Do any railroads still use handcars? Or have they gone the way of the caboose and the telltale?
I think hand cars were pretty much replaced by speeders, which were then replaced by the high-rail pickup truck.
They do still have competitions for fun. I saw an episode of California Gold (the Huel Houser PBS series) that had a segment on a hand-car competition. I think it was Cal state rail museum event but I’m not sure it was in Sac though. It was interesting show.
I wonder how fast you could make a hand car go. I bet there’s a record out there somewhere.
On that show I mentioned above they had to have been going 35+ when they crossed the finnish line.
Like chad said, my beloved speeders replaced the handcar (gotta like the fact that prolly some redneck railroader said “lets put a motor on that…”) which then were replaced by the hirail truck. Now don’t get me wrong, I love trucks, but adrianhighrail doesn’t have a ring to it.
Adrianspeeder
35+??? I played on them at some parks, etc when I was young, and I don’t recall any brakes… Not to mention that the handles go up and down whether you’re in time with them or not.
Most have a small foot pedal on the floor connected to one or two brakeshoes. You can also reverse pump the handles to slow them.
Huel is the best
Person at rail museum:“this is a handcar”
Huel:“This…is…a…handcar!”
PARM:“Yes huel this a handcar”
Cool Tunnel Motors ! How do you like them in CN colours, have you seen that ?
G’day, Y’all,
Y’all might want to search for the NARCOA website. These are the guys (and gals) who own speeders and take trips up and down railroads. They are so cool. And there are still a lot of them out there for sale. I would love to do this. Near my in-laws in northwest Georgia, they had a trip the weekend that the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum had a steam excursion on the Chattooga & Chickamauga RR trackage. The speeders were to take a siding as the excursion train passed. That would have been a real rush.