(first posted 11/18/2016) The postwar era presented America’s railroads with a dilemma. Wartime traffic swelled profits but wore out prewar equipment. But faced with new cars, new roads, unlimited gas and tires, and thousands of cheap war surplus transport planes, ICC-mandated passenger service, became a profit drain. New equipment was needed, but so were new ideas. Nowhere was this more apparent than on lightly used branch line and commuter services.
The folks at the Edward G. Budd manufacturing company thought they had the answer to restore traffic and profits: The Budd Rail Diesel Car (RDC). While that thesis didn’t really pan out, the RDC itself proved to be reliable, flexible and incredibly long-lived, and remained a key part of America’s passenger rail fleet through the CC era.
The RDC was a concept with a rich ancestry. As soon as large internal combustion gasoline engines were perfected around the turn of the 20th century, people began to combine them with a railroad passenger or combine car body to provide self-propelled service overly lightly-traveled branch lines. The porthole-windowed, prow-shaped McKeen Motor Car was the first successful example, entering service in 1905.
These cars used a marine-type gas engine mounted in the power truck, driving one axle through a direct mechanical drive. Problems with that drive train, including reversing (the camshaft had to be switched to run the engine backwards), and clutches failing were a major limitation in these cars, and were a spur to developing gas-electric and hydraulic drive alternatives.
Over time, the rail motor car, as it became known, improved, with more substantial bodies and more powerful engines. Many of the bodies were made by street- and interurban car builders like St. Louis Car, with engines from Winton Motors in Cleveland. Winton, an automotive pioneer, had long abandoned that market to specialize in large gasoline and, starting in the late 20s, diesel engines. With the success of rail motor cars and the rise of diesel electric locomotives, business took off, the company renamed itself Electro Motive Corporation, and soon became the Electro Motive Division (EMD) of General Motors.
Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, auto body builder Edward G. Budd was getting into the rail business with a revolutionary idea – car bodies made lighter, stronger, and longer lasting due to a structural covering of corrugated stainless steel. The key was Budd’s shotweld process, which eliminated the rows of rivets then common on passenger cars. From the landmark Pioneer Zephyr of 1934, Budd took a growing share of the passenger car market.
By the the late ’40s Edward Budd was gone, but his company was still looking for new opportunities. They found one by marrying Budd’s shotwelded carbody to an underfloor pair of 6-cylinder, 275hp Detroit Diesel Series 110 engines and power trucks, and introduced the Budd Rail Diesel Car in 1949. Each engine drove an axle through a hydraulic torque converter derived from the M46 Patton tank. Multiple RDC cars could be coupled together to form a self propelled train.
Stylistically, it was a perfect complement to the long-distance streamliners, with well-resolved cab ends and a well integrated roof bulge that housed the engines’ intake and exhaust fans, connected by ducts that served as interior dividers. Interiors were simple and modern, with reversible seats and stainless steel package racks.
From 1949 through 1962, Budd produced 398 RDC cars. The vast majority were 85-foot RDC-1 coaches, but the RDC was also available as an RDC-2 coach/baggage combine, an RDC-3 coach/baggage/Railroad Post Office car, a short, 74-foot RDC-4 baggage/RPO, and an RDC-9 trailer with higher seating and no control cab. While some RDCs plied lightly traveled branch routes, many wound up in commuter service, with Boston and Maine acquiring 108 cars for that service. Other big users were the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines, the New York Central, the New Haven, the Canadian Pacific and the B&O railroad.
B&O also offered the most unique RDC service, the 1956-63 Speedliner that connected New York (later cut back to Washington) and Pittsburgh. The Speedliner was a 3 car train combining two RDC-1 coaches with a unique Baggage-Diner-Coach combine. The menu was limited but the cooking was fresh and just as good as the Capitol Limited, considered the gold standard for railway dining. (This image shows the Speedliner’s combine in later commuter service in Pittsburgh)
The 1950s was a big time for passenger train innovation, especially lightweight trains that could cover medium distance routes at lower costs. New York Central had its Train X, General Motors adapted bus parts to create the Aero Train, and the New Haven turned to Budd for a sort of super-RDC train, the Roger Williams. Made up of six RDC coaches with modified sheathing, it featured diesel-like cabs front and back, and served on medium distance runs.
Then there was the jet. Meet the M-497. Cobbled up by New York Central engineers to test the effects of high-speed – and very straight, well-maintained rails, it featured a pai of J-47 booster jets from a B-36 strapped to the top of an RDC with a streamlined front and rear. The motors were removed, and on July 23rd, 1966 it hit a top speed of 183.68mph – an American record that still stands. Unfortunately, like the Central, the M-497 went nowhere fast: stripped of its jets, it finished out its days in commuter service.
Budd tried one last hurrah with the SPV-2000, a self-propelled Amfleet coach – a design derived from the high speed Metroliner cars of the late 60s. Amtrak and Metro-North used them briefly for branch runs, but unlike their inspiration, they proved unreliable.
Ultimately, the RDC couldn’t stem the tide away from trains to cars and planes. But the bodies were strong and the Detroit Diesels were unbreakable, so they soldiered on in commuter service well into the 1980s, and as de-motored coaches even longer. The RDC didn’t save railroading, but it did its job well. Which I can personally attest, having spent many days in the early ’70s riding in the cab of a B&O RDC traveling from McKeesport to Pittsburgh for an afternoon’s shopping. Followed by dinner at Stouffer’s, another long-gone hallmark of mid-century optimism.
I wonder if that M-497 jet car is one of the roots of the infamous ‘Rocket Car’ urban legend about someone who managed to kill themself in spectacular fashion by strapping a JATO rocket onto the back of a car (one version uses a 1959 Impala) which promptly launches itself into the side of a cliff in the desert somewhere. There’s a story on the net that actually goes into great detail but, in the end, it’s pure fiction.
The car used in the ‘Urban Legend/Darwin Awards’ version was a 1967 Impala, and when the Mythbusters tried to recreate the myth for real, they used the same generation Impala, only they used a 1966, as this was what they were able to find. Close enough. IIRC, the car was tested on the Bonneville Salt Flats and once they fired the JATO(s), the car took off (horizontally… it stayed planted on the ground) and outran the chase helicopter used for filming it. I believe this was the pilot episode for the entire series.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JATO_Rocket_Car
The original e-mailed ‘myth’ said that this occurred in Arizona.
Here’s a link to the story I was talking about:
https://www.wired.com/2000/08/rocketcar/
Like I said, the writer claimed it was really a ’59 Impala, not a ’67, which is, indeed, what is cited in the earlier, much more common, abridged email. But, more importantly, he states that the stunt was performed with the car on rails leading up to an abandoned mine. That’s the part that made me think he got the idea for the story from the M-497 jet railcar. It’s still a work of fiction, but the guy went into substantially greater detail in an effort to make it sound plausible.
The cited Wikipedia article also makes mention of a 1958 Dodge Coronet tv commercial that did something similar. My guess would be that’s where the urban legend originated. Then, much later, the other guy got wind of the M-497 and used it to further enhance his version of the story.
I like the looks of that McKeen Motor car. So many portholes!
Looks VERY steampunk. Ahead of its time in 1905.
That photo is of a meticulously restored McKeen car at the Virginia and Truckee Railroad in Carson City, NV. Another restoration is in progress in San Diego, CA, from a McKeen car found in Alaska.
The original McKeen drive system was not motor-electric, as stated. It is all-mechanical, using a gasoline engine and a mechanical transmission with clutch, driving one axle via a chain drive. The McKeen transmission did not have a reverse gear; the engine had to be stopped and the camshaft timing shifted to make the engine operate backwards. Many McKeen cars survived for many years and were re-engined with more modern powerplants, both gasoline and diesel; and more versatile transmissions. Some were converted to electric drive.
Quite right, and a mistake I should have caught, but I didn’t get to reviewing this post in advance. It’s fixed now.
There are some US-made Budds from the 50s still on duty here in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and tons of other Budd built by Mafersa under license, and one thing that always amazes me is how nice their stainless steel shines. I know when a train was made by Budd or Mafersa just by their shine, it’s just different, better than the other trains, even the new ones. These guys from Philly sure knew how to do a top notch stainless alloy.
The picture is of this American Budd from the 50s, it’s a still of a Youtube video just to show how shinny the steel is after 60 years of abuse. And when I say abuse, it’s third-world abuse, maintenance neglect and that sort of thing
CPTM, the São Paulo state’s train operator, fully restored one of their old Budd RDC to serve as a touristic train on selected routes to run just on the weekends as a “vintage” experience, but despite the fact this restoration work was finished at least 3 years ago, the RDC isn’t on duty yet, nobody knows why. I don’t like the livery, but I saw this RDC once and it’s amazing
The New York MTA is till running Budd R32 subway cars manufactured between 1949 and 1965 on limited lines, including the J/Z line, which primarily serves Brooklyn & Queens. These cars are old and a bit drab in comparison to the newer Bombardier R179 and Kawasaki R160 cars, but have a more open and airy layout with a wider center aisle for standing room. They lack the modern “conveniences” of scrolling time and temp ribbons and automated voice warnings, but while I lived along that line I always preferred to ride them over the Kawasakis.
A little ex-Brooklynite trivia: The rapper and mogul (and Beyonce’s husband) derived his stage name from the J/Z line, having been raised in the Marcy Projects, which the line services.
Wow; I remember these from when we rode them in 1964 on our trip to the World’s Fair. I though they’d be long gone.
They’ve obviously thinned the herd over the decades, but as this line serves as a line that is primarily a connection to more heavily traveled routes (such as the JFK branch lines and the 4,5,6 and A,C,E uptown lines) they’re still in service, although the newer Kawasaki’s are filling gaps in their diminishing numbers. Riding these takes one back to the days when central climate control was new and folks crushed out a Marlboro on the platform before boarding. They’re still nicotine stained, with black linoleum (presumably the real deal made of linseed oil, etc,) floors and patched and cobbled fibreglass benches. I think I read that they’re slated to be phased out, but they’re still quite serviceable and are preferred by hardcore old schoolers. They represent the last holdout of the days of tokens and mechanical turnstiles. Legions of New York history buffs will mourn them when the last of them are out of service. These are the Checker cabs of the MTA system, for sure.
They were in service on the C line as recently as 2012. They were rebuilt in the late 80s, I think. Like riding inside a barn.
Still running on the C.
There are still RDC cars and sets in service in the US. In CC’s home territory of Western Oregon the Westside Express (WES) service from Wilsonville to Beaverton has pair of modified RDC cars that are used as backups to the modern Colorado Railcar units. These have a bit of history behind them since they were originally made for the Alaska Railway and were subsequently used for the Lewis & Clark Explorer excursion train from Portland to Astoria in the early 2000s before being sold to Tri-Met.
Growing up in the NYC suburbs I used to see ex NY Central B-Liners (the local nickname) on the Metro North routes, although I never rode them because I always lived in electrified territory served by M1 and later M3 electric trains.
That nickname was also used in northern NY too.
I rode on the Lewis & Clark Explorer excursion train with my family. We made a weekend of it staying in an Astoria motel less than a block away from where the train ended. Got around by the Astoria Trolley and old fashioned walking. A whole weekend without a car and I enjoyed it immensely, it was very relaxing. They should have made it permanent..
You’ll be able to ride a modern self-propelled when the SMART system in Marin starts running.
Interesting article, they were once a common sight here in BC. The E&N ran 2 of them on Vancouver island for probably 40 years and a couple ran north from Vancouver on the mainland. Not sure if the mainland run still exists but it did up until fairly recently. They used a 110 series GM diesel that had a very distinctive sound I remember well.
Well VIA may be using them again, here’s a vid from this year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dpe6tf7mwmg
According to VIA’s website, they still have 2 RDCs on regularly scheduled service – one on the old E&N, the other running Sudbury to White River, ON.
http://www.viarail.ca/en/about-via-rail/our-fleet/rail-diesel-car-2
Great post – brought back lots of memories. These RDCs were used between Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati in the 60s and 70s – would see them often.
Remember riding them as a kid on the Boston and Maine. And later hauled by f10 diesels and later still as coaches. On the mbta. They were comfortable.
I rode these into Boston daily in the late 80s. If you sat in the front half of the control car you got to hear all the air controls. Kind of annoying but it must have been almost unbearable for the engineer. I remember one 2 or 3 car set of these being pushed by an ex BN gp7 or 9 still in BN green with the black and white striped nose.
British columbia had a few Budd cars until recently: on BCRail , running daily from North Vancouver to Prince George, I believe. [BCR was gutted by the provincial government in what many regard as a sellout to big business] On Vancouver Island, the delightful E&N [Esquimalt and Nanaimo] lazed along poorly-maintained roadbed through post-card scenery to stop across the street from Swan’s brew pub….I believe the railcars are in storage awaiting a someday track rebuilding. If it ever happens, it’s worth a trip just to experience the cars.
BC Rail ended its Budd Car passenger service between North Vancouver and Prince George in 2002. The 460 mile service was one of the last true regularly scheduled branch line services in North America, where you could still flag down a train at rural stops. In a typically craven move, then Premier Gordon Campbell cut the service then sold off the railway, something he had promised not to do in the previous election.
Budd cars used an interesting Detroit Diesel, the 6-110. The 6-110 was basically a scaled-up 6-71 with a centrifugal instead of a Rootes blower. The 6-110 was tried in trucks but the blower design was failure-prone in anything but near constant r.p.m. service. By 1959 Detroit had introduced the 8V-71 with offered comparable output as the 6-110 in a lighter more compact package. The 6-110 performed well in the RDC’s and marine use but was phased out of production by the late 60’s.
The failure was caused by the undersized supercharger driveshaft which would snap on sudden opening of the throttle – not unusual under road conditions but they used a turbocharger in the later versions of the 110 which solved that problem and, ultimately, got it to deliver 375 hp. However, by then as you noted the more compact and modern 8v-71 was on offer, so it did not make any sense to develop the 110 any further. They were for a while offered on Allis-Chalmers bulldozers (with the turbo I believe) and did not give trouble.
O and maybe it’s been done already and I missed it….the incredible spanish Talgo train! Read about them for years, finally experiened- Amtrak, Vancouver/Portland. Amazing on the curves.
There used to be many RDC’s in service in Philly serving the outer reaches of the Reading Railroad commuter network, beyond the points where the lines were electrified. Some RDC’s provided a one seat ride all the way from Bethlehem, Reading or Newtown to Reading Terminal in downtown Philly, but sometimes one had to change trains at the point where the overhead wires began.
In 1984 Reading Terminal operations were moved underground to a new crosstown tunnel that linked the former Reading and PRR commuter lines (now SEPTA), eliminating two stub end terminals. Unfortunately, the two mile long tunnel was not built with adequate ventilation to run diesel cars through it (it could have, but it would have added to the cost). The result was not only that SEPTA had to stop using RDC’s, it also led to the abandonment of service entirely beyond the end of electrification.
Another fine article for us car nuts/ railroad fans. I rode on a Budd version in the early 70s from New Haven Ct to Grand Central station .Frigid cold outside ,but the car had good heat. It was kind of noisy, but just the chance to ride on one was good enough. I still can`t believe the ‘Pioneer Zephyr’ is almost 85 years old! Still looks great today, especially when compared to the contemporary ‘toaster’ look of more modern locomotives .I guess the future ain`t what it used to be.
QUOTE: “Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, auto body builder Edward G. Budd was getting into the rail business with a revolutionary idea – car bodies made lighter, stronger, and longer lasting due to a structural covering of corrugated stainless steel.”
Just to clarify: stainless steel construction by the Budd Company wasn’t just the covering, or sheathing; the entire structure down to the frame was stainless steel. That is what made Budd passenger cars so much more durable than those from the competing Pullman-Standard. Pullman’s streamlined cars had carbon steel frames and stainless steel sheating. Over time, while the stainless sheathing remained shiny, the carbon steel structure rotted.
The mighty Southern Pacific Railroad, its routes stretching from Portland, OR to Ogden, UT and New Orleans, LA, owned ONE Budd RDC. Infamous in the 1950s for its anti-passenger stance, the SP filed to discontinue its San Francisco/Oakland-Sacramento trains but was ordered by the California State Public Utilities Commission not only to continue operating them, but to buy a new Budd RDC to modernize the equipment used on the route. But it didn’t work; ridership continued to fall and the CPUC gave up, allowing SP to discontinue the trains. The surplus RDC was sent to subsidiary Northwestern Pacific, which ran it to Eureka, CA from 1958 to 1971, when the route was not included in the fledgling Amtrak system. The lone SP RDC was sold to a tourist railroad operator, and then to a railroad museum in Galveston TX, which ran it until somebody neglected to drain the engine blocks for winter and they froze and cracked. A hurricane flooded the museum and the Budd Car, unable to move to safety, was inundated to the floor level with salt water. Financially unable to restore it, the museum put the car up for sale as scrap but fortunately a presevationist group has purchased it and has arranged for it to be moved to Woodland, CA where it is to be cosmetically restored and placed on display in a Southern Pacific museum. That Budd RDC, originally numbered SP #10, departed Galveston yesterday on a flatcar in a BNSF freight train, on its way to its new home.
Thanks for the additional insight into the two construction approaches. I knew how Budds were made (indestructible), but wasn’t quite aware how the P-S cars were so much more inferior.
Budd even built a version of the RDC for France. It used RDC machinery in a body copied from the SNCF X-2400 series railcars. It was unsuccessful and was rebuilt to a trailer. (SNCF didn’t like the RDC, but it was a good customer for Budd and ordered their cars for everything from Paris commuter trains to its top of the line Paris-Cote d’Azur “Mistral.”)
Nearest to an RDC we got in Israel were some ex-SNCF cars Israel Railways purchased in the 90s. All are out of service now…
I once read an article on a rail fan site that spoke of aged Budd (RDC?) cars shedding their cladding due to corrosion (looked good on the outside but corrosion lurking underneath eventually won). Anybody have memories or details on this?
Also for “shot weld” fans, here’s the link to Wikipedia:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_welding
Unless grossly neglected or compromised by improper wreck repair, that didn’t happen. It DID occur to cars built by Pullman-Standard and subsidiary Osgood-Bradley, which refused to pay royalties to Budd for the patented Shotwelding technique. Instead, they affixed stainless steel sheathing to primed steel framing. Moisture and car-cleaning chemicals invariably seeped in behind the sheathing, which on those cars was built up from stainless steel battens slid into longitudinal stringers. No attempt at sealing proved successful in the long term. Some railroads…Rock Island and my own, Southern Pacific being the largest…replaced the batten-and-stringer sheathing with more leak-resistant plain stainless steel sheeting when the necessary rebuild of the rusted steel carside structure was being done. Most other roads didn’t do either. As a result, by 1972 when Amtrak began buying passenger cars secondhand, Budds were preferred. Most Southern Pacific Budd-built cars were purchased by Amtrak in the first go-round, and most of the SP rebuilds of Pullman-Standard cars were purchased later. Few other railroads’ P-S cars were selected.
It was entertaining to “inspect” P-S streamlined cars for rust, in an impromptu manner. One only had to pound one’s fist on the stainless steel sheathing. On a car with rusted-out side framing underneath, you’d hear the BANG of your fist, followed by the “tinkle-tinkle-tinkle” as big chunks of rust fell off the plain steel structural framing.
Fascinating. Thanks for these insights!
Another McKeesport to Pittsburgh “shout out’ (or whatever the kids call it) I rode the B&O (and later PaTrain..) from the ‘Port to the ‘Burgh in the ’70s-’80s (remember the trains in the middle of town?) Later (While the McKeesport Transit Center was being built..) This line was A huge relief during the Parkway East reconstruction in the early 1980s!
I know I`m late to the party on this, but when I was a kid,I had the Lionel Erie Lackawanna Budd RDC set. Two cars in silver with passenger silhouettes on the clear window inserts and one powered unit. A few years later, I had a summer job as a messenger. I was pretty friendly with the guy who ran the office. One day a small package was going to Patterson , NJ. When he asked me if I wanted to do it, I said ‘sure’. I caught the train at the Hoboken NJ terminal, and when I saw it it looked exactly like the Lionel set! Nice ride in an air conditioned car on a hot summer day. After that I became the services long distance guy and did many runs to Connecticut, the Jersey Coast and Philly. It was a pretty cool job for a 16 year old who didn`t have a driver`s license yet, only a learner`s permit.
Nice look back. I saw these often while fishing and crabbing when they ran along the non-electrified territory along the Hudson River in NY as a teen in the 70s and 80s. I liked their sleek look and the “scare stripes” they had painted on the ends. Got to ride in them as well and from inside the engines had a muted but deep, throaty growl to them.
Anyone who’s interested in visiting the RDC in the initial photo can find it at the starting point of the Minuteman Rail Trail in Bedford, MA. I see it often and wish that it could be powered up and off we’d go 🙂
Rode one from Hamilton Ont to Buffalo NY a couple of times ,
They were a great machine .
George
I remember the NH trains with the front and rear diesel cars here in CT in the 1960’s when I was a boy. There is just something about a train. . .
To me the height of travel excitement and romance would have been riding a train with sleeper berths in the 1940’s; the rhythm of the train rocking you to sleep.
Great overview. I have ridden both the CP Rail/VIA ones on Vancouver Island (the Dayliners) and the BC Rail ones from North Vancouver into the BC interior. I have an HO scale brass/cast metal one (picture), plus a better plastic version in the works.
Traveled on Budd cars frequently on the New York Central Hudson Line back in the day. Half the car was for smokers and the other half not. Fumes and noise from the diesel engines were an issue as well. I figure that today, these would probably have interior air scrubbers and maybe noise cancellation technology. They would generally be used to connect with local service electric trains at Croton-Harmon. The Budd cars at first sometimes replaced coal locomotive driven trains on the non-electrified track. My father would generally light up his pipe on board and we would all save our ticket receipts to give to the conductor on the connecting trains. If you are ever in this part of the country the views on this route are some of the most beautiful in the world. Worth looking into.
This article got me to thinking that an RBC (rail battery car) might be a good solution for areas where there is available track but no electrification. Eliminating the diesel would lower the noise and air pollution. Commuter runs have fixed end points for charging. Cars would not need huge motors as track is mostly level. The battery pack would easily fit under the floor. Being all-electric, running multiple units for areas with higher demand would be simple. Any thoughts?
…or for quick battery swaps.
In Australia something similar to that has been done rebuilding a 1949 diesel unit using solar power and batteries combined.
https://www.bridgestone.com/bwsc/stories/article/2019/06/17-2.html
Battery electric trains have been used extensively in the past, and now are coming back again. Germany had a large number of them in the flat areas, starting in the 1920’s evolving into the quite advanced series DB ETA 176 (below), in service from 1952 to 1984. They had a range of 400 km (244 miles) and a top speed of either 90 or 100 kmh (54 – 61 mph). They had a large lead-acid battery bank under the floor, which only needed to be charged overnight, given their range and the fact these were used in regional/local use, not long distance.
New battery trains are in use in Japan, Germany, and other countries too. And there will be more. There’s no more need for light rail to have overhead lines.
The rock-a-bye motion of a sleeper bed is one luxury of trains that is still available, and has changed the least. I recommend the lower level, where there’s the least side-to-side yaw. Some of the track, like SLC>Reno, can be jolting; doesn’t swing, but more of a marching band drumline.
It’s about 40 miles from Croton-Harmon to Poughkeepsie. A 240 or so mile range seems pretty doable when you figure they could charge off the 3rd rail in electric territory when they are between runs. Prolly a lot less $ than extending electric service which was being considered. Reliable Edison or lead-acid batteries. Maybe they could simply add battery pack trailers to some of the electric cars they presently have. Trouble is they don’t seem to be so clever around here these days.