warehouse full of parts for sale, but if no one knows about it, you just have a warehouse full of parts.

Ok, let me get this straight. We have an interested individual. He has a place for the item. He has a way to move it. He is interested in railroad history and preservation to include taking a leadership role. He's young. Yet, members of this board shoot him down?????

Unbelievable.

A better angle here might be to help out, chip in a few bucks and help make this happen. You know that as soon as this item is cut up, someone will come out of the wood work looking for key parts off of it.

J.R.
jrmay@monmouth.com

He doesn't have the money to buy it, much less move it. The car has already been scrapped, so it's difficult to classify it as an irreplaceable historic artifact. Therefore, it's either a spare part, or a source of funds to the owning group. It sounds like anyone who seriously wants it should show up with check in hand, because the owning group desires to convert it to cash and get on with their life.

At risk of repeating myself, not everything old needs to be saved. Trying to save everything just dilutes the available resources, so in the end, nothing is saved.

A better line of discussion would be to identify how many Brill gas electrics still exist, and how many ARE IN NEED OF A MOTOR TRUCK? That would be a more productive use of band width. I would suspect that while this truck looks like an interurban truck, it is likely larger than anything used under an interurban. I also understand it to only be one truck. Most EMC gas cars used either St. Louis 23 trucks, or Commonwealth cast trucks, so that would tend to rule them out, although they might use the same motors. The only Brill car I know to be "saved", is the PRR car Herb Hansen had at IRM years ago, which I believe was sold to Clint Jones, and it was complete. Any others?

Anyone know the heritage of this doodlebug?
Searsport ME

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23021987@N06/3843401996/

I also recall another gas-electric body that was located in Georgia.

A third body I know of should still have its trucks lying around, at the Nevada State Railroad Museum-Carson City.

Several doodlebug bodies were moved to Kershaw's old shop in Montgomery a few years back - this would fit nicely under any of them. Perhaps somebody nearby could pass along the information.

dave

I do have money, but I don't have enough at the moment. As for moving it, I should reiterate that it isn't a problem, as we have family friends that are capable of moving a 15 ton piece of metal easily.

In my observation, generally speaking there are more bodies out there than trucks. Saving it seems like a no-brainer.
But it's a specialty need, and buyers aren't out there every single day... so a short-fuse auction/sale is going to result in missing them or in lower prices.

In no particular order:

The journals are either 5x9 or 5.5x10, verification will be done this coming weekend.

This has been "on offer" before; only offer we got was a trolley museum offering a 100# crossing diamond in trade. Um, not really useful to us, thanks.

The proceeds from this item will be applied to moving other equipment from the site to our Thomaston base.

The Delaware & Ulster had (has?) an ex-NYC Brill car, just about a dupe of the car we scrapped. They don't seem to be interested in this as a spare.

The car in Maine is an old MEC/B&M St Louis Car Co. motor car from the mid-30s; the power truck on those was a cast, 3-axle job. This body had the cab and first 10 feet or so (engine compt.) cut off when the car was used as a work train car, after its motor car service.

Howard P.

To my knowledge, there are 4 other large Brill gas-electric cars in existence, aside from the NYC car you mentioned. Only the one at the Wilmington & Western is operational. The others include 2 ex PRR cars, privately owned in Escanaba, MI (the one formerly at IRM) and Ringoes, NJ. There is an ex ATSF car in Dallas/Plano.

Not much of a market.