I include these just to show the kind of transportation such railroads used once steam wasn't the only option. The same company later adapted a Studebaker by replacing the front axle with a freight car truck and replacing the rear drive wheels with railcar wheels. Like most railcars and many railbuses, this was built in the company shops. It is unusual for a railbus in that the engine is located within the chassis (a universal practice in "doodlebugs"). The photo to the right shows a railbus that was built for a logging company that operated in what is now the Smoky Mountain National Forest. For the sake of this article, the name "railbus" means you almost always see a car or truck front end sticking out the front. Nomenclature - This class of vehicles is sometimes included in the "railcar" or "rail motor car" categories. The drive wheels were powered mechanically, unlike the later "doodlebugs" (below), which tended to use gas-electric or diesel-electric drive mechanisms. The first advent of such vehicles used automobile or truck engines fastened to the front end. I don't cover those, though, as the wide modern windows on those are a "dead giveaway" that they don't belong on my pike except as visitors. LGB and Piko have made several configurations over the years, based, as far as I can tell, on relatively modern German prototypes. In addition, many have room to add batteries and sound/remote-control boards, which has made them popular among the battery/RC crowd.
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