I've heard of the GN replacing branch line services with truck/bus combinations in the 1950s, but here's one of those vehicles built in 1935 and still showing traces of its NP markings: http://smclassiccars.com/other-makes/429670-1935-gmc-airstream-type-truck-.html The current owner thinks it was for delivering parts and crews, but I doubt it. For one thing, rail equipment was usually drug in to where the crews, parts and tools were. For another, is that narrow window over the windshield not for a bus-like destination sign? In any case, it's an interesting old truck (buck? Trus?)!
Basically a roadgoing doodlebug. GN fans call them "brucks". One of those is prettied up and on display somewhere. GN used those to abandon branch lines after the war, but it's interesting to see the NP doing it before the war. It's funny seeing the owner advertising it as "Airstream type" like it's an RV.
Indeed from the GN RY, "The Bruck" as it is known, is on display in Whitefish, Montana. It was built to maintain passenger service between Kalispell and Whitefish, after the jittney was retired. This bus is looking a bit ragged now. The fellow who spearheaded upkeep on the bus and also the NW3 engine, was (sadly, suddenly) lost to us over ten years ago. Nobody has taken his place. The NW3 is sitting at the west end of the depot, The Bruck is at the east end. The Bruck used to be easily photographed, but these days there is a wrought iron fence around it. So a clear, open picture is no longer done.
Coincidentally .. Vacation last year - Amtrak stops in Whitefish, of course. Never realized how big a town it is.
..and anudda thing: Seems to me these might have been Great Northern owned at one time? These cars were used at their Glacier hotel? Not sure - but Izaak Walton has at least two of these. <edit - had a heck of a time getting one of these to load - probably too big>
Whitefish is not that large. Well under 7000 population. It has a large depot and engine facilities, as in 1904, this became the new main line, after the original Haskell Pass route through Kalispell was severed. That depot held dispatchers, engineering people, etc, etc, for the Kalispell Division of the GN RY. Today the RR facilities are greatly downsized. A vert few BNSF folks still use it, plus Amtrak. Otherwise the historical society is the largest occupant, plus a car rental company.
I'm not sure if the GN ever bought White buses--the National Museum of Transportation in St. Louis has a White railbus--but I'm 90% sure those are ex-Yellowstone Park tour buses. Few others were so well preserved as the Yellowstone units, which were repowered with modern powerplants not too many years ago, and converted to propane or some other such clean fuel.
Funny you mention it - after saying I thought they were owned by the hotel, I was fiddling with the pictures and zoomed in on the license plate. It's owned by some Federal government organization, so no doubt they are run by the Federal parks commission or something of the sort...