06/17/2026
Most people recognize the Mack Bulldog from the road. Fewer know that Mack also built vehicles that ran on railroad tracks.
In 1921, Mack's Allentown, Pennsylvania, plant delivered the Model AC Railbus to the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad. Powered by the same 64-horsepower four-cylinder engine used in Mack trucks, the railbus seated up to 35 passengers and was designed to provide economical service on lightly traveled rail lines. Its bodies were constructed by respected railcar builders including Philadelphia's J.G. Brill Company, Osgood-Bradley of Worcester, Massachusetts, and McGuire-Cummings of Paris, Illinois.
The concept began a year earlier with the smaller Model AB Railbus. Based on a Mack truck chassis fitted with flanged steel wheels, it offered railroads a practical alternative to operating full-size steam trains for only a handful of passengers. Gasoline-powered rail vehicles required no water stops, ash handling, or round-the-clock boiler maintenance, making them attractive to short lines and industrial railroads looking to reduce costs.
Examples operated at a U.S. Army installation in Virginia, on industrial railways in Canada and Hawaii, and on the United Fruit Company's railroad in Honduras. Over the following decades, Mack produced a variety of railcars and railbuses that served railroads and industrial operators throughout North America and overseas.
One of the most remarkable survivors was a Mack FCD railcar that remained in service as a track inspection vehicle on the New York City subway system into the 21st century—more than sixty years after it left the factory.
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