Fairmont Motor Car

This Fairmont A-4 “gang car” was used by the Union Pacific Railroad in the Cheyenne, WY area and would haul track maintenance gangs and a few small trailers with supplies and tools.

It was purchased by DRG volunteer Jeremiah Nave in early 2005, then disassembled and modified from the original standard gauge (56.5 inch) to fit on DRG’s 36 inch track.

On March 7, 2006, the reassembled chassis was moved to the track for testing and on March 14 the repainted body arrived from the paint shop. The paint scheme is the same as the diesel locomotive.

It is powered by a 4-cylinder Ford gas engine with a 4-speed manual transmission. An independent reverse lets it use all 4 gears in either direction. Like the new electric motor car, it has plenty of power and traction where the little orange Fairmont MT-19 was always a bit challenged by the loads it was asked to pull. The old MT-19 has been faithful over many years but will get a break finally. Plans call for the eSpeeder to take over for the MT-19 in support of the Via Ferrata activity and the new speeder to haul the “inner tubers” for whitewater tubing.

Our thanks to Alan Wilber for the axle modifications and Wysong Enterprises for the beautiful paint job!