The Besler steam car seen in the video referenced by Charlie Vlk was
demonstrating on the DRI&NW RR, the line jointly owned by the CB&Q and the
CMSTPP. It was the prototype for a moderately successful two car steam train
that Besler (with Budd's help) subsequently supplied to the NYNH&H RR in about
1937.
The video referenced clearly shows the Davenport Union Station and the
Davenport Locomotive Works. The car body itself was the first stainless steel
car built by the Budd Company. It was commonly referred to as the Green Hornet,
and prior to being shipped to Davenport, was sitting on a back lot bereft of
any motive power (READING). The car was lent by Edward G. Budd because of an
ongoing personal relationship with William George Besler . (then Chmn. of the
Board of the CRR of NJ and President of Davenport Locomotive Works). However,
W.G.'s sons, George and William Besler, were the steam cars' inventors and
promoters, and it was apparently under their own separate corporate name,
Besler Systems, that steam car production and testing was undertaken.
Note that W.G. Besler, an Illinois native, had once been a CB&Q Division
Superintendent at Galesburg, if I can recall. I attribute this earlier
relationship as the reason why the DRI&NW RR was willing to be so accommodating.
The Besler steam power truck was of the reciprocating compound type designed to
be installed within and under a standard passenger car body. The rods were
enclosed by shields so that to the casual observer they looked like standard
car trucks. The boiler was of the very high pressure scotch type and was
enclosed within the car body, an issue that subsequently caused no end of
union-generated safety complaints during its service life on the New Haven
(1937-43).
The Besler steam car operation out of Davenport (only one trip as far as I
know) was the only instance that I know of of a streamlined railroad steam car-
and a stainless steel one at that.
However, by pure serendipity, the only OTHER steam car operation in the US at
the time was only 80 some miles away at Cedar Rapids where the Milwaukee Road's
Cedar Rapids-Kansas City "Iowa Section" of the the Southwest Limited was
handled daily Cedar Rapids-Ottumwa with a steam Locomotor, a similar-concept
steam car which was powered by a uniflow (i.e. not external reciprocating)
motor (essentially a standard internal combustion block -International
Harvester in this instance- powered instead by high pressure steam entering
through the nominal "exhaust" valves and then exiting through the "intake"
valves). Like the Besler, the boiler was also of the high pressure Scotch type.
They also purchased the patents of the Doble Steam Motors Company of
Emeryville, CA, the maker of probably the finest steam automobiles ever built,
and then occupied Doble's building (reportedly still standing). Although, I do
not know this for certain, I believe that the scotch boilers for all the Besler
productions, steam airplane, Green Hornet, and the New Haven train were in fact
designed and constructed by Besler/Doble, or under their supervision. The
Beslers also flew the only steam-powered plane in about 1932 in Oakland, CA,
using a uniflow power plant and undoubtedly Doble technology.
For years during the 1930's George Besler drove a Doble steam automobile,
particularly when he was making public appearances, sales and promotional
calls. I personally have ridden in a preserved Doble steam car at 106 mph.
Awesome is a wimpy term.
Beyond the Green Hornet (the car body was returned to Budd sans steam motor),
and the New Haven's train, neither Besler nor Davenport produced any more steam
rail cars. George (from his Oakland, CA office) made a proposal to the Sierra
RR to steam power a McKeen car (drawings in the California State RR Museum
archives), and he also made a proposal to the Southern Pacific RR in 1937 to
supply two Besler-powered locomotives (A-A, two power trucks each) to power the
new DAYLIGHT. How the SP responded to this bid has yet to be uncovered.
More than you want to know, but a totally interesting vignette of a forgotten,
and eventually failed technology, in which the CB&Q played a peripheral but
important part. BTW, the original video (available from the New Haven RR Hist.
Soc.) also records the first test runs of the Besler New Haven train ex-Budd
Philadelphia plant on the Reading in 1936 or 7. In the background can be seen
the car bodies of one of the first ZEPHYRS.
The old carbon steel car bodies supplied by New Haven that made up the New
Haven train were to my knowledge the only non-stainless cars ever rebuilt by
Budd.
More than you want to know-
Denny
Denny S. Anspach MD
Sacramento
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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