The Alton Transportation Company was a subsidiary of Chicago & Alton Railroad. At some point, probably in the late-1910s to early-1920s, the Railroad decided to run a bus line and apparently designed and constructed this No.2 Bus in the Company shops in a manner that followed locomotive practices. It was built upon two four-wheeled trucks with the front one rotating on a pivot that handled the steering of the unusual machine. The bus rider’s compartment construction is similar to that of a passenger train car and the drivers compartment and the water-cooled power plant was located above the front truck. It appears that the engine powered a generator that supplied current to run one or more electric motors mounted in the rear truck. This particular vehicle was built in 1925 by the Versare Corporation in Albany, NY. The rear wheels on each 4-wheeled truck were driven by an electric. A 100-hp Waukesha engine drove the generator.
State Street, at a traffic circle located in the City of New London, a historic seaport located at the mouth of the Thames River in southeastern Connecticut.
