Ummm 1993? I recall that some of these had been restored, however I am no longer a member of the FEBT and don't think about it all that much. Unless I am missing something, the very dated Chris Coleman site is the best reference of EBT info. It would be nice if there was something else to check up with ongoing activities there.

Except now I see that the FEBT site has restoration work reports up to about mid 2011.

One lunger engines date back to the late 19th century so I had no idea how old these things could be.
Cheers!

As an update, this 1903 railcar is now operational and is currently undergoing braking tests on the Embsay Railway in Yorkshire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2mz-0Rlg9E

The North Eastern Railway 1903 built "Electric Autocar" made a relatively unannounced appearance at the Great Central Railway (Loughborough, UK) Winter steam gala yesterday.



I managed to get a ride on it as it was substituted at fairly short notice (the day before...) for one of their 1950's former BR DMUs. The Autocar was visiting the railway for some mechanical certification work, so the opportunity to use it was too good to miss!

Originally Petrol(gas)-Electric, it's now a Diesel-Electric, with a modern engine, but I was very impressed with it for both ride quality and noise levels - better than some of the new units that have been introduced on the rail lines in East Anglia in the last 12 months!

Nice wood paneled interior with trolley style (but with moquette) reversable seats in the passenger saloon. Unfortunately it was so crowded with passengers on all its trips, I wasn't able to get any interior photos!

Decent view out of the front through the drivers cab as well....

A YouTube feature on the NER Autocar has appeared online in the last few days......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARlC8VHl9rs&t=1s

YT clip introduces some interesting ideas for a replica daily operating version of EBT M-1.

The 'silent chain drive' in the McKeens is just early Morse chain - the kind with the guide fins between the links. This can be hard to see in some of the early pictures of the McKeen drive truck, but it is well described in early references.

Morse silent chain was cutting-edge industrial drive technology when McKeen specified it.

Posted today by the GCR on YouTube showing the Autocar in action last weekend...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Frs9JXJ4NeU

.

If you limit it to oldest internal combustion North American Railcar, I believe that would put the McKeen Car "Cuyamaca" at the top of the list, finished and shipped around late February, 1908. Also one of the oldest surviving All Steel Railcars in the world. One of the oldest surviving Aerodynamically Designed Railcars, and it was even so Cutting Edge (hehe) that it was Semi-Monocoque with it's 12 gauge steel skin for strength.

I think the oldest surviving internal combustion railroad equipment would be three pieces, two speeders, and a locomotive, all built by Gottlieb Dailmer, held by the Mercedies Benz Museum in Stuttgart Germany. They are;

1891 “motor Waggonet” a larger speeder with side bench seating, used at a German Beer festival.

1893, “motor Draisine”, a 4 seat speeder

1893, “motor locomotive” , a tiny narrow gauge locomotive, in use as late as 1918

A version of the Waggonet was in operation as early as 1887, likely making it the earliest use of internal combustion on a railroad.

More information can be found. at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daimler_Paraffin_Railway

Mr. Hees, What are your thoughts on earliest American Internal Combustion Railcars?

The original question included “surviving” if still using that criteria, likely a Plymouth Model AL, one of which from 1914 was known to survive at a quarry north of Sacramento CA… while currently missing it likely still survives. A second old survivor would be a pair of Plymouth AL locomotives, built for Pacific Coast Borax, used on the Baby Gage (sic) at Ryan CA, now at the museum in Furnace Creek. One is more or less intact and complete, the second has been converted to a “mucker”

If surviving isn’t an issue, the earliest attempt to use internal combustion for a railway locomotive is likely several “Regan” motors, the Patton motor developed near Chicago (Pullman may have been involved) or two or more by Best Tractor Company. These were streetcar “dummies” using “hit or miss” gasoline engines. The next would likely be several small locomotives using “Union” engines, c.1905 at several industrial sites in the Mojave Desert. One, for Yellow Aster mining lasted for a number of years. If looking at a known builder, Whitcomb claimed a 1906 date for its first locomotive, but that was not successful and the second came 5 or 6 years later. Baldwin had some successful IC locomotives in service by 1911.

For self propelled passenger cars, McKeen built their first car in 1905, GE built three cars, two of which were demonstrators in 1906, 07, and 09, Hall Scott built their first car in 1909.