VIA Rail Canada operated the world’s second-largest fleet of RDCs—the self-propelled, twin-engined, stainless-steel Rail Diesel Cars introduced by the Budd Company in 1949—and still employs a handful of rebuilt and modernized cars. The 84-car fleet acquired by VIA from CN and CP included RDCs built by Budd in the United States, as well as some assembled in Canada under license by Canadian Car & Foundry.
The RDC design shared the basic architecture of Budd’s stainless-steel passenger rolling stock, with fluted (and typically unpainted) side and roof panels assembled using the company’s patented Shotweld™ process. The general similarity ended with the RDCs’ self propulsion, which (for all but the RDC-9 variant) required operator’s cabs and associated safety appliances (headlights, horns, bells) at the car ends, twin diesel engines and associated torque-converter transmissions under the floor, and a distinctive rooftop hump containing radiators, engine exhausts and other components. Budd made cosmetic changes to the RDC’s exterior in 1956—introducing the so-called “Phase II” design—but the original arrangement of major components was unchanged.
At its peak in the 1980s, VIA’s fleet included examples of every RDC type: the all-coach RDC-1; the coach/baggage RDC-2; the coach/baggage/mail RDC-3; the short-bodied baggage/mail RDC-4; and the cabless, single-engine RDC-9 (also known in Canada as the RDC-5). Canadian Pacific operated every type except for the RDC-9. Confusing matters somewhat, CP had rebuilt several RDCs into what it termed RDC-5s. These modified cars also became part of the VIA fleet, and VIA undertook several RDC conversions of its own.
As its predecessors had done, VIA operated RDCs on secondary “feeder” and remote routes throughout its network, permitting cost-effective service to be maintained without the typically greater expense of conventional locomotive-hauled trains. Prior to government-mandated service cuts that decimated VIA’s RDC fleet January 1990, the self-propelled cars prevailed on feeder schedules in the Maritimes and Southwestern Ontario. RDCs provided VIA’s only service on Vancouver Island until that operation was suspended in 2011. VIA’s last remaining RDC service operates in northern Ontario between Sudbury and White River.
Preserved in operable condition, VIA RDC-1 No. 6133 is part of the VHA’s equipment collection. This car, one of two built for assignment to Canadian Pacific’s Nova Scotia subsidiary, the Dominion Atlantic Railway, was delivered as DAR No. 9058, complete with Dominion Atlantic lettering. After reassignment as CP No. 9058, the car was acquired by VIA and given its current number.
VHA also plans to restore RDC-2 No. 6215 to operation. This car was built as CP No. 9107.
Among three other non-operational VIA RDCs currently owned by the VHA is the very first example, built by Budd in 1949 as a proof-of-concept demonstrator and, later, used as a mobile engineering test-bed. The well-travelled car was acquired by CN in 1965, becoming D-110 and, in a 1969 renumbering, 6110. This historic car—one of the most significant pieces of postwar passenger equipment still in existence—retained that number in subsequent VIA service until its retirement in 1990.
Along with No. 6110, former VIA RDC-1 No. 6113 and RDC-2 No. 6214 are currently used as tool cars by VHA, providing storage and workshop space.
To learn more about the current status of VHA’s RDCs, click here.
—Kevin J. Holland
