Several of these survivors are incomplete bodies, only two model 20's and two model 10's have the original trucks. M 401 at Nevada state rr museum (model 10, late style) M 500 at Montgomery (model 10,early style) If I'm counting correctly there should be eight or nine surviving Edwards cars in the U.S.: In a way their difference is equivalent to the difference between a Taurus and a Prius. Both often could pull trailer cars, although the mechanical car trailers were not normal sized coaches. Why? Because, while most mechanical 'motor' cars were smaller than the electrics, the seating capacity was often very similar and they did much the same job. Gas or diesel electric and gas or diesel mechanical. The other car that I couldn't remember was a Sykes car. Rambling thoughts-or would you say 'mental doodling' Then, where do the various Zephyrs fall in this continuum? IIRC, there were RDCs that had lounges and food facilities for the comfort/needs of the passengers and all requiring a larger crew for the run. Doodlebugs were defined as much by the minimal crew/labor force needed to operate them. Then what about working with a definition that was based on crew-size.

However, making the run with one stop at Las Vegas and then LA, would hardly be the definition of a 'doodlebug' though it wasn't much bigger than those 'bugs' with multiple trailers. together with flagstops for whatever farmer's son wanted to board and 'ride into town'-it would be a 'doodlebug'. In a hypothetical situation, if you took UPs M-10000 and on a run from SLC to LA had it stop at Tooele, Tintic, Lynndyl, Delta, etc. It would seem to me that the 'doodlebug' term had as much to do with the situation/application/timetable for the equipment as with the equipment itself.

He actually separated the RDCs out from the others-writing a separate volume on their origins, range, etc. One of the smallest he covered in the volumes wasn't much bigger than a Fairmont A-4 motorcar, being taller than it was long. His working definition of the 'doodlebugs' was as single, self-powered rail motorcars that with some exception may have had single trailers - though through the books photos showed some with upwards of 4-5 trailers (musta' been in the flatlands).

I am going to come back to the Keilty references (see my 2005 citation above).

Define doodlebug