Doodlebug
Transcription
Doodlebug
Next meeting of the SW Chapter will be Wed. May 11 at Avila’s Restaurant on Mesa St. at 6 pm. Visitors welcome. SPECIAL POINTS OF INTEREST: • Cover story: “Doodlebugs” • Coming Soon: Southern Pacific’s articulated 3800 Series locomotives • Coming Soon: the Fort Collins Municipal Railway • Coming Soon: The Roby & Northern in Texas El Paso & Southwestern Flyer Southwest Chapter, R&LHS MA Y 2 0 1 1 Selected Doodlebug Runs in the Southwest By Ron Dawson ———————————— The self-propelled gaselectric motorcar, known by patrons of branch lines as the “Doodlebug”, served as a vital link in providing passenger service to short line and branch lines which could not support a fully crewed and engine passenger train. Here is a look at some of the more interesting Doodlebug runs. M-K-T’s Doodlebug Run from Waco to Stamford, Texas According to Katy’s Dec. 1, 1947 timetable, Motor train No. 35, left Waco at 7 am. Covering 106 miles, it arrived at Dublin, Texas at 10:30 am. (Ed. Note: If you pass through Dublin, check out the handsome old brick Katy depot, still standing, and visit the Dr. Pepper bottling plant, where you can still get a Dr. Pepper in a glass bottle.) At Dublin, the M-K-T crossed the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe’s Ft. Worth to Brownwood line at grade. It also interchanged with the southern terminus of the venerable Wichita Falls & Southern. No. 35 continued on through peanut country at Gorman, arriving at the Cisco Union Station at 12:10 pm, where the Katy crossed the Texas & Pacific at grade and at about a 60 degree angle. Reaching the end point at Stamford, Texas at 2:30 pm, No. 35 had traveled 226 miles from Waco. The remainder of the branch to Rotan was served by a mixed train daily except Sunday. At Stamford, the M-K-T shared a station and wye with the Fort Worth & Denver (the old Wichita Valley), now a subsidiary of the Burlington. With a quick turnaround, the doodlebug, now No. 36 , left at 2:40 pm, not getting back to Waco until 10:10 pm. The doodlebug used on this line was #M-12, outshopped by the St. Louis car company in 1932 with a Brill engine. This motor was baggage, RPO, and express, so passengers were normally carried in an attached coach. Occasionally, when M-12 was down PAGE 2 Katy’s M-12 at Cisco, TX near the T&P crossing. (photo from Katy Southwest by John McCall & Frank Schultz for repairs, one of Katy’s 4 -4-0’s , #315, would substitute as power on trains 35 and 36. This locomotive, built by Baldwin in 1890 and modernized and re- boilered by Katy’s Parsons, Kansas shops, continued in service until 1952. The Waco-Stamford branch was abandoned in 1967 but the Dublin to Gorman section survived to serve the peanut industry and is today operated by the Fort Worth & Western. Wichita Falls to Abilene on the Ft. Worth & Denver (Wichita Valley) The old Abilene & South- inally part of the Abilene & Southern. Motor Train # 111 left Wichita Falls at 5:45 pm having taken passengers from C&S (FW&D) eastbound train #7, the Gulf Coast Special, an all stops local from Denver to Dallas. The doodlebug had a 5 min. station stop at Stamford at the 112 mile mark and made it to Abilene at 11:25 pm, a total of 151 miles. Northbound motor, train 112 left Abilene at 7 a.m., arriving back at Wichita Falls at 12:30 pm in plenty of time to connect with the westbound Texas Zephyr. ern depot in Abilene, TX served the Fort Worth & Denver branch from Wichita Falls. The June 8, 1947 timetable of the Colorado & Southern (Ft. Worth & Denver) shows the Wichita Falls to Abilene branch still listed as the Wichita Valley. The Stamford to Abilene portion was orig- EL PASO & SOUTHWESTERN Thought to be the doodlebug on the Abilene run. (Photograph er unknown) FLYER MAY 2011 PAGE Doodlebugs on Santa Fe’s ex-KCM&O route through Oklahoma and Texas, were of the ear- trains 45 and 46. lier motors Santa Fe took over from the bankrupt used on Orient in 1928 and the Orient sold off the Mexican portion of the line. A number of doodlebugs operated on this line, including M-160 , M161, and M-162; later towards the end of the service, there were motors in the M-180 class. Most Santa Fe doodlebugs became dieselized between 1946 and 1952. The terminal points varied from time to time. Prior to the fifties, the run M-119, one Covering 539 miles from Wichita, Kansas to San Angelo, Texas, the doodlebugs on the old “Orient” route (Kansa City, Mexico, and Orient.) needed 18 hours to make the run. Crossing north and south had been divided into two parts. Wichita to Sweetwater and Sweetwater to Ft Stockton. But a 1949 Santa Fe timetable shows the main run as again Wichita to San Angelo. In the later years, Kiowa, Kansas, and Altus, Oklahoma were the northern points. The doodlebug run crossed the Rock Island at Clinton, OK, the Frisco at Altus, Ok, the Burlington (FW&D) at Chillicothe, TX, the M-K-T at Hamlin, TX and the Clovis-Temple line of the Santa Fe at Sweetwater, Texas. The doodlebug service ended in 1959. Articulated Doodlebug M190, photo from the Otto Perry The “Old Pelican” Motor M-190 Sometimes referred to as the “ultimate doodlebug”, M-190 was built by EMD for running gear and power and by Pullman for the body. Delivered in 1932, she was a oneoff production, 90 feet in length and articulated with three trucks.. Originally equipped with a Winton V-12 distillate engine, she was dieselized in 1949. She worked various lines in Kansas and California until she settled on the Lubbock to Amarillo Collection run. Bumped by a diesel locomotive in 1955, she went to the Albuquerque shops where she was given some streamlining and a Warbonnet paint scheme to go to work on the Clovis-Carlsbad run, the old “Peavine” line. After the passenger run ended in 1967, she eventually ended up in Sacramento at the California Railroad Museum, but now is back in Belen, NM undergoing restoration. An Orient Line Story from “The Doodlebugs” by John B. McCall In September, 1958 I was R.R. Rogers, the engineer, riding No. 45 from Chillicothe, looked up from his ritual of By the time we arrived, they’re cold. The Texas to Sweetwater. M.184 checking the journal brasses crew and I sit on a baggage wagon, eating stopped at Crowell to take on a and announced. “hell, I could watermelon that warm August night and sack of mail. “How’s your wa- use one now.” Five minutes lat- waited for the California Special to arrive. termelon crop?” the conductor er the mailman returns in his Supermarket melon has never tasted as asked the mailman. “Pretty pick-up with two watermelons good. good. I’ll bring you one down and the brakeman puts ‘em in the next trip,” he replied. the ice chest. 3 May 2011 El Paso & Southwestern Flyer A publication of the Southwest Chapter Railway & Locomotive Historical Society TO: Editor: Ron Dawson P.O. Box 971771 El Paso, TX 79997 E-mail: [email protected] Trainweb.org/ep-sw/index1.htm A Doodlebug Disaster at Cuyahoga Falls, OH July 31, 1940. Pennsylvania RR doodlebug No.4648 was a self propelled gas-electric rail-car; had departed Hudson at 5:49 pm on its usual 13-mile run south to Akron on a warm summer evening. At the same time a freight train comprising 73 freight cars hauled by two locomotives departed Akron heading north. Within ten minutes both had met with disaster; the Doodlebug should have pulled into a siding at Silver Lake to allow the freight to pass; but instead it continued southwards. Although both trains braked their combined speed was 55 mph when they collided at 5:58 pm. The engineer, conductor and a railroad employee managed to jump free, though they were badly injured; but no-one else on the Doodlebug survived. As the lead freight engine telescoped 12 feet into the railcar, its 350-gallon gasoline tank ruptured and sprayed the interior of the coach with burning gas, as the Doodlebug was pushed over 500 feet up the track by the momentum of the heavy freight train (which remained on the track); "flames shooting out twenty-five feet in all directions. No. 4648 was a double-ender and was running passenger compartment forward that day. The medical examiner determined that only nine passengers were killed on impact, the rest were burned to death. Firemen fought the blaze for 45minutes but it would be several hours before the bodies could be removed; most required saws to separate them from the seats to which they had been burned by the flames. Ambulances soon gathered at the scene but there were only the three railroad employees to take to hospital; instead they took the charred bodies to funeral homes. The Doodlebug engineman survived and was able to recall receiving orders at Hudson to take the siding at Silver Road but he was unable to recall passing the siding. The investigation considered the possibility that the engineer could have been "under the influence of carbon monoxide poisoning with a resultant temporary impairment of mental faculties but not be wholly unconscious", which would explain his behavior. The driver had complained of fumes in the cabs on previous occasions. No charges were held against him.