Doodlebug Makes Annual Trip
to Garland for the
Star Spangled 4th Celebration

Each July, The City of Garland puts on its "Star Spangled 4th" Independence Day Pageant. It has become a tradition to use the Santa Fe Doodlebug M-160 as a backdrop and entrance to the stage. I hope they keep it up -- I'm looking forward to next year.

I was privileged to be the engineer on the M-160 yesterday. M-160 is one of the few Doodlebug Motorcars still operable. It was built by Brill and was gasoline-electric powered until sometime after World War II when it's engine was replaced with an EMD 6-567 Diesel. The Doodlebug now belongs to The Age of Steam Museum at Dallas' Fairpark. This was only its third venture out of the Age of Steam Museum in nearly 30 years.

Our hats are off to Age of Steam Museum Executive Director Bob Laprelle, Chief Mechanical Officer Richard Wainscott and a host of other dedicated volunteers who have painstakingly brought this machine and other vintage railroad equipment back to operating condition for the enjoyment of future generations.

We always hear about locomotives that "were completely overhauled before being given to a museum." I believe this one really was.

We left the Age of Steam Museum in Fair Park at about 2:20 p.m. with our little 2-car train (M-160 pulling a refurbished MKT diner whose number escapes me) and went down to old East Dallas Yard to meet the UP switch crew at about 2:30 pm (Conductor D.L. Hart, Brakeman Walter Burch and Locomotive Engineer Randy Stroud).

They coupled into us and took us out MP Junction, over to Belt Junction where we waited for Amtrak 22 to pass, and around the wye, and returned us to East Dallas Yard.

At that point, Kansas City Southern Locomotive Engineer Dean Northcutt came aboard. Brother Northcutt would be my pilot as we would traveled over KCS Tracks from MP Junction to Garland.

Another part of the entourage to be on display at Garland over the holiday is a Pennylvania Pullman and the GG-1 electric that pulled John F. Kennedy's funeral train. That consist was to be pulled to Garland by a Dallas, Garland and Northwestern (DGNO) crew that follow us. First however, they had to go to Dallas Amtrak Station and fetch the Pennsy Pullman and return to MP Junction and East Dallas Yard.

While we waited for them, the UP crew cut away from us and went back to the Museum and returned with the GG-1.

When the DGNO returned, they coupled into our train and drug us out onto the Garland Main Line and shoved us North. The UP crew then came out of the yard behind them and coupled the GG-1 to the Pennsey Pullman consist.

While that was going on, we cut loose and highballed to the KCS yard. The KCS has a 10 MPH limit on the track as far as their yard near Shiloh Rd. From there it is 20 MPH. The M-160 Is geared for 70 MPH. I believe it would run 70 and ride like a baby carriage.

What a ride. It seems strange to be able to stand up and look out the windshield and see the coupler!

We stopped at the KCS Yard office while meeting another train. Everyone came out to look over the Doodlebug. One of them even asked to ride with us the rest of the way to Garland with us.

As we resumed our journey, Brother Northcutt said to me, "You're having as much fun as those guys are," referring to the AOS Museum Staff that was back in the baggage section of the car.

What in the world gave him that idea, I'll never know . . . tsk! tsk!

During the War, the one that Archie Bunker called "W.W.II -- you know -- da Big One," when gasoline was rationed, our family rode a SantaFe doodlebug just like the M-160 between Dallas and Paris on these same tracks several times each year. The whole trip gave me waves of nostalgia.

When these tracks belong to SF and SP, I believe they were CTC or at least ABS. It is Yard Limit all the way now. It is still darn good railroad.

The city of Dallas really has some spectacular scenery that no one sees except railroaders. Who would ever think such a beautiful wilderness existed right in the middle of the Metroplex!

Thanks to the yuppies and nimbys a lot of trackage that DART Rail could have used is either pulled up or lying fallow. Those people holler and worry about the possible noise from a trolley line that would operate over a 100-year old rail route and yet live bottled between three freeways under an airport landing pattern. Who ever said having brains and money went hand in hand?

I worked my regular job as 0759 Hump Engineer at Centennial Yard in Fort Worth the next day. It was again 102 in the shade, with a heat index of about 112. Man how my 62-year old flesh and bones suffered. But, Hell, I suffered yesterday, too, but I didn't complain, then. Maybe that's why they call us "train nuts."

Cy Martin, cymartin@flash.net

8-19-96