Removing a Motor from a Rail Diesel Car & RDC Report from 1950 by DPM

An excellent feature of RDC design was that a unit could be returned to service quickly 

simply by pulling out a bad order motor and installing a good one.  

*  *  *

Here are three screen grabs from a very short sequence

within a YouTube video on the general development of the RDC.

from: YouTube. Search: "BUDD DIESEL RAIL CAR"

from: YouTube. Search: "BUDD DIESEL RAIL CAR"

from: YouTube. Search: "BUDD DIESEL RAIL CAR"

... Now what?

I'm guessing a crane or a wheeled jack would maneuver the old motor off the stand

and spot the new motor on the stand for sliding into place.

*  *  *

Below, is a diagram on RDC anatomy - repeated from an earlier post.

The off-centre-mounted motors are numbered 1 and 2.

from: Budd Rail Diesel Car Operator's Manual; 1955; Budd.

Below are the various motor system connection points.

We'll skip the location of the mounting bolts.

The Budd-supplied stand (above) and the CNR stand (below)

seem to have different features.

from: Mechanical Running Repair & Inspection Procedures for RDCs; DeGier & MacLean; 1980; CNR.

from: Mechanical Running Repair & Inspection Procedures for RDCs; DeGier & MacLean; 1980; CNR.

*  *  *

Below is an interesting article by David P Morgan from Trains in 1950. In his economical prose he describes the RDC equipment design and features, the Budd business model, early demonstrator trips and he forecasts the future of this remarkable new equipment. 

Budd Rail Diesel Car - Part 3

This last part of the current Budd RDC series
surveys a set of Dayliners from La Tour Joyeuse!

We also look at some of the CNR's Budd activities,
and early schedules for RDC's on both railways.

A table summarizes Budd RDC ownership
by the two major Canadian railways -
to provide an idea of the importance of this technology.

Undated Budd RDC pamphlet.

The Concise Encyclopedia of World Railway Locomotives; ed: P Ransome-Wallis; 1959; Hawthorne Books. 

An idealized tableau of a Budd car in service.

On one of my first 'intercity' rail trips: Montreal West to Lachute,
I was similarly hoisted aboard by my father,
as he shouted to my mother: 'Can you manage?' over the noise of the bus motors.

... In lieu of any CPR help with the valise, she was lugging it.

... The balance of the article was not saved.
A couple of the photos are enlarged/enhanced below.

Once again, these are all items archived by my father
back when steam locomotives were still to be found in service.

An undated newspaper ad.
The non-stop driving time in 2017 is calculated at around 2 hours,
and this includes long stretches of Autoroute driving (source: Google).

from: Canadian National Magazine/Keeping Track.

*  *  *

CPR-related Ephemera

There is no caption describing this cover image, but the identical image appears in the 1955 Canada Handbook with this caption:

"A self-propelled diesel powered day-liner carries passengers, express and mail from Mattawa, Ont., 100 miles north to Angliers, Que. Passenger day-liners are in service between other centres."

This shows both sides of a Dayliner flyer picked up by my father.

In 2017, the non-stop north shore driving time,
Montreal to Quebec City via the Autoroute Felix Leclerc
is calculated at about 3 hours.

*  *  *

Here is another flyer which my father preserved.

In 2017, the non-stop driving distance from Windsor Station to Mont Laurier
is calculated at about 3 hours.

In 2017, Felix Leclerc could drive to Sainte Adèle in style on an Autoroute!
However, were he driving - instead of taking Le train du Nord ...
his hands wouldn't be free to strum his guitar.

*  *  *

How important were Budd Rail Diesel Cars to Canadian railways?

Here are the RDC's retained by the railways and subsequently owned by VIA as recorded in the 1982 Trackside Guide. I have cobbled together the listings into a single image which may be conveniently printed, folded up and kept handy in your wallet or purse. Win every argument with your friends and family about Budd cars!

A Trackside Guide to Canadian Railway Motive Power; Earl Roberts; 1982; Bytown Railway Society. 

The complete listing of CPR RDC's is included below ...

even though entire model 'classes' had been sold to VIA.

I have omitted the British Columbia Railway listing: 8 cars, 6 remaining in 1982.

A Trackside Guide to Canadian Railway Motive Power; Earl Roberts; 1982; Bytown Railway Society. 

*  *  *

At Lac Saguay, circa 1958

From La Tour Joyeuse my father photographed a three-car Dayliner consist just south of Lac Saguay station as it continued its run to Montreal. The parallel road was once the 'highway' to Mont Laurier. 

Seen from the new paved highway to Mont Laurier is La Tour Joyeuse and its roadside advertising. Beyond the hotel are the CPR tracks. Behind the camera is the vista of the lake, hills and mountain which the tower was designed to view.

My father's notes indicate that this was "Adhémar Raynault's hotel near the CPR tracks and the old unpaved road to Mont Laurier". Raynault (1891-1984) had been Mayor of Montreal during three periods in the 1930s and 1940s. He filled in as mayor during the wartime internment of Camillien Houde, CBE OStJ.

Budd Rail Diesel Car - Part 2

This post features the second half of the Budd Rail Diesel Car operating manual. Also included is a 1953 article by Omer Lavallee, from the CPR Spanner about the RDC project and the history of some of the CPR's self-propelled cars. 

*  *  *

Thank you to Jim Christie for sending me the following ad from Railway Age circa 1953. He had it professionally scanned and restored so that it looks as fresh as the day it was printed. From it, you can get an idea of the features Budd had been working on and how they were intended to meet the needs of railroads trying to provide passenger service in a more cost-effective manner. 

The ad is clean, bold and modern.

*  *  *

... and that was the last clean, crisp image you'll see in this posting!

The rest of this post will come from that well-travelled manual
and from the CPR Spanner of over 60 years ago.

While my father took relatively few photos of RDCs
- perhaps because they resembled buses more than traditional railway equipment -
his association with the CPR was recent enough that he preserved
a good deal of the early public relations material on the CPR Dayliners.
After all, they were a well-designed, efficient 'system'.

I collected the RDC manual and some other materials for future posts at railway shows over the years.

After the initial presentation of manual pages with photographs,
I have enlarged the images and tried to get you as much detail as can be resolved.

It seems that the equipment is designed so the engineers can solve most
away-from-terminal, backwoods-end-of-subdivision problems themselves.

*   *   *

Here are articles my father saved from the CPR Spanner.
The first is undated.

... 'Montreal and Mont Laurier ... highly popular with passengers' ...

Compared to what?

Once again, this old chestnut ...
Not many CPR subdivisions had had songs written about their passenger service, circa 1950 ...


Felix Leclerc, Le train du nord



*  *  *

The cover illustration for the November 1953 edition appears at the end of this post.




The print is easiest to read without much modification.
The photos are restored to resolve as much detail as possible and reprinted below each page.

A couple of months later,
Trains magazine used a night shot
of the opposite end of the same Dayliner.