In the book Canadian Pacific Railway by Tom Murray I saw a photo of a Budd RDC with a coach in tow. Does anyone know if Canadian National Railway did the same? Any photo?
Usually Budd Company(the manufacturer of RDC’s) would inform the railroad that their warranty was ‘void’ if they kept doing this. The RDC were delivered with a pair of Detroit Diesel 280 hp engines that were shaft connected to the inboard axle on each truck via a torque converter. They did not have a lot of ‘pulling power’ and the torque converter could be damaged.
The M&StL had a pair of RDC-4 units and pulled an old baggage car or express box car behind them. This had problems with them, and they were not as powerful as the 30 year old Gas-Electric ‘Doodle Bugs’ they were purchased to replace. They eventually ‘traded’ them to the C&O for some used hopper cars!
Jim
As Jim explained, RDC’s really only had couplers so they could be coupled to other RDC’s or so they could be towed when they broke down.
Nothing about the design intended them to pull other rolling stock.
Sure, a few railroads tried it, but generally it was a problem.
Sheldon
Thank you to both of you.
So I will avoid trouble.
Didn’t the Rock Island try this for the Chocktaw Rockette?
See http://condrenrails.com/MRP/MemphisCentralStation/RI-Memphis-Pass-Pixs.htm
Yes, they did, and I have no direct knowledge of their RDC repair history, but BUDD did not recommend such use. The Rock Island trailers used were lightweight cars, so depending on the operating conditions they may have gotten away without too many problems, but again, BUDD did not design the RDC as a loco, but as a self propelled MU car system.
Sheldon
Nonetheless, it did happen that RDCs were used with trailer cars. If it was a warranty issue that discouraged such use, then once the warranty was over RRs probably took a more pragmatic view of the trailer issue.
It was also a safety problem, because of the RDC’s propensity as a single unit to fail to trip track circuits. Let’s say you had only a single RDC available. If you’re no longer worried about that expired warranty, not had particular problems with road failures, and had a relatively level track profile on the intended route, then a trailer starts to make sense, despite Budd’s cautions.
The shop here converted a dome/obs to run with my even more un-prototypical Rio Grande RDC. Looks good and makes a very compact passenger train.
Works for me. YMMV
What trouble? Tow a passenger car with it, then every once in a while send an engine out to rescue (mu) tow it back to the yard.
That happened a lot with RDCs anyway…[:P][xx(]