On June 1st, 1935, the Alaska Railroad began daily passenger service between Anchorage and Palmer. To the existing weekly regular train up the Chickaloon branch line, the new schedule added six days of service using a single self-propelled passenger car, locally known as a brill.
Turns out the “brill car” that ran to Palmer was a misnomer for a train car with a unique backstory – and potentially a very interesting future.
Back in 1925 the Alaska Railroad purchased its first self-propelled passenger car from the J.G. Brill company. The new “Brill car” served up and down the railbelt. A keyword search in the Anchorage Times archives reveals how the name entered the language, starting as “Brill Gas Car,” shortening to “Brill car,” often slipping into lower case “brill car” by 1933, and by 1934 was just “the brill,” as in “Mrs. A. A. Schonbeck left on the morning brill for Palmer.”
The name “Brill” immediately became such a part of the lexicon that people used it for any self-propelled train cars used in Alaska. Train buffs will note that the brill car to Palmer, seen here, is not in fact a Brill Gas Car, but a McKeen Motor Car.
Another view of the Anchorage-Palmer “brill,” which was actually a McKeen.
Brill service to Palmer was discontinued in 1950. The alaskarails.org site, that deep well of Alaska Railroad lore, gives a detailed history of McKeen car 108, re-numbered 83, left derelict in Anchorage.
In 2016, a California teenager and serious McKeen aficionado, Madison Kirkman, raised the money to haul the car from Anchorage to California. Before it was the Palmer brill, it was called the “Cuyamaca”: a futuristic, aerodynamic, ahead-of-its-time interurban rail car, running to and from San Diego in 1908. Kirkman runs the McKeen Motor Car Company Historical Society, and is working to restore the Cuyamaca to its original glory.
Train enthusiasts and fans of historical preservation – we know some of you are reading these posts – should definitely check out the MMCCHS Facebook page and website, for more on what makes the Cuyamaca special, and to see what becomes of it.
https://mckeencar.com/roster/cuyamaca-mckeen-motor-car/
Photo from the McKeen Motor Car Company Historical Society website.