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Original New Haven RDC to return to home rails in Connecticut
I rode in a British Columbia Railway RDC (there were two units) from Prince Rupert, BC to Vancouver back in 1973. It rode okay but that was a long way to ride in a car without leg or feet rests! We got stopped a few hours when a boulder showed up on the track. After a lot of hemming and hawing by the crew who stated we would have to wait for a work crew to arrive, the male passengers literally to the matter into their own hands and heaved it off the track.
They served their purpose well. Good luck # 41 and its operators.
The RDC was a good Budd railcar. Too bad the SPV, a powered Metro shell and would be successor to the RDC didn’t live up to the RDC standards.
Budd cars are perfect for excursions. Once they have this car in running shape, maybe they will start to do some cool things like running a trip from Waterbury to Berlin through the Terryville Tunnel. Too bad they couldn’t run it to Hartford via New Britain but the (mis)guided busway being built there now makes that impossible.
The Boston & Maine Railroad owned the most RDCs in the country.
I dispatched this RDC, and many of its siblings, when I worked at New Haven Motor Storage 1977-1986. Nice to see it will be coming home, albeit with a different road number!
I have fond memories of the mid 60’s when I took the NYC Harlem line to Hawthorne and on late night trains they would hook a single RDC-1 on the back of the green electric MU train and when it arrived at Holland Ave in North WP the MU’s would come off and a new engineer would start up the RDC and away we would fly up the non-electric portion of the Harlem Line. I miss the RDC’s.
Back in my old college days, I would take an afternoon train from Springfield, Ma to New Haven, Ct, and transfer to the old NH commuter cars for the trip home to Westport. It was always two RDC’s and not much else. The engineer was never bother by the young “Foamer” and his many questions, nor was he against letting me ride “up front” and experience the ride. It was all double track and we hit 80 MPH many times! And on jointed rail. I’m sure I rode #14 many times, and it was quite the bargain at about 4 bucks a trip.