Budd RDCs in Rhode Island

1646 Views 3 Replies 4 Participants Last post by Curmudgeon, Nov 30, 2008

Bill C.

Discussion Starter · Oct 27, 2008

I was in Newport, Rhode Island last week for a few days and came across this pair of Budd RDCs a few miles north of town. When I was in high school in the early 1960s in South Jersey I used to take a PRSL RDC to school once in a while and have always had a sentimental attachment for them. By the way, this pair is known as the Islander Touring Train.

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GaryY

· #2 · Oct 27, 2008

These are former BC Rail RDC's. They sold their fleet of them when they got out of the passenger business a few years ago. Since then BC Rail has been assimilated into CN.
Nice to see they are still around!

Gary

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Tom Lapointe

· #3 · Nov 30, 2008

They must run on the same stretch of track that the "Newport Dinner Train" does, a former New Haven branch that runs down to Newport from my hometown of Fall River MA. I'd be interested to know how they got them there, as the line on Aquidneck Island (where Newport is located) is now isolated

from the mainland! The swing bridge which connected this line to the mainland was damaged many years ago by an overloaded freight train & subsequently condemned.

(The bridge was demolished, & it's center pier recently dynamited to make way for the construction of a planned replacement for the nearby Sakonnet river highway bridge, itself in marginal condition). Local TV news had coverage of the pier's being dynamited. The track from the mainland side is long abandoned, though mostly still in place with some grade crossing paved over. There is talk of turning that stretch (from Tiverton to the location of the former Bay St. yards in Fall River) into a bike trail. (The yards have been replaced by a condo development.

). Remember watching New Haven RS-3's switching in that yard as a child.

Tom

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Curmudgeon

· #4 · Nov 30, 2008

If I recall, the RDC's didn't do well in the NE in winter.
Late 60's. early 70's, in Groton/New London, I recall grade crossings, packed snow and ice, and the RDC's would high-center.

Of course they were better than the mobile flame throwers......I mean, Turbo Trains.

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