Welcome to my site about CN Rail 176-12, a Woodings Railcar Limited motorcar model CBL. While researching about this speeder and the Woodings Railcar company, I noticed information to be quite scarce. After picking up bits and pieces of information here and there, I determined to put up a site, summarizing my findings. My hope is to help any other Woodings Railcar owners/researchers out there.
Railroad motorcars, affectionately known as speeders, were used for decades as the primary means of moving men and equipment to repair and maintain railroads. Before motorized maintenance of way vehicles came about, railroad employees used manually pumped handcars. The first motorcars had single-cylinder two-stroke engines. Motorcars were very bare-bones type of vehicles – not built for comfort but for getting the job done. Most were typically not equipped with suspension systems. The demise of the railroad speeder was brought about by newer and more sophisticated equipment such as hi-rail pickup trucks which use retractable train wheels to ride the rails.
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