The most unique railcar? | An insider tour of EBT M-1

The ‪@EastBroadTopRailroad‬ 's M-1 motorcar is a really unique vehicle. When I was out at the railroad, I got to chat with it's caretaker, and get a close up look of this wacky and cool gas-electric motorcar.
Thanks to ‪@NickOzorak‬ for putting it together.
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[@kANGaming]

So what you are saying is this is Choo Fast Choo Furious material.

[@Hyce777]

If it gets a turbo, for sure.

[@rocketplane8862]

Inline 6? Insert obligatory "2JZ. no shit!?" here.

[@ericbonanno5214]

​@@rocketplane8862 just do an LS swap. 😂😂😂😂

[@ShadowDragon8685]

@@Hyce777 It's a funny joke... But _would_ a large engine like that benefit from some kind of forced-air intake, whether turbo- or super-charged?

[@kimpatz2189]

It would benefit... Might be a recommendation for more efficiency

[@xenowreborn]

M-1 really is a Unique vehicle, from what I've gathered from the video, built within the EBT's very own shops! which is just really cool!

[@robertsanders6463]

In memory of my wife, we visited the EBT on a Winter Steam Spectacular back in 70's sometime. I was photo shooting everything I could including the EBT roundhouse where two steam locomotives where getting ready for the days runs but something caused my wife and I to pause and look at something different, the M-1, My wife and myself kept walking around the coach We were amazing by bit. Then someone approached us and asked if we would stay with the locomotive M-1 while he had to attend a operational/safety meeting. Yes by all means.The M-1 has a special place in my heart , I hope to revisit her again soon. My wife Shirley has passed but I still have a collection of slides of our numerous visits to the EBT,

[@emilpersson8250]

I have a soft spot for early diesel railcars. In Sweden we have quite a lot of diesel mechanical so called railbusses built from 1934 onwards in a couple of variations.

[@ShadowDragon8685]

Unfortunately this is not a diesel railcar, it's a _gasoline_ railcar. The American slang term for them is "Doodlebug," and one of them was involved in a very infamous 1940s incident wherein it partially-asphyxiated the driver, who suffered cognitively from that, missed a signal, and then barely had time to warn two other crewmen and leap clear himself before the thing crashed into a freight train. 43 people died _horribly._ After that, they were forced to convert them all to diesel power. Admittedly, there were other design flaws - namely the engine which just kind of like, leaked exhaust into the driver's cab being responsible for the driver missing the signal 'cause he was being poisoned, that wasn't great at all, and I doubt diesel would have helped with that, but it was the gasoline fire that was the most killer aspect.

[@joshuabrunais3527]

You gotta just love the preservation that the EBT has to offer. As always love the content Hyce!

[@DaltonCypherUSATC5019]

Courtney is an awesome guy, he's taught me alot, I have pictures somewhere of the spare crank and pistons we have tucked away somewhere

[@A_person473]

Once again, a wonderful video. The East Broad Too is really pulling through after shutting down like, two times? The M-1 really looks like a special locomotive, especially being constructed in the 1920's!

[@PennsyPappas]

A Narrow guage Doodlebug is just so fascinating since you often dont think about Narrow Guage when talking about Doodlebugs. Absolutely fascinating to see this piece if railroad history and i bet its quite loud sitting right next to the mototr. But that is par for the cpurse with railroading back in the day and the fuys would just putnup with it. Whats more amazing is that it was never converted to diesel. So many standard guahe doodlebugs were converted to diesel after the Pennsylvania Rajlroad incident and so to see one still in its original gasoline form is another rarity in and of itself. Absolute wonderful little video showcasing it, absolutely loved it.

[@espeescotty]

Wow, that thing is beyond COOL! And it is still nearly 100% original too. Roller bearings too...ahead of her time.

[@spunbearing65]

Love to see them make a comeback. Lots of abandoned ROWs to retrack for home built “vehicles” as well. Scamtrak goes where we aren’t. Let’s do it ourselves.

[@gingerday6654]

Just was there yesterday for Mother’s Day. Took my wife and our 7 month old. We all enjoyed it and loved all the volunteers who were super helpful! Also had to see a car that not many know isn’t original to the Coach fleet! Orbisonia… originally the Orbisonia car was part of the B.B & K railway in Bradford, Pa. When it shut down it was bought by the E.B.T and has lived there since! From the small Narrow gauge 3hrs away it made it to an amazing forever home on the E.B.T. ❤️

[@Midland1072Productions]

Awesome video on M-1!! She may not run often but its always special when she does.

[@patricksheary2219]

Wow Mark that is ultra, ultra cool. To see period equipment from that time still operating makes me cry! To echo you absolutely admirable that the E.B.T. crew keeps all the original parts in place. I have only seen carbon regulators like those at the Smithsonian. But to see them in their original installation and working blows my mind. What a national technological treasure. Thanks to Mr. Brown for sharing his expertise. As always thanks Professor for sharing your tour with us! Cheers!

[@kevinbeverly4086]

That is an amazing piece of history. It's really awesome that they are trying to keep it as original as possible.

[@patrickwebb7311]

Love the collaboration with Nick and Hyce. Hope we see it more, perhaps Hyce on the Roundhouse podcast??? Also would love to see the M-1 haul a short train.

[@ReggieArford]

Not likely. They baby that car, and never "push" it with much of a load.

[@CMDRSweeper]

Cute! An interesting early DMU, or perhaps GMU in this case.

[@ShadowDragon8685]

So I'm like, _so_ torn about this thing. It's _amazing,_ like, jaw-dropping incredible that this thing still runs, with its _own original parts._ But it's a gas railcar. _It's a Doodlebug!_ There's a reason we know that as a _dangerous name,_ because if that thing ever crashes, fwoomp! Gasoline fire! That happened in Cuyahoga Falls in 1940; the PRR crashed a Doodlebug into a freight train and 43 people died horribly. There's a _reason_ the Pennsy was made to withdraw the dratted things and convert them to diesel power. Having said that, it also looks like this thing is actually better-designed _than_ the PRR class GRW275, since it seems designed in such a manner as to be drawing fresh air constantly across the driver's face. So, props to the EBTRR back in the day for banging together an in-house design that's clearly *objectively* superior to the Pullman design. I'm so conflicted. I'd hate to say it should be pulled from service, or made to undergo massive alterations to run on diesel, but at the same time, _there is a good reason we don't have gasoline railcars anymore._ So conflicted!

[@ReggieArford]

Pullman design? Look again... that's classic *Brill* design. Brill/Westinghouse, actually. And most of the passengers are in a separate coach, #8, also equipped with Timken roller bearing journals.

[@ShadowDragon8685]

@ReggieArford the Pennsylvania Railroad were operating Pullmans. Did you read my entire comment?

[@highball5550]

Awesome video! Nice little treat before High School graduation tonight.

[@georgen.8027]

Holy shit... that thing is a beautifully preserved machine

[@CrustyOldDave]

Oh Hyce,.....Hyce, this was beautiful. So very professionally done. Really fun and informative. Very cool. Thank you.

[@TrainBandit]

Ya to fallow up on what hyce said. The first EBT video is amazing and you should definitely check it out. Great video, the forward and reverse is hilarious.

[@zachariahmclaughlin919]

Amazing as always

[@levimccallum7722]

"what horn do you want?" "the goofy one"

[@mrmodelrailways2444]

funny, in South Australia there was a lot of brill cars in use here; they came in 3ft 6in/4ft 8 1/2 and 5ft 3in. they were used nearly everywhere on all rail networks in the SAR (South Australian Railways) from the 1910s all the way up till the 1970s.

[@BandanRRChannel]

Alex, give me "Things I wish we had at Sumpter" for $200, please. I'm told the railroad had a couple of little gas powered railcars, mostly for the sparsely traveled Bates-Prairie City segment. Neither survived very long.

[@rgsrrofnc]

Another wonderful video there! Thanks for sharing it.

[@Cragified]

I didn't know there was still a running Doodlebug!

[@patrickmcneilly4293]

Hyce, the way this video starts out and the way you talk during it has some This Old House vibes 10/10

[@Surkai25]

Pretty incredible machine. Not to mention a very good "knee jerk" decision to make it in order to be able to stay competitive with mail delivery for it's time.

[@ZacharyChristy-Aronson-wg5ki]

Amazing machine. Thanks for this.

[@spagelsmegal]

I saw pictures of this thing but my gosh that’s a good looking railcar

[@carlenger9707]

So cool seeing you at Colorado Crossings the other day my guy!

[@alexlail7481]

That's a cool 'hybrid'. 😁 BTW... with a 7½" bore I'm kinda surprised that it doesn't have 3 plugs per cylinder, it must be fairly low rpm design... The larger the diameter of the cylinder the farther the flame front must travel before the piston reaches top-dead-center (TDC) if you want the best power and efficiency. Normally you can advance the spark timing to compensate for the rpm (really the pistons vertical speed of travel). The flame front speed is based on a series of factors more or less locked in by the design of the engine. So once you max out the advance window you start adding extra spark plugs to get multiple flame fronts traveling across the cylinder (hopefully). Another cool video.

[@SteamfanScott]

Such a wonderful piece of historic machinery, so amazing that it is still operating all these decades later. And thanks to hyce for sharing this with us and looking forward to much more!

[@PowerTrain611]

I am blown away by how awesome and unique this thing is. Aw, crap...Now I gotta make it in Garrys Mod...

[@Lazarus7000]

What an amazing thing to have preserved so perfectly! And a relatively early implementation of electro-motive drive like a modern locomotive, too, truly a unique item!

[@Scag1522]

I find it hilarious that the EBT runs their steam locomotives regularly but saves their “diesel” for special occasions 😅

[@ReggieArford]

The steam engines are *easier* to fix. (Grandpa was right!)

[@kennethwhitmer4232]

the feeling of this episode reminds me of something on either PBS or RFDTV

[@ZergSmasher]

It almost looks like an ordinary passenger coach that someone decided to put a big engine and traction motors inside of. Thanks for showing this, I had no idea this thing even existed before today.

[@rusty_gold_garage7138]

Just imagine when M-1 was built the Model A didnt yet exist.

[@xenowreborn]

...Oh wow...!

[@jamesTBurke]

Proof that stuff these days are designed to break. 1926. That makes her 97 years old

[@TheMetGuy]

Awesome video Hyce

[@larrycurran8036]

Nice tour of the M1. 😺

[@kkooiker]

That is cool love it

[@brianentwistle145]

That is a cool motorcar. 90+ and still moving. We should be so fortunate

[@jpaulkepler4638]

Now, bear in mind , I've only heard this once , some years ago that the engine in M-1 is surplus from BRILL that was originally built for US Navy airships. This makes sense with the two plugs per cylinder. If the ignition is magneto , that would further confirm this. Please correct me if I am wrong. Excellent video, as usual.

[@DaltonCypherUSATC5019]

It is, dual magneto

[@ReggieArford]

You're right, the Brill gas motor was a proposed design for blimp motors. It's got an aluminum engine block, very high-tech for the time. And aerobatic carburetors! ROTFL!

[@WolfInOverdrive-tz4im]

This is a beautiful railcar. It looks similar to some of the Chicago electric interurban cars run by the Chicago Aurora, and Elgin (CA&E) railroad in the 1940s and 50s.

[@abyssminiaturestudios6103]

That's another great Mini Documentary Mark.

[@Dan_Gyros]

That thing is an absolute beaut!

[@JonsGarage89]

That is VERY cool!

[@peregrina7701]

M1 is a funky beast. It defies classification but it's very cool!! Trying to process an engine that big that's carbureted.... What sort of capacity for passengers or cargo has the car/motor/engine/weird cool rolling stock got? Kudos to EBT for keeping this crazy piece in original form. Thanks for the video!!

[@FuelFire]

This man just doesn't look the same without the beard.

[@RustyRailsProductions]

Awsome video m1 is quite unique

[@jamesfieweger8648]

Okay, that was awesome

[@bjrnfrederiksson2505]

I just love, so sad 😅 America is so far away. Still wishing one day to cross the pond and whatch the American trains 🐻💪🏻

[@drewbarker8504]

What a cool and unique piece of equipment. M-1 honestly looks like a self-propelled combine car with a cab in it.

[@timothystamm3200]

That's kind of what doodlebug were it's just that the compartment was for an engine.

[@akaBoG]

Great video.

[@darknut9696]

We have got a similar loco it's steam version of this type of coach it is called a SRM (Steam rail Motor) the one i can think of was run by the GWR (Great Western Railway) in the 1930's to 1950's there is is only one left No. 93 running at Devon but other Railway Companies had their own SRM's

[@SirNigelGresley4498]

No. 93 is based out of Didcot in Oxfordshire, but it goes on a lot of away trips

[@FlakusCorporation]

This is pretty close to what the McKeen car had for an engine, other than the electric transmission. I’d love it if someday our Caterpillar engine was replaced with a straight-six much like the M-1.

[@Hyce777]

God the McKeens are so freaking cool. That would be neat. :)

[@Idaho-Cowboy]

So the answer to the trolley problem is to use narrow gauge and then you don't have to run anyone over. These EBT videos are so short I think it's a ploy to convince folks to go visit and see for themselves.

[@tylerodonnell-paccione7523]

That engine really feels like it was designed for aviation but they slapped it in this thing instead lol, 2k cu in, 250 horse, and dual ignition inline 6? Bet I can find more than a few planes from the teens-20s with something really close, that's super cool!

[@Hyce777]

It's apparently got something to do with a Zeppelin actually

[@tylerodonnell-paccione7523]

@@Hyce777 yeah I was just reading that Brill designed it for a Navy airship contract but they didn't work for it so Brill shoved the engines in railcars instead lol

[@LemonSpacebirb]

We have some of the brill railcars we have in Australia and some are almost identical apart from being broad gauge

[@rocketplane8862]

At 1980 cubic inches (nearly 32.5 liters), that out-displaces even the mighty Merlin V-12 aeroengines from WWII. Only the later Griffons and some of the big radial engines are larger.

[@Militiaman71]

Aren't those also called a Doodlebug? I have some in HO scale.

[@superbluhedgehog1]

That was fast, between announcement and video upload. Interesting to see this.

[@Hyce777]

It's what happens when I forget to make the thumbnail the day before. lol

[@superbluhedgehog1]

@@Hyce777 Must be the hardest thing to do as a KZbinr: making the thumbnail. Must be fun to share your experiences at the controls of all these interesting pieces of old rail equipment. Love watching all your content. Keep up the amazing work

[@Hyce777]

@@superbluhedgehog1 I hate making thumbnails. It really is the most challenging piece, and one of the most important. Gotta get people to click on the video....

[@superbluhedgehog1]

I would offer my services as graphics designer for video thumbnails free of charge...if I had skills as a graphics designer...

[@Hyce777]

@@superbluhedgehog1 I appreciate you mate :)

[@GretchenDawntreader]

ventilated maybe, but sitting next to it, that must be fairly loud.

[@mafarnz]

So me being me I gotta ask. If you happen to know, did it originally have an air horn when it was first built or was it like a lot of other motorcars of the time equipped with an air whistle and later switched over to an air horn?

[@26taker]

Awesome video. By the way, Hyce did you see the video about the Great Train Race from Hunter Valley Steamfest 2023?

[@Hyce777]

I did not!

[@Christian_S1]

Is releasing the full M1 cab ride video in the plans?

[@Hyce777]

Possibly for conductors! That'd be fun.

[@giuseppearditi7963]

Molto interessante questo video io ho il modello del M 1 in scala Ho n3 con la spiegazione ho potuto vedere il quore del mezzo grazie 👍👏

[@bluescrew3124]

What a weird vehicle

[@blue-raptor4017]

The car it do be strange, but is it a standard oddity or a narrow oddity? Gauge puns :)

[@Hyce777]

:P

[@ReggieArford]

The M-1 is 3' gauge. The pun is low gauge, indeed.

[@yoc_4386]

Awful lot, at least in form externally to a lot of the electric interurban cars built for Chicago and Milwaukee commuter lines around that time. (By the way you should take a visit to the Illinois railway museum outside of Union Illinois. That place is absolutely gigantic.)

[@itowmyhome797]

🎉

[@nittygrittygarage5497]

B is for broadtop

[@randywise5241]

Cool. What about the mail section?

[@ReggieArford]

It's incorporated in the center, baggage compartment. They didn't sort US Mail onboard; it was just sacked mail.

[@angryrailfan5711]

The odd thing about the engine is it’s a engine out of a zeppelin since brill was contracted to build zeppelin engines for the government . Then that industry imploded and they had a bunch of these straight sixes sitting around so they started using them in these doodlebugs. As for the EBT building it in house. They built it entirely except the engine, generator, trucks, and motors.

[@ReggieArford]

Blimp, not Zeppelin. Blimps are shaped balloons, Zeppelins have rigid frames. The M-1's electrical equipment is from Westinghouse.

[@angryrailfan5711]

True that the electrical is Westinghouse, but the engine is a brill built to a design they were going to make for the navy but they lost the contract so they decided to use it in their self propelled rail vehicles

[@robtippin9111]

😎

[@Radioactive4001]

It looks like a baggage passenger combine car but the front is just a engine

[@ReggieArford]

Bingo! There's a small engine/generator & cab at the front.

[@seankaiser2505]

imagine trying to install PTC on this unit

[@seankaiser2505]

"it's already got PTC, you're positive the engineer is train controlling!"

[@AtkataffTheAlpha]

EBT M1 vs C&O M1

[@PatSeba84]

ive seen those before but an m-32, more modernised.

[@PatSeba84]

gotta love em.

[@tootired76]

Weren't these called doodlebugs?

[@foellerd]

Why was a gas engine used, any benefits?

[@west_side_9]

M1 is 97 years old

[@ericbonanno5214]

Well heck, I didn't know that was a 3 1/2 hour drive away. Maybe I'll plan a trip for that. I don't know if it was mentioned but I'm curious, is that a 2 stroke or a 4 stroke engine? I'm thinking it's 2 stroke. 🤔🤔

[@Hyce777]

You know I'm not sure! Should've asked. And yes, you should visit.

[@DaltonCypherUSATC5019]

She's a 4 stroke

[@jesset061084]

Am wondering if anyone here has gone to they Illinois railway museum it is amazing place I have gone

[@TheSonic10160]

But will it fit in my Honda?

[@ilovetractors40]

First

[@Mishn0]

Please don't refer to something as "most unique". Something is either unique or it's not unique. It's an absolute. Saying "more unique" or "most unique" is a characteristic of poor writing.

[@Hyce777]

KZbin titles are unfortunately about getting people to click on a video, not about proper writing. I do agree with you though, it's certainly not proper writing.