1957 Pontiac Safari Wagon

Thanks to Aidan O'Neill, Esq. for the heads-up on this:
"When he was in his twenties,  Alan Freed says he was the youngest locomotive engineer in the U.S. Now, decades later, he's back riding the rails. But he's traded in the locomotive for a yellow, 1957 Pontiac Hi-Rail (sometimes spelt Hy-Rail).Freed's car is one of about a dozen that were built by the Northern Pacific rail company to allow engineers to travel the tracks and inspect rail lines.

• The most passionate case you'll hear for train travel in Canada

Tucked under the car's two bumpers are four sets of railroad wheels, which can be operated like a plane's landing gear. "You drive it onto the crossing and line it up with the track. You push a button and you hear the hydraulics. The wheels push down and you're up on the tracks and you're ready to go," Freed said. "The steering wheel locks and it can't be turned and it becomes a railroad car essentially … it's first class." The Virginian bought the Hi-Rail from a salvage yard in the 1990's. He and his friends spent a year and a half restoring it. Once it was fixed up, Freed told himself, "I need to ride it."...

The rest of the CBC story is up here  

And if you don't know where or what The Gaspé is, it's the big peninsula, shaped like lobster claw, that juts out into the St Lawrence Gulf. Part of the province of Quebec, settled by Acadiens et Quebecois with a significant population of Irlandais, and one of the most beautiful regions of Amerique de Nord, with the only herd of caribou south of the St Lawrence River in les Monts Notre-Dame in the interior of the peninsula.