We had a great time at Marty’s. It was good to see familiar faces again.
The M-190 Motorcar.
In 1932, ATSF built its last doodlebug,“the Ultimate Doodlebug,” the M-190.
The “Old Pelican” had a 900hp distillate motor which was upgraded to Diesel
In 1949. M-190 was unique. It was articulated with three trucks; two powered.
It had length of 90 ft. The Baggage car had a boiler for heating passenger cars
M-190 was designed to pull 5 passenger cars… On one occasion, it pulled 15
Freight cars, a coach, and a combine. . She was rated for 80mph and had
tractive effort of 50,050lbs.
Much of the maintenance on M-190 was performed at the West Wichita, KS
shops [I live in Wichita]. It ran Plugs from Kansas City to Texas, New Mexico, &
California. Used in regular scheduled service, for 35 years, a tired M-190 was
retired in 1967. M-190 is now stored in New Mexico, for future restoration.
The crew of the HedgeApple~RioGram RR would like to take you on a fast leasurely passenger ride through NTCGRR territory in the restored ATSF M-190.
“The Ultimate Doodlebug” ATSF M-190 pulls out of Table Creek Station with a hearty “All Aboard!!!” This leg of the journey takes us up the Highline.
M-190, “The Old Pellican” starts up the grade after switching onto the highline road.
Steady she climbs, not missing a cylinder on the uphill grade.
Finally, M-190 makes it across the Highline trestle. M-190 was unique among Doodlebu
Awesum. Looks as if major fun was had by all. I hope you don’t mind, I took your “night photo” to my photo editor, did a bit of gama shift to lighten up the suroundings. In doing so some color distrotion was done to Mr. “Ultimate Doodle-Bug”.
I’m thinking that this photo (in daylight) would show execelent relationships to tracks, station and the “local environment”.
Jim had two neat booklets there that he made. One was the history of the M-190, the other showed his build of it. Pretty brave cutting up all the cars he did to make it. Neat to see scratch building going on.
Thanks for the link to more pix. This was the first time I’ve seen an “aerial” view of that massive steel bridge. Just what scale airplane/helio did you use?
Jerry:
Are you gunjeep444over on YouTube? If so, you did some good work on the “steam run”. I’m one of your subscribers over there (001pudder) so I get an auto-email when you post a new vid. You should post it here. (Actually, over on the video section)
