McKeen Railmotor

The McKeen railmotor was a self propelled, six cylinder railcar built by the McKeen Motor Car Company of Omaha, Nebraska, first unveiled in 1905, with a total of one hundred fifty two units constructed by 1914. It was built in two standard lengths of fifty five feet and seventy feet, ran on a distillate fueled engine later changed to gasoline that produced about one hundred horsepower, and could carry between sixty four and one hundred five passengers depending on how its interior was arranged, with center mounted entry doors and a flexible interior that could be set up for mail and express freight or for passengers. The car is immediately recognizable by its knife nosed or windsplitter profile, with a sharply pointed front, a rounded rear, and round porthole style windows, and its design anticipated the later streamlining movement in railcar styling; later revisions to the McKeen design helped establish the modern self propelled gasoline railcar, which proved cheaper and more flexible to operate than a steam locomotive while remaining more powerful and practical than the battery powered railcars available at the time.