This reminds of the film someone posted recently from 1906 in San Francisco or some place...something I saw in it. I noticed a horse and buggy ahead of the street car...was a spring wagon actually I think...anyway I noticed the driver set the weels in the street car tracks. Looked like he was doing to that to let the tracks guide the horse so to speak.

I thought it interesting becuase it seemed to confirm that old story about Roman roads and wagon tracks...then railroad tracks...and per this pictures apparently T's all being the same width.

Wonder if the front wheels are locked (steering wise). Can't make out any steering linkage under there. Then again you could never steer it when it's off the rails if it had none.

Jay - Nice Picture! DT&I - Detroit Toledo & Ironton RR, owned by Ford during the "T" era I think.

Here is one in New Zealand

NZ-railcar1 T-railcar1.bmp (111.2 k)

NZ-railcar2 T-railcar2.bmp (111.3 k)

T-railcarPanel T-railcarPanel.bmp (112.3 k)

Charlie - Probably had some forked shaped hinged lock that was attached to the steering column and was flopped over one of the steering wheel spokes to lock the steering when operating on rails, then flopped back over on the steering column for highway use when the rail trip was concluded. Just a guess on my part but that's not too far from the manner in which modern "hi-rail" equipment works.

I agree, no steering linkage. Looks like a non ford front axel too with front wheel brakes perhaps? Looks to me like this is dedicated to rail use, not quickly switched back to road service.

If you look closely at the photo, you can see that it is not a standard Model T front axle - there are no swivel spindles at the ends so it was not steerable. It also appears that it may have had front brake drums.

Ford sold the DT&I railroad just a few months before the 1929 stock market crash - perfect timing!

Yep, it does have front brakes. And if you look close just in front of the hand brake you can see there is a wire there to control them.

I had trouble finding this picture till today but it is worth it. Thats a neat set up

This is an English photo, York Layerthorpe was a railway station in North Yorkshire up until 1989.

You might be able to see that the front axle has been replaced with a solid on similar to what one would use for a trailer.

What a great photo, you would have to give a lot of credit to the hard yaka the poor little T motor would have to do fully loaded, I'm surprised the fan and radiator did the job, I would love to see some specs on it, what mods, fuel consumption, speed etc, any info?

I bet there's another front end facing toward the rear. Check out that next to last set of wheels. Look at the axle.
I bet one has a reverse cut ring and pinion in it or the ring gear is installed on the other side of the pinion.

I think that you are correct Patrick. There was a Colonel Stephens in England who promoted light railways and either designed, or had designed this style of double-ended rail motor. Not sure how the unit being pulled fared. I'd like to find out more about them.

Agree - its almost like 2 T's facing opposite directions joined by 1 long body. Carriage number 1 and 2 for each end. you can see the diff under the rear centre.

If you flipped the differential over, forward would now be reverse and reverse would now be forward. Running two engines would give you 40 hp instead of 20. Of course you could also add two reversing extra transmissions so that the rail car could go in either direction.

Neil

More about Col. Stephen's machines here-

http://www.colonelstephenssociety.co.uk/Ford%20Railmotor.html

Peter, that was run on what was the Derwent Valley Light Railway which was a privately owned railway also known as the Blackberry Line.
I think I read more in the British club mag a while back, I will have a look.
Chris M.

Here's a few I posted over on Ford Facts couple days ago.

http://vintagefordfacts.blogspot.com/2011/01/model-t-fords-used-as-rail-cars.htm l

Here is a short film of one of Co. Stephens' Ford railmotors. From a bit of further reading, except for the first double unit, they were fitted with an auxiliary gearbox which not only increased the choice of ratios but gave a positive 'neutral' for the trailing unit.

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=8691

Thanks Dan, that was great, crank start R/handed.