 James Clark was visiting the Tunnels Museum in Moose Jaw, Canada  and saw this picture on the wall with a sign describing it as 1904 Napier rail car and with wheels that look to have been specially made with an outer rim for the rail tracks. Besides he was wondering if the 4 tons may have been a little too much for this car. He asked, if anyone knew more about this car and its story.Well James, on the photo we see Charles J. Glidden in his new 24 hp 4-cylinder Napier car in Moose Jaw in September 1904, just on his way through Canada after having completed the first AAA-tour from New York to Saint Louis a month earlier. Charles Glidden, who had  made his fortune in the US in the development of the telephone and the exploitation of the very first telephone networks, retired in 1900 at the age of 43. He decided to travel the world in a motor car, as he believed it would have the same bright future as the telephone. For a still unknown reason his choice for the car didn't fall on a US made car, but on the British-made Napier. From 1901 to 1907 he would travel the world in a Napier car, from 1904 always with the British number plate A-3622! These travels are well described in a nice little book by Andrew M. Jepson: Around the World in a Napier (2013). During his travels he was always accompanied by his wife Lucy Emma Clegworth and the Napier mechanic Charles Thomas. Because he travelled areas where roads were sometimes completely absent, he decided to travel by railroad in parts of the US and Canada and got permission to do so. For this he let the Napier company adapt the car and had them make special wheels with flanges. In America however these flanges proved to be too shallow, making modification necessary. That it worked very well can be read in an interview in Motor Age, published partly in the Car Illustrated shortly after the railway experiences. A very nice set of photos of the Napier driving on rails in Canada can be found in the City of Vancouver archive. The weight of 4 tons for the car alone seems to be incorrect indeed and will have been close to 4000 lbs: his previous Napier weighed 4.500 lbs. To this, however, we have to add of course the set of railway wheels (weighing 1300 lbs), the three passengers, spares and luggage! The name Glidden would be immortalized by the so-called Glidden Tours. After the 1904 AAA-tour Glidden decided this event to be held annually, supporting it by donating a silver trophy and $ 2.000,- dollar prize money. The Glidden Tours would be organised from 1905 to 1913 and was an important factor not only in the development of the reliability of the car itself, but also in stimulating the improvement of the road network in the US. The Detroit Public Library owns a large archive with photos of this event, partly made by the famous automotive photographer Nathan Lazarnick. From 1908 Glidden would shift his focus to aeronautics. He died in 1927, after having witnessed his prophesy of the success of the motor car. |
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Napier Rail Car
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