Oddities on the track : "phone boot" switching loco .... :-)

[steinjr]

Hi Guys --

Was looking through the web site of my local hobby shop this morning, and spotted this interesting little gasoline powered engine:



Apparently a pair of these German-built oddities were used for switching in Norway too.

Here is a link to a page that presents the use of such locomotives on the Finnish railroads: http://www.elisanet.fi/~g621741/WWV/kiskok/kisko.htm

Too bad they are totally out of character for my modeling subject - they look pretty cool, in a butt ugly way :-)

Grin,
Stein

[Herc Driver]

Ummmm....you're right...they're...well let's just say they're not the most glamorous engines I've seen. But they'd look pretty neat running inside a factory or along a dock!

[nachoman]

They look like out houses.

[steinjr]

Had a quick google - seems like they had quite a few nicknames - "the phone booth", "the outhouse", "the louse", "the wardrobe" :-)


Here is another oddity - known as "the suitcase" - it was one of 20 luggage cars built between 1950 and 1953



It was apparently used along with diesel rail busses type BM87:



Smile,
Stein

[Gary S]

It wouldn't surprise me to see Doctor Who jump out of one of those.

[rrinker]

Interesting - reading the page they do the same thing Trackmobiles do - lift up on the coupled car to transfer more weight to the wheels of the tractor, allowing them to move more cars than would otherwise be possible.

And Nachoman - read down a bit on the page Stein linked, there's reference to a similar German 'loco' and I think you'll like the name.

Police call box with blue flashing light on a Bachmann power truck, anyone? Might be a problem with the blue light though, if that's going to be translated as the equivalent of a blue flag.

--Randy

[Sumpter250]

It's like a "Deli" style locomotive....the "Slice-o-cab Switcher"

[iis612]

That thing is as cool as sliced bread!!

Matt

[Ralph]

I really like the little guys in the first photo. Seems like the European version of the trackmobile.
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.trackmobile.com/">http://www.trackmobile.com/</a><!-- m -->