QUOTE: Originally posted by drephpe Originally posted by AntonioFP45 Drephpe, Could you please post that link? I'm not familiar with it and would like to see the passenger equipment that you are referring to. Thanks![;)][:)] _______________________________________________________________ Happy to. This is one of several that shows the refurbed RDCs in Dallas. http://www.trinityrailwayexpress.org/images.html There are a lot more photos. Just go into google and put in "Trinity Railway Express" By the way, for those of you unfamiliar with the DFW Metroplex, TRE runs between Dallas and Fort Worth over the tracks of the former Burlington-Rock Island (B-RI) which hosted the Texas Zephyr, Sam Houston Zephyr, Texas Rocket, Twin Star Rocket and Frisco's Firefly and Black Gold. Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, January 2, 2005 5:39 PM QUOTE: Originally posted by drephpe RE: SPV's and ML trolley cars. Both are off the line, to my knowledge, and not a moment too soon, as they were both dogs. Ask any ATK maintenance person who had to mess with them. Those ML's may have looked sleek, but they only blew by at 110 because ATK had to assign an on-board electrician to each train to keep them running, and don't ask them to run in the snow, because the cooling air intakes and resistor grids were under the cars and would clog, leaving them dead and (poetic justice!) they'd have to be hauled in by a G! That's why they got reshopped and the grids put on top. Another interesting tidbit--the pans were aerodynamic, of course, but where a conventional train would have one or maybe 2 up, the MLs, being EMUs, had to have one up for each paired carset. If the train got any longer than about 3, the slipstream turbulence from the forward pans would cause the pans on the rear cars to gallop on and off the wire, playing havoc with the traction motors and creating a psychedelic ride for the passengers. Hence AEM7's hauling Amcans on the NEC spine ASAP and the trolleys relegated to the Harrisburg line where they could lope along and not see as many picky passengers. The SPVs were owned by ConnDOT and to my knowledge have been replaced by a locomotive hauled trainset. I seem to recall at least one fire, the exhaust leaked into the cabin, the ride was horrendous, etc. Can someone confirm, I think they may have been de-engined like MBTA did to some of their RDCs and turned into trailers. The RDCs were also genuine maintenance headaches until the Canadians rebuilt them, which helped a lot but did not completely solve the problem, although my old friend Jack Humbert (nee of the Reading, B&O and IC) swore by them when he had them in commute service in Philly and Baltimore. Dallas/Ft Worth (Trinity Railway Express, jointly owned by DART and The T) runs re-engined, re-transmissioned RDCs bought from Canada, MU-ed routinely in trains, but with no trailer cars. They were gutted and are quite nice inside. Here's one of several available links: http://www.trinityrailwayexpress.org/images.html They are also running bilevels between Dallas and Fort Worth, accessible by free shuttle from DFW Airport. And if it's still running this week (you Canadians help me out here) the E&N on Vancouver Island (VIA) ran a pair of RDC-1's between Victoria and Courtenay ( I think now just Nanaimo)--there has been quite a controversy over this line, with Rail America on again-off again; the last I saw, back on with the intervention of a shipper. It's a beautiful trip, although the lack of accommodations made it decidedly third-world, but I never could understand why they locked the doors between the two cars, even though both were occupied. I'll always be grateful to the conductor and brakeman who held the train for my then-young son and me at Courtenay so we could run to a store several blocks away and get some food and drinks (there wasn't even water on the train). B&O ran an all-RDC consist called the "Daylight Speedliner" in the late 50's and early 60's as a mainline train replacement. This train even had an RDC adapted as a food service car. They wound up in commute service (I rode one in 1966 between Pittsburgh and McKeesport) with the train name plates still on the equipment. Definitely one-of-a-kind. Hope this info is useful. Happy hunting. Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, January 2, 2005 7:10 PM Jack was with ICG as well. "Nee" means "formerly". If I can get you additional info, will try. Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Monday, January 3, 2005 11:20 AM Actually "Nee" means origionally. If you see the word nee in the list of owners, that designates the company that purchased the equipment from the builder. Reply Edit BR60103 Member sinceJanuary 2001 From: Guelph, Ont. 1,476 posts Posted by BR60103 on Tuesday, January 4, 2005 10:17 PM Literally, "nee" is the French word for "born" referring to a feminine object. It is normally used in birth/death announcements where a woman's married name is different than her maiden name. --David Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts To drephpe Posted by Anonymous on Friday, January 7, 2005 2:21 AM I have a question, I am beginning to do research on the ICG and got lucky finding this sight...so when you said that OI Jack humbert of the ICC or ICG or whatever was NEE...was he ever the senior vice president of the ICG because that is what I heard or I could be wrong, I found someone who had an old official guide but he couldn't find it. The last update was that when he left he was VP of the Mechanical department, How do I get official research or since you know him personally what was the correct title. Who was Senior VP of the ICG back in the day and what does NEE mean? You sound like an expert so maybe you have an interesting history lesson we could learn from. Reply Edit siberianmo Member sinceFebruary 2004 From: Chesterfield, Missouri, USA 7,214 posts Posted by siberianmo on Sunday, September 4, 2005 10:18 AM [2c] On the subject: In reading thru the 6 pages of informative input, mine is simply to reiterate a few points: (1) Budd never intended for the RDC to pull non-powered cars. Of course, once a receiving railroad purchased them, they did what they pleased. Warranty issues ensued. This is covered quite well in RDC The Budd Rail Diesel Car by Donald Duke and Edmund Keilty. A trial test by the Chicago & Eastern Illinois railroad tried to pull a non-powered car and wound up with an overheated torque converter (fluid nearly boiled). The car was designed to pull itself and only that. (2) Trinity Rail Express (TRE) in Dallas, part of the DART network, has 13 RDC's in their inventory - all purchased from VIA Rail in 1996 and refurbished from frame up in the Montreal shops. Great job. The RDC's arrived in Dallas in 1997. (I recently rode in the cab of one of those RDC's for a 40 mile round trip to Union Station and return ... wonderful experience.) Those RDC's had been used on the runs between Halifax, Nova Scotia and Yarmouht (south) - Sydney (north) until being layed up in 1990 when those routes were discontinued. Trinity perhaps has the largest operating fleet of RDC's, anywhere. (3) Vancouver Island still has RDC's running between Victoria and Courtenay - VIA Rail operates them and the line is referred to as The Malahat. It's a rather austere experience - but does provide the RDC fix for those who appreciate these kinds of things. (4) The now-defunct BC Rail operation in British Columbia ran some great RDC consists (up to 5) from North Vancouver to Prince George. Wonderful scenery and really great cars. Those RDC's were outfitted to provide much-better-than-airline-food service to the passengers at their seats. The fleet consisted of RDC-1's and 3's, with the food preparation area being in the 3's. Some of the 1's had small snack bars included. Sad day when CN bought 'em out and the line was discontinued. Really enjoyed the conversation ......... as I'm an RDC fan, real and model. Happy Railroading! Siberianmo Reply cuyama Member sinceDecember 2001 From: Northern CA Bay Area 4,387 posts Posted by cuyama on Sunday, September 4, 2005 2:14 PM A useful on-line RDC reference: http://www.budd-rdc.org/ Edit -- I apologize if this was referenced in the preceding array of posts. Layout Design GalleryLayout Design Special Interest Group Reply AztecEagle Member sinceAugust 2005 367 posts Posted by AztecEagle on Friday, November 4, 2005 3:29 PM The Trinity Railway Express Commuter Service Between Fort Worth and Dallas Still Uses RDCs In Commuter Service Between Their Namesake Cities.I Saw A SPV2000 About Nine Years Ago On The Former Espee(Now UP)"Sunset Route" Between Schulenburg and Flatonia,Texas.it Was In The Consist Of A Freight. Reply CSSHEGEWISCH Member sinceMarch 2016 From: Burbank IL (near Clearing) 13,540 posts Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Tuesday, November 8, 2005 11:19 AM I believe that Rock Island's RDC's were included in locomotive-hauled consists south out of Kansas City and operated on their own south of El Reno as the through coach on the same schedule. NYC included RDC's in locomotive-hauled suburban trains south of Croton-Harmon and White Plains, operating on their own north of those points. In both cases, the RDC's had to keep their engines running while part of the locomotive-hauled trains to keep the anti-wheel-slide devices activated. The daily commute is part of everyday life but I get two rides a day out of it. Paul Reply David_Telesha Member sinceNovember 2005 From: NYNH&H Norwich & Worcester MP21.7 774 posts Posted by David_Telesha on Tuesday, November 8, 2005 11:37 AM The New Haven made full use of its large fleet of RDC's. Firstly, there really is no set limit to MUing them, so a long (2+) consist is not out of the norm. Around 1953 the New Haven converted several 1930's Pullman-Bradley "American Flyer" passenger cars into RDC trailers. These trailers were three 92 seat coaches from 1938, cars 8367-8369 to be exact, and one P-B "American Flyer" former Grill Car coach conversion from 1952 - now coach 8370. The trailer conversion consisted of painting the whole car silver, with a black roof and standard NH 5.5in lettering in black to match the RDC's. The NH used these in conjuntion with the RDC's until Budd caught wind and threatened to void the warranties. The practice ended. During winter months specifically RDC consists were sometimes locomotive hauled - a RS-3 would do the honors on the Berkshire or Naugatuck lines (most of the time), and I've seen PA-1's doing the same on Providence locals although it would not be out of the question for any passenger or dual service unit to be used. There is a shot, although I think from during the summer for some reason in TJ McNamara's NH Trackside book, I believe, of a PA-1 hauling two RDC's. During the winter this was done because of ice and snow build up, including at crossings - the locomotives additional weight was needed to keep the train on the tracks and break through the wintery build up. Here is the roster of New Haven owned Budd products I put together: BUDD RDC 89-seat RDC-1 #20-27 4/1952-5/1952 89-seat RDC-1 #28-48 1/1953-4/1953 70-seat RDC-2 #120-121 9/1952 49-seat RDC-3 #125-127 1/1953 49-seat RDC-3 #128-130 5/1953 RDC-4 #135-137 5/1953-6/1953 60-seat RDC ROGER WILLIAMS 140-141 2/1957 76-seat ROGER WILLIAMS intermediate coach 160-163 2/1957 David Telesha New Haven Railroad - www.NHRHTA.org Reply wjstix Member sinceFebruary 2002 From: Mpls/St.Paul 13,892 posts Posted by wjstix on Wednesday, November 9, 2005 10:07 AM I picked up an RDC-3 a while back, liked it because it was the same type the DM&IR used in the fifties/early sixties, but I decorated it for my free-lance road. I liked it enough that recently I added a low-cost Soundtraxx generic diesel sound unit in it - with room inside for a baffled 1" speaker it sounds quite nice!! Minneapolis and St.Louis bought an RDC early on, and against GM's warnings used it to pull a streamlined passenger car. The RDC didn't last very long, think as a couple people said the transmission failed. So M-StL used an old green doodlebug to pull their stainless steel Budd passenger coach on branchline trains !! Stix Reply brokemoto Member sinceOctober 2002 From: US 94 posts Posted by brokemoto on Saturday, November 12, 2005 10:57 PM There are photographs of the B&O Daylight Speedliners in the B&O passenger book, second volume subtitled 'Route of the Capitol Limited'. Some of these cars wound up in Washington and Baltimore commuter service after the B&O discontinued the Daylight Speedliner. In its early days, the Daylight Speedliner actually made money. A B&O Manager thought of this after a Washington Area chapter of the NRHS had asked for a fan trip. THe Manager came up with the idea of running a train made up of RDCs over a long distance. The experiment worked and thus was born the Daylight Speedliner. The Louie/Chessie Budd cars are a curious pair. One was actually the RDC-4, mail and baggage. The other one was a baggage car and had school bus seats in the RPO compartment for passengers. CRI&P passenger trains are modeller's dreams. The railroad would run the RDC in consist for as far as the complete train went. The RDC would complete the less patronised part of the trip. There is a photograph, taken in Kansas, of a CRI&P RDC towing a LW boat tailed observation car that the CRI&P had turned into a baggage/passenger combination. The American Tourister, the REA and the mail got excellent views of the Kansas plains. For years in N scale we had to suffer with the unreliable C-Cs. Kato came out with them, but, typical for Kato, its road name selection was not the best. They ignored the B&M which had the largest fleet of them (125) and the B&O which only had seventeen originally (they did buy some of ATSF's used), but ran them for a long time and worked them hard. Kato ignored PRSL; granted, there may not be many PRSL modellers in N scale, but theere are Reading Company and CNJ modellers that might have been interested. These were a flop for Kato, so we in N scale will likely not get any more. A shame. You can not get appropriate decls for these in B&O. If I could, I would just do my own. Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Thursday, December 8, 2005 9:22 AM QUOTE: Originally posted by AntonioFP45 [:)] I recently puchased a brand new Proto New Haven RDC (HO scale) at a model train show for only $45. My expectations were at [%-)]best "mediocre". I was very surprised at how heavy it is, beautifully detailed, and how smoothly it runs. Originally I purchased this unit to "cannibalize[dinner] the truck motor" in order to repower one of my Bachmann Metroliner cars (no longer made) which I'm repainting into Penn Central along with 3 other Metroliner cars. [^] I've decided to keep the RDC intact and just purchase a NWSL truck motor instead for the Metroliner.[8D] Often times when we see pictures of RDC trains they're run either as single units or in multiple units. Question: Do any of you know if any railroads that ran or still run RDCs had them pull non-dieselized passenger cars? While horsepower was not very high, it would seem reasonable that one or two RDCs could pull a couple of cars if passenger demand put the railroad in a pinch. Thanks. [8)][:D] I hope this isn't a duplication... The New Haven , under Buck Dumaine, instituted a program of using old "American Flyer" coaches, painted silver , as a trailer between teo RDCs. Unfortunately, the Budd Co.tpitched a fit and threatened to void the cars' warranties if the New Haven didn't cease and desist(they did, BTW...). Penn Central also did something similar..... they coupled RDCs to ACMUs.....the idea being that when the trains reached the end of third rail territory, the RDC would continue on its merry way with little inconvience to the riding public. Again, someone , either Budd Co. or the MU manufacturer squawked, and the program ended. Reply Edit 1234 Subscriber & Member Login Login, or register today to interact in our online community, comment on articles, receive our newsletter, manage your account online and more! Login Register Users Online There are no community member online Search the Community ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Model Railroader Newsletter See all Sign up for our FREE e-newsletter and get model railroad news in your inbox! Sign up
Originally posted by AntonioFP45 Drephpe, Could you please post that link? I'm not familiar with it and would like to see the passenger equipment that you are referring to. Thanks![;)][:)] _______________________________________________________________ Happy to. This is one of several that shows the refurbed RDCs in Dallas. http://www.trinityrailwayexpress.org/images.html There are a lot more photos. Just go into google and put in "Trinity Railway Express" By the way, for those of you unfamiliar with the DFW Metroplex, TRE runs between Dallas and Fort Worth over the tracks of the former Burlington-Rock Island (B-RI) which hosted the Texas Zephyr, Sam Houston Zephyr, Texas Rocket, Twin Star Rocket and Frisco's Firefly and Black Gold.
QUOTE: Originally posted by drephpe RE: SPV's and ML trolley cars. Both are off the line, to my knowledge, and not a moment too soon, as they were both dogs. Ask any ATK maintenance person who had to mess with them. Those ML's may have looked sleek, but they only blew by at 110 because ATK had to assign an on-board electrician to each train to keep them running, and don't ask them to run in the snow, because the cooling air intakes and resistor grids were under the cars and would clog, leaving them dead and (poetic justice!) they'd have to be hauled in by a G! That's why they got reshopped and the grids put on top. Another interesting tidbit--the pans were aerodynamic, of course, but where a conventional train would have one or maybe 2 up, the MLs, being EMUs, had to have one up for each paired carset. If the train got any longer than about 3, the slipstream turbulence from the forward pans would cause the pans on the rear cars to gallop on and off the wire, playing havoc with the traction motors and creating a psychedelic ride for the passengers. Hence AEM7's hauling Amcans on the NEC spine ASAP and the trolleys relegated to the Harrisburg line where they could lope along and not see as many picky passengers. The SPVs were owned by ConnDOT and to my knowledge have been replaced by a locomotive hauled trainset. I seem to recall at least one fire, the exhaust leaked into the cabin, the ride was horrendous, etc. Can someone confirm, I think they may have been de-engined like MBTA did to some of their RDCs and turned into trailers. The RDCs were also genuine maintenance headaches until the Canadians rebuilt them, which helped a lot but did not completely solve the problem, although my old friend Jack Humbert (nee of the Reading, B&O and IC) swore by them when he had them in commute service in Philly and Baltimore. Dallas/Ft Worth (Trinity Railway Express, jointly owned by DART and The T) runs re-engined, re-transmissioned RDCs bought from Canada, MU-ed routinely in trains, but with no trailer cars. They were gutted and are quite nice inside. Here's one of several available links: http://www.trinityrailwayexpress.org/images.html They are also running bilevels between Dallas and Fort Worth, accessible by free shuttle from DFW Airport. And if it's still running this week (you Canadians help me out here) the E&N on Vancouver Island (VIA) ran a pair of RDC-1's between Victoria and Courtenay ( I think now just Nanaimo)--there has been quite a controversy over this line, with Rail America on again-off again; the last I saw, back on with the intervention of a shipper. It's a beautiful trip, although the lack of accommodations made it decidedly third-world, but I never could understand why they locked the doors between the two cars, even though both were occupied. I'll always be grateful to the conductor and brakeman who held the train for my then-young son and me at Courtenay so we could run to a store several blocks away and get some food and drinks (there wasn't even water on the train). B&O ran an all-RDC consist called the "Daylight Speedliner" in the late 50's and early 60's as a mainline train replacement. This train even had an RDC adapted as a food service car. They wound up in commute service (I rode one in 1966 between Pittsburgh and McKeesport) with the train name plates still on the equipment. Definitely one-of-a-kind. Hope this info is useful. Happy hunting.
--David
Layout Design GalleryLayout Design Special Interest Group
QUOTE: Originally posted by AntonioFP45 [:)] I recently puchased a brand new Proto New Haven RDC (HO scale) at a model train show for only $45. My expectations were at [%-)]best "mediocre". I was very surprised at how heavy it is, beautifully detailed, and how smoothly it runs. Originally I purchased this unit to "cannibalize[dinner] the truck motor" in order to repower one of my Bachmann Metroliner cars (no longer made) which I'm repainting into Penn Central along with 3 other Metroliner cars. [^] I've decided to keep the RDC intact and just purchase a NWSL truck motor instead for the Metroliner.[8D] Often times when we see pictures of RDC trains they're run either as single units or in multiple units. Question: Do any of you know if any railroads that ran or still run RDCs had them pull non-dieselized passenger cars? While horsepower was not very high, it would seem reasonable that one or two RDCs could pull a couple of cars if passenger demand put the railroad in a pinch. Thanks. [8)][:D]