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  • RDC-4

  • Discussion about RDC's, "doodlebugs," gas-electrics, etc.
Discussion about RDC's, "doodlebugs," gas-electrics, etc.
 #26782  by EMD567
 
What roads purchased RDC-4's? How many still survive & where? I don't have much RDC material in my collection to answer this. Reference to a CN car on order is all I could find.

 #26794  by missthealcos
 
There were 14 built, I believe only one, Via 6250, former CN(freshly rebuilt I might add), is the only one in service anywhere. There are 2 CP cars in exsistance that I know of, one in the Canadian Railway Museum in Delson Quebec, the other in Limbo...may have even been scrapped. The 2 were stored for years, until recently. I believe at least half or more that were produced went to CN or CP. I'll have to look up exactly who had what, and when
 #26987  by eddiebear
 
The New Haven had at least 3. The Minneapolis & St. Louis had two that had a tiny coach section fabricated into one end to handle whatever passenger business remained on the Minneapolis-Watertown, SD route. Later swapped to C & O for some hopper cars.

 #33529  by railfanofewu
 
I was thinking about the idea of a modern RDC-3 or RDC-4. Up here in Washington State, their has just been completed a favorable study about purchasing the Palouse River and Coulee City Railroad. It did not say anything about passenger service. But if the State wanted to, as they are upgrading there own RR, they could put in the improvements for some passenger service, and use DMUs at first. I was thinking, there is a college town, Pullman on the route. Home to Washington State University, and I think if the track were upgraded, it would get good ridership. Also, there are a lot of students there, and if they get mail, it would be prudent to send it by train instead of Truck from Spokane. Probably just a pipe dream. Too bad not too many RDC-4s were built.
 #192316  by NHRDC121
 
New Haven (3), 135, (first RDC-4 blt. 5/53), 136, 137

CN (6), D150, D151, D451, D452, D4401, D402

CP (3), 9200, 9250, 9251

M&StL (2), 32, 33

These are origional numbers.

 #193533  by wigwagfan
 
railfanofewu wrote:I was thinking about the idea of a modern RDC-3 or RDC-4. Up here in Washington State, their has just been completed a favorable study about purchasing the Palouse River and Coulee City Railroad. It did not say anything about passenger service. But if the State wanted to, as they are upgrading there own RR, they could put in the improvements for some passenger service, and use DMUs at first. I was thinking, there is a college town, Pullman on the route. Home to Washington State University, and I think if the track were upgraded, it would get good ridership. Also, there are a lot of students there, and if they get mail, it would be prudent to send it by train instead of Truck from Spokane. Probably just a pipe dream. Too bad not too many RDC-4s were built.
Given that Pullman is not an EAS subsidized community, and that Pullman has a fairly decent sized post office, my guess is that much of the mail is flown in from Seattle - which helps prop up the three daily Horizon Air flights.

But buying 80 miles of track is one thing, what would be the cost to upgrade it to 79 MPH operation? And then to operate passenger trains on it? Even in reading WSDOT's own rail publications, the focus in the last year or so has moved away from passenger operations (mainly focusing on select improvements in the existing I-5 corridor, nothing new on the cross-state routes) and more towards freight rail (as an alternative to upgrading highways). The cross-state 403(b) train seems to have disappeared as well.

 #208954  by ENR3870
 
The RDC-4 did not carry any passengers, with the exception of some customized RDC-4's, they were designed to carry baggage and mail only. There is only one RDC-4 that I know of that is still in opreation. VIA RDC4 6250 in use on the Sudbury-White River RDC run.

 #486731  by Tom6921
 
As of March 2007, there are still at least three RDC-4s running. 6250 is still with VIA. One is at Exporail in Delson, Quebec. The other one I saw from a VIA train coupled with an RDC-9 in VIA colours.
 #566247  by espeefoamer
 
Does the Via RDC4 still carry mail,or only baggage?I thought RPO service was dead in Canada.This is exciting news to learn of an operating RDC4!
 #568936  by ENR3870
 
espeefoamer wrote:Does the Via RDC4 still carry mail,or only baggage?I thought RPO service was dead in Canada.This is exciting news to learn of an operating RDC4!
It's all baggage, no RPO.
 #617387  by JimBoylan
 
One of the M&St.L RDC-4s wound up in the Boston & Maine North Station, Boston, Mass. yards. It was apparently scrapped while the station was shut down for drawbridge work late in the 1900s.
 #617824  by TomNelligan
 
JimBoylan wrote:One of the M&St.L RDC-4s wound up in the Boston & Maine North Station, Boston, Mass. yards. It was apparently scrapped while the station was shut down for drawbridge work late in the 1900s.
It had been purchased by the US affiliate of a German company called Krautkramer for conversion into an ultrasonic rail test car similar to Sperry's. (I knew Krautkramer well since they were the major competitor to my employer, Panametrics, in the field of industrial ultrasonics.) The conversion never went through and the car wound up in storage on the B&M, and was then used for many years as a crew office at North Station. It was indeed scrapped during the North Station reconstruction following the drawbridge fire, however that was in 1984, not in the 1990s.