Picked up one yesterday at a show and was wondering if in real life they ever pulled mail cars or some other type of freight cars? I probably will on my layout cuz its O gauge and we can do anything we want
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I don't think so. Some of them had baggage compartments and most ran with other "Budd cars" I've never seen one pulling any other type of cars.... I don't think they were that reliable. The had enough problems just pulling themselves.
I agree.. It's your layout and your the CEO ( as long as you're having fun.)
I donot think they had the power to pull additional cars. Some of the cars had two engines and some had one. As I recall it took three engines to move the two cars. They were fun to ride. It sounded like the engineer would put the cars in full throttle and off you would go. Accelerated very slowly, but in time the speed would continue to increase. On a trip in Western Canada we spent considerable amount of time at about 100 mph. I believe the cars were reliable, it’s when that GM 110 engine wore out some railroads just kept running them, blowing smoke and dripping oil.
Some roads like the New Haven tried a conventional coach between 2 Budds...it worked but the Budd co.found out and said they would void the warranty ....thus endth the experiment....
I believe some RDC's actually did pull milk cars, baggage cars, and passenger coaches ( not all at once of course ). One RDC had 550 horsepower, two 275 horsepower direct drive diesel engines , ( a SW1 switch engine had 600 ... of course the gearing was different in the SW1 ) I've seen photos in magazines with these kinds of cars trailing RDCs ( one or two RDCs and a baggage or milk car ) in a consist. I wish I could remember which mags. I'm quite sure this sort of scenario did happen.
I grew up on the B&Os Washington Branch ( now the Camden line ) where I saw RDCs everyday ... as a one car train , two and three cars. I never saw B&O RDCs with anything else in their consist other than RDC car ( RDC ones and twos ). Later Marc ran these RDCs between Baltimore and Washington and Washington and Martinsburg, WV.
I think C&O and Great Northern used to occasionally haul a a baggage or extra coach trailing a RDC consist though.
On my railroad I occasionally have the RDCs pull a single milk car. It makes for an interesting operating scenario.
Here's a thread showing an RDC pulling a Long Island ping pong coach:
https://ogrforum.com/...12#62528537396848412
I believe I read that it did void the RDC warranty.
The LIRR also pulled and RPO from Babylon to Patchogue for a while with their RDC-1 and -2. It was off an MU train and the RPO was modified with an underfloor generator for power/light.
