Doodlebugs-Other Mfrs?

3rd rail is the only other one I can remember.

Walthers made a kit that you see from time to time on Ebay. I thought about trying to modify one from time to time.

There have been others imported in brass and there is of course the venerable Walthers kit that came in a long and shorter version.  La Belle also made a kit for one.

I forgot about the American Standard kit, and I have one of those......

 

Finding correct 3-rail power trucks is a non-trivial exercise.  Heck, finding and affording the correct ones in 2-rail is not picnic some days.  Q-car and NWSL drives both dig a trench into a budget real fast.

My favorite was the Max Gray ATSF 191 (I think) that was articulated.  The real one wound up with Diesel power, and could pull a ten car train.  I have never been able to afford one.

 

I used to ride a steam powered doodlebug - usually a Mogul and a Hariman combine, plus a couple of freight cars.  Finished its years with a 70 to. GE switcher.  The locomotive starred in " Oklahoma!"

The 3rd rail is the best I have ever seen.  I have had all the others.  Years ago I built some Walther 2 rail kits with my own homemade powr trucks.  Here is a photo of my 3rd rail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NJCB made a model of the same one as 3rd rail.   You still these around at shows anywhere from 350 to 6-700.    They originally came in upainted.   They have very nice detail but are somewhat fragile.

 

There was another brass importer that I can't remember right now that brought in models of 3-4 different older prototype Brills.     

They now have ERR like this one.

The other brass importer was GHB international.

 

I think (not sure) that the one 3rd Rail did, while decorated pennsy, was an off the shelf model.   Pennsy did not custom build any as far as I have been able to research, just bought them from various mfgs.    Now they probably did change the door to have the porthole window.  

prrjim:  You very well may be right...  I just went through one of the Keilty "Doodlebug" books, and I was surprised to see that the Pennsy over time ordered

37 Brill (just Brill alone) gas electrics, of a lot of different models.  ((and that doesn't include #4889 shown in a photo on a fan trip, and which one looks like the

3rd Rail one (which model photo or version I don't have here for comparison) to me))  I didn't find #4889 listed, just pictured.  I was visualizing Brill Model 55, which would be similar to the American Standard St. Louis Car Co. model, and the 3rd Rail Pennsy version may be of Brill Models 250 or larger which look different.  So the 3rd Rail model may be an off the shelf Brill.  I'd guess paper included with the model would shed some light on that.

Pennsy didn't buy any of the Edwards cars, or any of the St. Louis cars.  Pennsy did buy 7 EMC gas electrics, 2 Westinghouse gas electrics, 2 Budd Streamlined rail cars (1932..not RDC), and one McKeen car, in 1910.   Except for the McKeen, they do not

appear to have entered this market early, when it was full of all kinds of odd ball

makers, and GE, who was building a number of them and may have been the early leader.

It is true that the railroads didn't lose much time modifying many of them,

adding on extra radiators for cooling, swapping different engines in, etc. and sometimes changng them radically cosmetically. 

The baggage doors were open on #4889 and another in Indiana,  in the photos, so I don't know if they were portholed.

I just looked at the PRR equipment list on line and it lists 4666 (the prototype I think for the 3rd rail car) as an OEG415.    It does not unfortunately lists the mfg, but the 415 is a hint that it was a later big car.   Also Pennsy had 5 in this group.

 

On a second note in the late 40s, I think, there was a head on collision between a steam powered freight and a gas electric near Akron on the Pennsy.   The gas tank exploded and burned and many passengers were killed.    After that Pennsy started a program to convert their cars to "Oil-Electrics" ie they replaced the gasoline motors with diesels.    I think that is part of the OEG designation.   

4666 is one of five of the longest Brill cars listed for the Pennsy, at 77 1/2 feet,

and one of two that went to a museum, which may be why it was chosen to

model.  It was re-engined to diesel in 1942, all according to Keilty.  #4663, built

by Pullman, not Brill,  but similar, was modified with a streamline shovel nose.  The five Brills were Model #660.

Only the Great Northern and the Reading are shown in these books to have also

ordered Model #660, and they, as customized as these often were, at the factory,

and afterwards, might have differed in appearance from the Pennsys', which precluded offering this model in other road names.