Brill Motor Car - Another of My Dad's Shots

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

This is another of my dad’s shots, a Reading local stop in Skillman. That’s my grandmother’s 1932 Plymouth in the shot.

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=225717&nseq=1

Charles Freericks

2

…Interesting photo…First thing that passes thru my thoughts in looking at the rail car, wonder why it doesn’t have the black and white {or yellow}, diagonal strips across the front of it to make it more visible. So many of those rail cars {doodlebugs}, did.

Edit: Looking at the telephone / telegraph lines on the 6 horzional supports of the utility pole, it sure is a question in my mind how they kept those communitation wires separated well enough to prevent “shorts” across them, etc…I would think the wind could have caused real trouble with them, especially if some of the wires had more “slack” than others.

3

I can’t answer either of your questions, but you did cause me to go back and look. Seems about 50% of the doodlebug pictures on the web have safety stripes. As to the wires, that is a rural area, so I would imagine they got slammed by a lot of wind.

4

You may be thinking of the track inspection cars working for that company (the name eludes me right now) but I think other companies had stripes too. It’s railroad oriented, not all cars had stripes.

5

…Understand your thoughts on safety stripes being RR oriented.

But many of the “doodlebugs” really did have the black and white or yellow stripes painted on their fronts. Those are the ones I was thinking of. Yes, I did see them in operation many times.

Was the track inspection Co. name Sperry…

6

Yup! That’s it! Sperry! I’m not sure which railroads had the stripes on them.

7

If that was a 1932 or 1933 Plymouth, it had to be the first year for that make. Learned something - I thought Plymouth didn’t come about until a couple of years later, but you would know better if it was your grandmother’s car. Chrysler Corp. created Plymouth to compete with Ford and Chevy; Dodge at that time was a larger more substantial car, something like a doctor or lawyer would have. Neat picture!

8

According to my search, the first Plymouth was produced on Jan. 11, 1928 to compete with the other low priced vehicles…Chevy and Ford.

9

The story that I read (proably 30 years ago, so I’m not sure where to find it) was that Walter P Chrysler himself drove the first Plymouth to Henry Ford’s office to show it to him. (Or was it to Durant’s office? It was one of them.)

10

…I understand Walter Chrysler and Henry Ford were friends, so perhaps it was to Ford’s office.

11

That rings true too… I’m trying to remember when Willy Durant left GM too. It may have been before that.

Sort of amazing that the man who created GM has been forgotten to time, because he didn’t put his name on a car until after he was gone. And that car was a failure.

12

…We have some history right here in Muncie of Durant.

Our Chevy transmission plant established in 1934 was just demolished to ruble this past month. Right in the same area Durant produced automobiles at one time. Several weird names of automobiles were produced here before my time and before we arrived here from Pennsylvania.

I remember there was a building right down town that was an auto dealership in years past…The name “Star” was still in place when they demolished it years ago. That was the name of an automobile.

Yes, I hear you on the subject of Durant.

Edit: It’s just a little hazy in the search as to the exact date {that Durant left GM the 2nd time} I looked at but seems perhaps it could have been 1920.