Hello Paul,
That is quite some run,I suppose that there were crew changes for the engineer and conductor and to pick up refreshments and to refuel? what car would it have been a RDC 1,2,or 3?
Malcolm.
RDC 2
http://www.zephyrproject.com/Zephyrette/zephyrette.html
http://www.snowcrest.net/photobob/wprdc2.jpg
Two Photos on this site:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.wcra.org/photos/RDG9156.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.trainweb.org/passengercars/Indices/RDC3.htm&h=522&w=812&sz=113&hl=en&start=17&tbnid=0pgTwxJ6HgTOJM:&tbnh=93&tbnw=144&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dzephyrette%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX
I tried to sell my two cents worth, but no one would give me a plug nickel for it.
I don't have a leg to stand on.
Thats an interesting site,but not much on the RDC operations though.How long did the trip take ?
branchline wrote: How long did the trip take ?
How long did the trip take ?
From the March 1958 Official Guide
leave San Francisco 4PM Pacific Time
arrive Salt Lake City 3:45PM next day, Mountain Time
That's 22 3/4 hours.
Westbound 8:40AM MT - 5:55AM PT 22 1/4 hours
about 60-70 stops including flag stops.
That's some trip,I wonder if anyone did the full run could it have been the rail equivalent of a greyhound coach?
While doing research for one of my RDC projects I ran across this interesting website about RDCs.
http://www.budd-rdc.org/
Nick
Take a Ride on the Reading with the: Reading Company Technical & Historical Society http://www.readingrailroad.org/
Hello Nick,
Thank you for the link to the rdc site,What rdc projects do you have? I have 3 Athearn RDC3 cars which is the correct scale length and I intend to convert into rdC4 and fit SPUD power trucks and a 3/4"x5" steel weight to slow the spud and one car will have the fluted ends removed to be painted red.
Malcolm
branchline wrote: That's some trip,I wonder if anyone did the full run could it have been the rail equivalent of a greyhound coach?
According to retired WP engineer Norman Holmes' book My Western Pacific Railroad (Steel Rails West Publishing, 1996), the ridership was primarily dead-heading crews and pass riders. So probably few went end-to-end.
Layout Design GalleryLayout Design Special Interest Group
It would seem to be an expensive way to move crews about using a long distace RDC especially if passenger ridership was small.
From the book titled "RDC The Budd Rail Diesel Car" by Donald Duke and Edmund Keilty-
The Zephyrettes, heavily modified RDC-2s, ran because without them, "the California Zephyr would have to handle all the mail and express" between Oakland and Salt Lake City "plus make some 26 stops. That would destroy it".
So the Zephyrettes made three round trips a week. They go on to say that in its first year the Zephyrettes "carried 6,378 revenue passegers and 20,891 "deadheads" traveling on a company pass."
"Since the trains had to be run anyway, it was far cheaper for the company to carry its own crews and mail rather than pay someone else to do it".
WP applied to discontinue service October 1, 1960.
An excellent book, highly recommended for anyone interested in the RDC.
The Baltimore and Ohio commissioned the Budd company to build a pair of modified RDC-2's as coach-snackbar-baggage units that were matched with rdc-1's for operation between Philadelphia, Washington DC and then to Pittsburgh, PA. One set left from each endpoint of the route each day. Later the route was cut back to Baltimore, MD on one end.
http://jeffstrainsite.com/railfan_pics/railroad_museums/Baltimore_and_Ohio_Railroad_Museum/February_2002/page48.html
Paul F.
Nice item on the B&O RDCs,thenk you for the link
From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet
I happened to be one who was fortunate enough to have rode on one of the WP RDC 's from Oakland to Salt Lake City. I gave up a chance to ride the California Zephyr from Oakland to Chicago just to ride the Zephyrette and it was worth it. Their were actually two passenger compartments in the WP RDC-2s One was the conventional flip over back type seats common to many RDCs reserved for WP employees and the other compartment was for revenue passengers with more comfortable reclining seats. Looking at my notes on that particular trip it stopped for all meals and everywhere else as it crossed Nevada. The crews were friendly and I rode up front for parts of the trip getting an engineers view.
Another long distance RDC trip was the Pacific Great Eastern (PGE) later the British Columbia Railway between North Vancouver and Prince George, BC the Cariboo Dayliners as they were called. These used RDC 1s and RDC 3s and were equipped with more comfortable seating than the standard flip over back seating and the meals were served at your seats as the RDC3 units had kitchen facilities. I was fortunate enough to ride this when still a young lad the first year it entered service 1956 I believe.
I always have had a fascination with the Budd cars took trips on them whenever possible rode many CN and CP routes using Budds and was never disappointed.
Gary