When I first ran across this photo, all I could see was that strange front end. Was this a preview of the Five Mile Bumpers? Oh; it’s a rail inspection car. I didn’t even notice the front rail wheels under that body work. Of course; that’s the whole point. But you sure wouldn’t see anyone trying to hide the rail wheels on a Ford Super Duty pickup nowadays.
Here’s the ’57 version, and the wheels are much more visible in this shot. But it’s nice to think that the rail inspector could drive his company car home and neighbors just…wondered why his Pontiac had such an underbite.
These were built by the Fairmont Railway Motors Inc. of Fairmont, Minnesota.
Were the ’59 versions Wide-Gauge?
Polistra,
Am I the only one who got your wonderful joke?
I did miss the joke until you pointed it out.😀
My father tells a story about taking his new 1959 Pontiac Catalina to an automated car wash and the attendant running toward him waving his arms and yelling “Stop! Stop!” It seems another 1959 Wide-track owner had attempted the same a week earlier and the car fell off the tracks. I’ve never heard a similar story but by father is not given to making up humorous anecdotes.
Has anyone else ever had a weird fantasy to just drive one of these things onto the tracks, drop the track wheels, and set the cruise control…
just to see where it goes?
I do, but I fear I’ll end up in s back to the future 3 scenario within a few minutes.
Well since you won’t reliably shunt a track circuit, neither the signal system nor a dispatcher will know you’re out there, and the consequences would be quite deadly.
It’s kind of strange that you never see a hy-rail conversion of anything less than a fullsize pickup anymore, since these wagons probably didn’t have much more space or functionality than a RAV4 or at most a Highlander.
Fairmont made neat little rail speeder cars also. They used their own motor, an exposed flywheel two stroke. To reverse one you would adjust the ignition timing with a lever and start the motor in the opposite direction. Engage the drive and you were heading back from whence you came.
The rich green paint jobs on both cars are eye-catching; one wonders how and for whom the colors were chosen. And it’s interesting to see the Pontiac symmetrical-about-a-horizontal-axis decoration grow from a two- to a three-dimensional feature, on the one-year-only ’58 body. (Is that enough hyphens in a single sentence ?)
That Fairmont took the trouble, in both cases, to use the factory bumpers—which surely weren’t a practical necessity, given the use these vehicles were put to—and to create the necessary extra sheet-metal to (attempt to) integrate the repositioned parts into some semblance of Detroit style, is endearing.
I had to look up what these were – I’m pretty sure we don’t have them in Europe. Do these work on both road and rail? (Apologies for my ignorance). There must be a temptation to just floor the accelerator and zoom along, on the rails.
” Do these work on both road and rail?”
Yes, the rail guide wheels retract for road use, and the rear tires maintain enough contact during rail use to propel the car.
Another great article; I remember in the early 50’s occasionally seeing a passenger car that had been fitted with rail guide wheels, now the only vehicles I see equipped in this manner
are work vehicles-trucks and heavy duty pickups and the like. Perhaps the Pontiac was used to transport engine crews to their locomotives or used for track inspection.
And this is another Fairmont Rail Inspection car from the 1920s — the company had been around for a mighty long time:
The antique rail yard in Eureka Springs, Ark. has a 50 Chevy wagon on display.
These Pontiacs are very elegant conversions compared to the jutting platforms on modern road railers. Around my area they are all BNSF owned Freightliner medium duty trucks. The smallest road rail vehicles in the region are probably Tri-Met’s Unimogs in Portland which in addition to rail wheels have couplers to allow them to move disabled Max trains.
I remember seeing a ’55 Pontiac four door sedan version when I was a kid. It would pass through our small Indiana town once in awhile. It was light blue. I was fascinated by it.
Heard many a tale from the by gone generation of teenagers and their parents cars, my father in law included. They would drive onto the tracks, reduce the air pressure in the old bias plies and let the cars drive down the tracks at night with no lights on between the local hamlets. Usually alcohol, girls and cops were the infused elements of the story. Apparently tires did not do well with the under inflation either. Should be some movies made on this topic me thinks
“Should be some movies made on this topic me thinks.”
There’s already one out there, done back in 1967. The Flim-Flam Man with George C. Scott and Michael Sarrazin.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061678/
Up here in Canada we do it a bit smaller. Photo by Dave Wilkie
Notice the fender flares. The standard “track” of that Honda was too narrow for the railway, so I suppose they stuck spacers between the wheels and the brake drums/rotors.
What a penalty-box. That car needed hundreds of pounds of railway equipment like I need to take a power drill to my skull.
Nevada Northern Railway has a 1956 Pontiac Hy-Rail car.
https://www.nnry.com/pages/Hy-Rail.php
First car I drove was a hi rail. I volunteered at a railroad museum and they had a dodge A100 pickup converted to a hi rail by Fairmont. The wheels weren’t hidden but they were with in custom bumpers. Most ones these days use hydraulics. The A100 was manual using a 6′ lever to lift the truck onto each wheel.
The A 100 worked well for this as the track was pretty close to the track gauge. Full size trucks often use inset wheel to get closer to the right gauge. Most of the new ones I see are 3/4 ron trucks but I have also seen suburban tahoe’s broncos etc.
My favorite was a pettibone speed swing with hi rail wheels look up the you tube videos for that one.