Inspection Car, Long Island Railroad

Ron Zeil, The Long Island Railroad in Early Photographs, Dover Publications,1990

This gasoline-powered inspection car of 1905 was a new development for the railway, it was the first internal combustion vehicle but was a primitive as it could be. It had no clutch or transmission and the crankshaft was incorporated into the rear axle, the same layout as the steam locomotives the railway was used to. Must have been a rough ride.