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: upper14@aol.com
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.