Who Made This Budd ??

Looks like AMT to me.

Be careful mounting and removing the body. There is a thin strip of plastic sticking down from the body that goes along the outside of the steps. Your shell seems to have 3 of 4 still there. I don't recall seeing a car with all four of those small strips present.

Originally there were 4 plastic steps mounted to the underside of the frame, in each corner. There would have also been a plastic cowcatcher on each end. Reportedly, the cowcatcher was replaced with a coupler when the owner wanted to run multiple cars together. I have not seen a car set up this way, nor have I seen any dummies. It seems to be very common for the cowcatchers and/or one or more of the steps to be missing. There is a fellow on EBay that has some available. If I can find his ID, I will post it.

They came in a few road names. Another road name they used was Pennsylvania. I'd have to look up the rest.

Could possibly be from the fifties. There was a company called AMT I believe. They gave Lionel a little bit of completion. They came out with extruded aluminum passengers cars first I believe they made this Budd...............Paul

It looks a bit boxy to be an AMT product to me.... However, the motor doesn't look like its Marx. These are the only makers I can think of beyond Lionel.

CW and Paul are correct. It is AMT. I have several in their boxes. Made in the very last months of AMT, after they had changed their name from American Model Toy  to Auburn Model Trains (still AMT). Kusan continued to make them available after they purchased the company in 1954.

Chris

I have several in their boxes.

Does yours have those thin plastic strips between the cowcatcher and the steps intact?
As I posted earlier, I don't think I've seen one with all four.

A quick check on a few I could locate quickly show that at least 3 have all  four silver struts next to the steps in tact. I have a few others that I know are missing them. BTW, the road names I have are Pennsylvania, New York Central, Santa Fe and Southern. 

C.W. Burfle, it has only 3 intact

C.W. Burfle, it has only 3 intact

Still a treasure! I like AMT equipment, and am quite fond of Budd cars.

And AMT beat Lionel to market on them!

Plus, note the trucks - Lionel's were inaccurate, being just the Blombergs from their EMD diesels. These are not Blombergs, and at least come close to the prototype, as I recall. 

Lenny:  On page 4 of the attached 1953 Auburn Model Trains (AMT) Catalog is a drawing of a Santa Fe Budd RDC.  Although just a drawing, it is shown with couplers.  There is a description on page 3 which says it also came in PRR, Southern and NYC and that it even had directional lighting!  This catalog was a 6-page fold-out and was the last catalog AMT produced before selling out to Kusan. 

HTH,

Bill

On page 4 of the attached 1953 Auburn Model Trains (AMT) Catalog is a drawing of a Santa Fe Budd RDC.  Although just a drawing, it is shown with couplers.

Neat catalog.

I have not seen any AMT Budd cars with couplers.

I have never seen one with couplers nor even one with the apron (cow catcher) modified to accept a coupler. Also as C. W.  stated I do not know of any factory dummies. 

I do have one that someone converted the idler truck to a Lionel  passenger car truck with the long shank coupler. I suppose to pull Lionel's dummy Budds with as AMT's do run slower and smoother than the postwar Lionel 400 & 404 Budd cars do. 

This a cool model train history lesson!! Never knew they made Budd RDCs. 

Bill, that catalog is cool to see  Thanks for digging it up  it really brings the item to life on this thread  

How long are they?

Its always fun to see the old ads. If you look at the price for the AMT Diesel A&B units (1953 $27.50 & $25.00 each) in today's money they would cost $244 & $222 each or $466 for the A&B conventional units. 

I was at Museum today so I can add that the one we have has no couplers and is missing one step. Anyone have any idea of the value of these? ? Thank you all for your input.        Lenny

Based on what I paid for mine, I'd say $60 - $100.
Or did I get a great deal on them?

....not Anheuser-Busch....I have at least one of these, acquired some years ago, as well as maybe a couple of unpainted shells that showed up in shows in years past.  Those some years ago these RDC's were not uncommon in shows.  I have seen no dummies other than those shells.   I have thought about putting a couple of those shells together to create a scale length RDC.

Yep - definitely an AMT/Auburn RDC from Jack Ferris' Auburn, Indiana train company.  I'll summarize what I know (and several folks have already pointed out some details about these interesting models).  The motor isn't very heavy duty, and the gearing isn't like Lionel's RDC that run like rockets - use care when running these as the windings on the armature are light gauge wire and prone to burn out (the only replacement motors come from other RDCs); keep the voltage below 18 volts and run at scale speeds.   Standard procedure for lube and oil - top and bottom bearings where the armature spins, plastic compatible grease for the gears, a drop of oil where the axles spin should take care of operator needs - keep an eye on the lube for this one so you don't cause motor failure.  The reverse unit can be finicky - plastic compatible contact cleaner works well; I used to lock it out and just run in one direction - no parts have been reproduced for the AMT reverse unit that I'm aware of are out there.  They aren't the smoothest/fastest running trains out there, but they are handsome models that attract attention.  They were decorated for Pennsy, Southern, NYC and Santa Fe, and used nameplates from the aluminum passenger cars AMT produced.  They came boxed in a pretty lightweight cardboard container decorated for Auburn.

The earliest RDCs from Auburn were solid, clear plastic molded shells that were painstakingly masked and then painted silver (my dad picked up several of those clear shells in the late 50s in northern Indiana in a hobby shop bargain bin for a quarter or so).  As noted, no couplers on these, the truck sideframes are much more accurate for an RDC than Lionel's Blombergs from their GP-7/9.  They really did come with the 4 little plastic pegs sticking down near the steps, and they're usually missing at least one or two; the steps also tend to disappear over time as well.  After Kusan/KMT bought out Ferris and moved to Franklin, TN (Nashville suburb), the shell was changed so the windows were opened up and cello strips with passenger silhouettes were glued in (much cheaper to go that route than masking off all the windows and painting the shell silver like AMT did).  I've seen unpainted brown shells with open windows and assume they're from KMT.  KMT catalogued a set that had a powered engine and a couple of unpowered RDCs; the lead unit shown has a pilot on one end, and I assume the unpowered cars have none to allow couplers to be mounted.  I'm not sure what type of coupler was used between the dummies - might be the plastic Duo-Trac insulated arm with operating couplers that the KMT passenger cars used so they could run on the 2 rail track KMT offered.  That would have been a challenge for the underpowered RDC to pull a couple dummies.  

I have all the roadnames for the powered models, but haven't come across dummy RDCs yet - it wouldn't be hard to piece one together (and would solve the problem of finding an intact/powered car with a dead motor).  These haven't been produced since Kusan stopped making toy trains; they're much nicer than Marx's squatty RDC riding on their E unit trucks, and the AMT truck sideframes are much more accurate than any non-scale RDCs made in O gauge to date (both Lionel and MTH).  I don't know if the dies were scrapped/damaged/lost - you'll have to scrounge if you'd like to obtain one...

C W Burfle posted:

Based on what I paid for mine, I'd say $60 - $100.
Or did I get a great deal on them?

That's what I've bought them at when they popped up.  The boxes aren't very strong and are usually missing, or caved in - you'll pay the normal premium for boxed versions.

WLF posted:

Its always fun to see the old ads. If you look at the price for the AMT Diesel A&B units (1953 $27.50 & $25.00 each) in today's money they would cost $244 & $222 each or $466 for the A&B conventional units. 

AMT and later KMT never made a B unit - Williams finally came up with one when they bought the AMT dies.  An Auburn catalog from right before the sale to Kusan has a drawing of a Pennsy B unit, but it wasn't ever produced.