A&F 109
Arlington & Fairfax Railroad
Evans Products Company, Detroit, 1936
Arlington, VA
Principal Features
Hybrid road and rail bus
Chevrolet gas engine
During the last five years, American railroads were forced to abandon about 7,500 miles of track, due chiefly to the development of hard surface roadways paralleling rail lines…The greatest value of the dual-purpose Evans Auto-Railer lies in its application to rails - to revive the railroads’ branch line business.
Evans Auto-Railer brochure
Passengers board A&F 1, an earlier and slightly larger version of the Evans Auto-Railer. Note the railroad wheels located between the rear tires.
After storage at Clark’s Amusement in New Hampshire, A&F 109 is loaded on a trailer for transport to the Museum. Note the railroad wheels raised just behind the rear tires.
History
The Auto-Railer was a predecessor to what we now know as “hi-rail vehicles” (vehicles that can operate on both railroad tracks and roads: highway + railway = hi-rail). Designed by Edwin R. Evans, the Auto-Railer was gasoline-powered using a Chevrolet engine. Highway tires permitted travel off the rails while railroad guide wheels next to the tires were used on the railroad tracks.
Manufactured in 1936, the Auto-Railer was first placed in service on the A&F on January 23, 1937. Two former streetcar lines ran from Rosslyn - one to Fairfax City and another to Fort Myer (just outside Arlington National Cemetery). Thirteen Auto-Railers provided service on A&F tracks using railroad wheels to guide the gasoline-powered rubber highway tires. In Rosslyn, the driver would raise the railroad wheels and and the Auto-Railer as bus would cross the Key Bridge into Georgetown and Washington DC. However, Capital Transit won an injunction in 1938 which prevented that service. Eventually, the A&F ceased operations in September 1939.
Writing in his book OLD DOMINION TROLLEY TOO, author Jack Merriken commented “These were very primitive vehicles noticeably inferior to both the railcars they replaced and to contemporary motor buses.”
By 1941, many of the A&F Auto-Railers had been sold to other operations. Four went to the Washington & Old Dominion (renumbered 95-98), where they were used as work equipment. Two (A&F 102 & 109) ultimately went to the Arcade & Attica railroad in Upstate New York. One went to the Chicago, South Shore & South Bend Railroad, where the car was converted to a line car to work on overhead wires. In the late 1950’s A&F 109 went to Clark’s Trading Post (now Clark’s Bears Amusement Park) in New Hampshire, and where, since the early 1960’s, was been stored outside by a series of private owners.
Click here for more information about A&F 109, including a video of an operating Auto-Railer.