Now, here is a picture cropped slightly from a mildewed old, contemporary photo I'd
forgotten I had (I can NOT make out the date on that NYS license plate)!
Unfortunately, I have no idea who took it ('twasn't I), but it shows, in all her glory,
LIRR #1040, the VW Rail Bus inspection car, which had a tiny turntable bolted
underneath on an electric jack; one drove up to a crossing, jacked the bus
up, spun it 90° by hand, dropped it onto the rails on its teeny Hi-Rails, and
awaaaaay we went (I'm told it may actually survive - in private hands)!
(moved from LIRR Page 5 on 21 Jan 2005)
(Photo from collection of S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
[But see below - 27 Nov 06]
On 21 Jan 2005, I heard from Joseph "East Coast Joe" Gunyan, who moved from Long
Island to Quakertown, Pennsylvania, and took a LIRR Volkswagen Rail Bus inspection
car with him (same one?); it had been painted Tuscan with 5-stripes but was a rusted
hulk that had been sitting in a field in Manorvile when Joe found it ca. 1997 [before
and after (2) shots]:
(Cropped from photos courtesy of J. Gunyan - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnailed images - click on the pictures for larger images]
That Tuscan "before" shot (left) is badly pixellated but the keystone sure doesn't look
like "1040" to me. 1044?
We can sure read THAT NYS license plate (center); can't make out the year, though.
Do you dig it? 123-HOT!
All the working parts are there and Joe talked to the folks at Engine 35 at Mitchel Field
(back then) and got replacment large Dashing Dan decals and the paint codes.
Who knows? We may yet see her restored.
Joe says there were about ten (10) of these buses (news to me!)! He also
followed up the photos with more info.; he has a 1963 VW magazine with a story
about #1040. Joe's bus was in Rockville Center on Sunrise Highway at a
contractors - - - they had a service arrangment with the LIRR. Joe talked to his
Dad years ago; he remembered them. Somewhere he has more info. and says
that the guy who aquired it in the 70's actually ran it all over Long Island, New Jersey,
Connecticut, and even down to Delaware; he has old super 8s (films?) and is still on
Long Island and in his '50s. Joe's bus was resting in Manorville, under a tree;
he'll try to remeber the name of the road - it was so long ago.
These two cars do not look identical to me; there are numerous detail differences,
such as the Hi-Rail bracketing and the side lights, but any could have been changed
over the years.
I remember seeing photos of one of these buses being turned at an intersection; I'd
love to post such (a) picture(s) if anyone has one (them) and now (26 Jan 05) have!
(27 Jan 05)
Back when I first saw a photo of #1040 (at top) or another, I immediately set about
making my own railbus in HO by taking a Lesney Matchbox VW Microbus (one of the
few Matchboxes actually in HO scale) and grafting in a Marx slot car chassis with brass
HO RR wheels with phosphor bronze wipers, and ended up with a 250mph VW railcar!
She's now some 35-40 years old and still runs like a well-oiled (albeit noisy) watch:
[Photos courtesy of Berlinerwerke]
(duplicated from Model RR page 3)
It's a blast to sneak her out on various model RR club layouts on Long Island (with
some member's complicity) and watch people gape.
The question now is whether I'll ever get more than the prime coat on it, and then
what color to use, Tichy gray or Tuscan red (with N-scale 5-striping)? Will Joe
or I get our bus done first?
More on the rail bus from Joe {edited} - he recalls it was stored on Weeks Road in
Manorville, off Sunrise Highway, east of William Floyd Parkway, and sat there for
years; all Joe's buddies knew about it. It was owned then by a retired postal
route mailman, Jay Wallis, who was a collector; while doing his mail route, he always
found old cars, tractors, and such, and brought them home. Jay got it from a
man in East Setauket, who may be the fellow who had Super 8 movies he took while
joy riding it on freight tracks on weekends; wouldn't those be cool to see!
You can be sure we'll try to "track" down that lead, as well as some photos showing
one of them being turned!
Joe sent me images from the Volkswagen Club of
America's magazine,
The VW AUTOIST of March 1963, the cover, page two, and an unidentifed
page with two photos; the magazine is still around and I'ved asked for permission.
The photos were provided to the magazine by none other than then-LIRR President
and General Manager Thomas M. Goodfellow (the clown who had all the LIRR glass
plate negs. thrown out!). One of the images has two pair of spread-out
Dashing Dan and Dottie matchbook covers sitting on top of the page, so I
cropped them out:
(Cropped from photo courtesy of "E. Coast Joe" - all rights reserved)
I no sooner did that than along came our good LIRR and Motor Parkway buddy,
Art Huneke of aRRt's aRRchives
fame, with two sharp photos of LIRR rail vans, which I've cropped and posted:
(Cropped from photos courtesy of A. Huneke - all rights reserved)
Well, there's no question whatsoever now of there being more than one van.
The article mentions there being six in 1963, that the turntable jack was
operated electrically, and that the vans were called "GANDY-WAGONS"
(Gandy-Wagens). Also, look very carefully at that lower photo; the bus
is stenciled "GW6" on the door but "1041" above the
windshield!
Joe writes that the upper photo on the page of two is captioned "The fireman may not
have much to keep him busy in this piece of rolling stock as he perches up front
beside the engineer, but this workcrew-carrying 'engine' has no time for
'featherbedding' as it follows a close schedule over the Long Island Rail Road".
He then advised that those Dan and Dottie "badges" are actually covers from
complimentary matchbooks given out in the old smoking cars!
I should add that these buses ran on regular VW wheels and tires but the rear
ones were bolted on in reverse so the tread widened to fit the 4' 8½"
track; while on the rails, the front wheels were up off the railhead and the
Hi-Rail wheels carried the load, while the spread rear wheels ran on the rails
for traction and the rear Hi-Rail wheels only kept the bus "on track".
The beat goes on! On 26 Nov 2006, I heard from Al Castelli that he has the
same photo of #1040 that he bought at the Hobby Images hobby shop that was in
Hicksville in the '80s. It's a 3½" x 5" inch color photo. Henry
Maywald sold his photos there and, ca. 2005, he told Al that all the photos sold there
were his, so Al rightly deduced that the photo I posted above is a Henry Maywald
photo. I got mine long before all this as a gift from someone (Henry?) who saw
my "model" but Al graciously e-mailed me a scan of his, which is far sharper and
brighter:
(Scan of original H. Maywald photo ca. 1960-70 courtesy of A. Castelli - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnailed image - click on the picture for a much larger (553Kb) image]
Most of the photos Al bought from Henry are from the 60s & 70s when he took them.
He sold some in the 80s since the hobby shop gave him an easy way to sell them.
You can readily see the reversed rear wheel on this shot.
Speaking of which, Al noticed the wild wheel-well flare; not being a VW Kombi nut,
that had escaped me. To see just how wild the LIRR modification was, to clear
the reversed rear wheel, here are details of the right rear of a stock first-series
Kombi and #1040:
Now, that took a bit of body work!
SNOW! - Why the LIRR's Ronkonkoma-to-Greenport line was closed on 24
Jan 05:
(24 Jan 2005 photos courtesy of J. S. Muhr - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnailed images- click on pictures for larger images]
Jim Muhr sent these photos taken at 07:00 on 24 Jan 2005 at Milepost 86 in
Cutchogue looking east (l.) and west (r.); thanks, Jim. My reaction?
"That's NOT much snow; hell, Jaws or the Rotary could cut right through that
- - - ooops!"
Taken on a VERY crisp winter morning, you can readily see why Long Island is
(was) called the "Sunrise Homeland".
Jay Eichler (NYAR) checked in to advise that "This area always gets snowed in with a
good powdery snow like we had. This area, just east of the old Cutchogue
station, has an open area to the north that allows the snow to blow on the tracks
and collect. Over the last few years, I've been on the "snow patrol" run to
Greenport, which is one of the only times you'll see a New York & Atlantic train east of
Southold. The drifts in this area get over five feet high, and the snow climbs up
on the catwalks!" Thanks, Jay. Gee, I remember when there were such things
as "snow fences"; apparently the LIRR doesn't.
Fellow Long Island Motor Parkway enthusiast
Pat Masterson was operating on the Florida Gulf Coast RR Museum property in
Miami on 24 Dec 2005 and found ex-LIRR coach #2916 in the consist:
(cropped from Dec 2005 photos courtesy of P. Masterson - all rights reserved)
[I had to lighten up the first shot drastically, to the point of losing the roof, to
see anything at all.]
Now, before you write me about the hideous color of the coach, as several did
immediately, Pat has since advised me that Thomas the Tank Engine is colored
powder blue, so that's why coach #2916 is now blue; it's the coach they put all
the kids and families in during their Thomas weekend. The color was
not chosen randomly; it serves a real purpose on their railroad. Aha;
THAT explains the odd red striping on the side - it matches Thomas.
[This page was separated out from my RAILROAD,
LI Rail Road, and LI Railroads pages;
you might wish to see them also.]
THUMBS UP!
THUMBS UP! - Support your local police, fire, and emergency personnel!
S. Berliner, III
To contact S. Berliner, III, please click here.
of this series of LIRR pages.
To tour the Long Island railroads pages in sequence, the arrows take you from the previous page to the LIRR index, to the first LIRR page, and on to pages 2 and up, then to the other LI railroads page, and lastly to the LIRR Historical Society page.
© Copyright S. Berliner, III -
2002, 2005,
2006
- All rights reserved.
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