Speeders & Trailers
The WK&S uses speeders for track maintenance and inspections. For 2012 the railroad acquired and restored speeder 189-82. But the railroad did not own any speeders throughout most of its history. Instead, speeders were typically borrowed from WK&S volunteers.
Shown below is motorcar 189-82, the only speeder currently owned by the WK&S. It's a Fairmont A-4D previously used on the Canadian National Railway. The car has a Ford 2.3 liter 4-cylinder engine with a New Process 435 transmission. The car was probably built sometime around 1980, making it the newest piece of equipment at the WK&S. Apparently the number 189-82 represents both the CN MOW section number and unit number. So the motorcar would have been the 82nd piece of equipment acquired by section 189.
Shown below is Western Maryland #211, one of the borrowed speeders recently in use. This is a Fairmont A3 with a four-cylinder Waukesha engine, shipped to the Western Maryland on August 26, 1953. The cab was likely home-built by the WM. The WK&S began using the car in the mid-1990s.
Here's another of the borrowed speeders recently in use, a Lehigh Valley Fairmont A-5. The car has an LV cab and was re-engined at some point with a Chevy 250. 7473 was probably not the car's original number, however, it was numbered somewhere in the 74xx series. The WK&S began using the car in the early to mid-1990s.
The WK&S owns an assortment of trailer cars. There's a homebuilt Tool Car made from a former LNE flatcar. The Tool Car has been around ever since I can remember and is used to transport ties and tie replacement tools. Even though this Tool Car is a WK&S original and has no "heritage", so to speak, there was interest in using to car as a prototype for a large scale model railroad piece. I'm not sure what became of that project. Around 2003 the WK&S acquired a high-volume compressor for spiking and tamping. At first the compressor was simply placed on a flat car. But a few years later the compressor received its own permanent chassis with running gear from an LNE flat car. There are also a few other generic flat cars around the property. The picture at the top of the page shows a flat car, the Tool Car and the Compressor Car. Note the temporary plywood sides on the flat for transporting ballast.
Around 2012 a numbering system was devised for the railroad's MOW equipment. It will take a few years before the numbers appear on everything that needs to be restored and repainted, but the list appears below.
#81 Tie Replacement Cart
#82 Compressor/Welding Cart
#83 General Purpose Cart (wood top)
#84 General Purpose Cart (set up for logging and Old Tie Removal)
#85 General Purpose Cart (no deck, struts only used for forklift transfers and logging)
#86 General Purpose Cart (wood top)
#87 General Purpose Cart (extra long, steel top, heavy duty)
#91 Ford Pickup Truck
#92 GMC Hi-Rail Dump Truck
#93 Forklift
#94 Backhoe
Flatcar #84 started out as a self-propelled powered tie remover. The car was made operable but proved impractical for WK&S needs. So the machinery was scrapped and the chassis was made into a flatcar.
In the earliest days of the railroad, the WK&S did own a former Lehigh & New England Fairbanks-Morse #556. This speeder along with several of the LNE flat cars were delivered inside some of the LNE gondolas that were purchased for conversion to open passenger carrying cars. The #556 was sold to a WK&S volunteer around 1969 when the railroad temporarily closed for financial reorganization. The car was not in very good condition, but was eventually at least semi-restored and has changed hands several times. It's probably still around somewhere. During the 1970s and most of the 1980s the WK&S used a former Lehigh Valley ST-2 speeder #7325. This car was on loan from the late Jimmy DeLong, a long time WK&S volunteer. The car is no longer used at the WK&S, but has found its way into the hands of a new WK&S volunteer. Next came "Mad Max", a WK&S homebuilt speeder. Mad Max was built from a crazy collection of parts including a boat trailer for the frame, a Toyota truck transmission, brake components from a motorcycle, a lawnmower engine and other assorted automotive parts and scrap. The engine and transmission were connected by a primitive friction-belt clutch made from pulleys and a fan-belt. The car was equipped was a jack and turning arrangement since the transmission only offered one gear in reverse, however, I don't recall anyone ever going to the trouble of turning the car. There was also the "Green Hornet". The Green Hornet (which was painted green) was a brakeman's jitney car. This car was acquired from the Reading Company along with another de-motored car. The pair of cars would have been used to shuttle brakemen in hump yards that lacked automatic car retarders. The pair briefly offered passenger rides at the WK&S before the de-motored car was used to build the WK&S Berksy Trolley. Otherwise, I don't recall that the powered car was ever much used for anything but a bit of track maintenance. Both Mad Max and the Green Hornet left the property in the '90s.