Just checking to see if you are reading this correctly.
Last weekend, July 8 and9, 2017, Patrick Yough and I made trips to Reading, Pennsylvania to photograph and travel on Reading & Northern’s former Reading Company Budd RDCs.
I grew up with the old ‘Budd cars’ and it was neat to see these machines on the roll again.
Budd introduced it’s self-propelled ‘Rail Diesel Car’ in 1949, and sold them to many railroads across North America. These cars were most common in the Northeast, and the Reading Company was among the lines that made good use of them in passenger service.
I exposed these views using my FujiFilm X-T1 with Zeiss 12mm Tuoit lens.
Tracking the Light is on Auto Pilot while Brian is Traveling.
Off hand, I do not know if the car was indeed an RPO RDC or not, and if it was what is the state of its RPO equipment. R&N uses the non-passenger seating end of the car as a gift shop/canteen.
Looks like one of the units was an RPO/passenger combine. Nice to have a unit in that configuration preserved. Do you know of any others like it? Does this one have its RPO section in “working” condition?
I have in my collection a “US MAIL/RAILWAY POST OFFICE” metal sign that came from a Rock Island RDC that was sold to B&M (?) for commuter service in 1969. I ran across it in El Reno OK when I was at Ft. Sill, and contacted the yardmaster (?) to see what the status of the cars (2 or 3) were. When told they had been sold for commuter service I asked if it would be possible to acquire the signs and RPO hooks. “Sure, I’ll have them removed and you can come up next weekend to pick them up.” Nice. The next day, he called back and said “Before I could get someone out to the cars, they were put in a train heading east. But I had them set out at ??? and I’ll have them taken off and returned here.” He did all that for a railfan that he never knew! Imagine that happening today! I’ll never forget that incident and his kindness. I knew a lot of old railroaders who did things like that, but few who I had not at least met in person.
Great to have these old units still running. I have happy memories of going from Halifax to Yarmouth on CP in a pair of them.