THe BC rail RDC's were sold off after CN purchased BC rail and the service no longer exists. It was a great ride. In canada the ere are two RDC services left that I know of and are operated by ViaRail. On Vancouver Island from Victoria to Nanaimo. AND IN Ontario from Sudbury to Sioux Lookout.
I have been receiving quite a few requests for Canadian RDCs which I am passing on to AZL. CN is a must. We are also getting quite a few requests for BC Rail. I plan on approaching dealers to see what their interest will be. If there is a strong enough response, BC Rail may see the light of day as an RDC in Z! Rob
If you are doing Canadian VIA or BC rail they should be RDC2s not 1s almost all single car RDC operations in Canada were run with RDC2S and 3s with 1s added where needed as second units. CP had 22 pairs of RDC 1 & 2 plus several RDC4s and 3s The PGE later BC rail had 4 sets of RDC4 paired with either a 1 2 or 3 and were used on the run from Vancouver to Prince George daily for many years. I ,made this trip each summer for 5 years with my uncle a retired CN Conductor working Vancouver to Kamloops as his regular job. He knew all the crews on the PGE at the time we made those trips. It fueled my passion for doodlebugs and RDC's to this day.
I remember riding RDCs on the Reading Railroad out of Philadelphia to Reading and Sudbury. They would leave Philly as a 2-4 car set and when they arrived in Reading, one would proceed to Sudbury and one to Port Clinton with the last two left in Reading. I also rode the Pennsylvania Reading Seashore Lines out of Camden, NJ to Ocean City at the shore. Again it would depart with 4-6 cars and upon arrivial at Tuckahoe two would go to OC the other four would go to Cape May Courthouse where the train would split again with half to Wildwood and the balance to Cape May. There was an additional line from Camden to Vineland and Millville which was in the truck farm area and it would use doodlebugs. Maybe an AZL Doodlebug would be in their future, huh...... Robert
Garth, the Victoria to Nanaimo run has been discontinued due to cost. You probably don't know this but there is another run in Ontario for RDC's and that's from Havelock to Toronto Union Station. This run was instituted to compliment GO Transit's communter service from the Peterborough area even though it was operated by VIA Rail. There was talk about cancelling the run back in the early 90's but there was a lot of screaming by Toronto commuters to keep it on the rails so to speak. I don't know if it still exists though. And much to my surprise, when we were vacationing in the maritimes last summer, I saw a couple of Via Rail RDC's pulling out of the Halifax station. I have no idea where they were going but my best guess would be somewhere in New Brunswick. Probably Moncton, St. John's or Frederickton. Ken
I Used to live in Peterboro and rode that several times as a CP Rail operation. and have not been back since my parents moved away so not sure if that still runs or not. The Halifax departure was gong down the Annapolis Valley to Digby to meet the ferry to St John's NB and in my time it was a Dominion Atlantic operation (CPR) and I used it between Cornwallis and Halifax for weekend leave from my radio training course for the RCN.
WOW Garth! We have a lot in common. I had relatives that lived in Peterboro, just across the river from Quaker Oats not far from the dam. As a boy, we used to visit them at least 3 times a year, and I had cousins that lived on Carlyle St. right at the bottom of Armour Hill. Talking about Cornwallis, I remember falling down several times there during my basic training too. That's interesting to note about the RDC's going to Digby. On our vacation, we considered taking the ferry from there over to St. John's but by the time we decided on it, we had already passed the turnoff so we decided to continue on down to Annapolis Royal and beyond. What a trip!!! We did pass through St. John's on our tour of NB. Saw the reversing falls and took the harbour tour. Really interesting how the tides make those falls reverse. But they are more like rapids.
My parents lived on a hill overlooking the Trent River above Water street with a view across the General Electric hydro Dam to Trent University.
I know the place. My family and I took a houseboat trip from Port Perry on Lake Scugog down to Campbellford on the Trent systm and passed right by Trent U. That was a magnificent trip. That's a beautiful University as well. Interesting how the river splits the campus and students have to cross on the foot bridge. Really neat.
Install DCC decoder and RDC SP-10 works great! Power is very solid and a smooth start and stop. This was an easy install if you have any soldering skills. Chris
I have a CP one. It moves slowly, sputters, and stalls repeatedly. Track is clean, and my AZL SD75I runs very smoothly, even at slow speeds, down to barely creeping. Suggestions?
Sorry about that. This is the first bum unit I've heard about. We will take care of it. Write our distributor, Rob Kluz ztrack@aol.com and he will look into it. Regards, -Rob(A) AZL
Mark, talk to Rob Kluz. He is the distributor for AZL. They should be running at a good speed and not stalling.
Mark, since you are in Afghanistan, you should try and do a bit of troubleshooting to save the hassle of returning it, etc. Is it in the curves, the straights or everywhere? Both directions? If you set the power pack to say half way (where you SD70 runs good), can you notice if the front or rear trucks do not work (slightly lift one or the other end of the RDC and notice it's running characteristics). Repeat a few times on the straight sections to be sure. Look at the wheel carefully to see of there is anything on them, not just the rails. We can post a few pix of the inards and how to get it apart so you can run it 'naked' just to see of there is something inside that might be binding in one or the other drive linkages. .
Hey Rob. Are you boys at AZL ever going to release and RDC-2 in CP livery? I'm looking for one to ad to my RDC-1 so I can have a set. By the way, my RDC runs very smoothly. I like it. Ken
I did a little experimentation when I first ran it. It's the same in both directions, and all around the layout. The wheels appeared to be clean, but I gently wiped them and that made no difference. if anything, its performance appeared to deteriorate slightly over the short time that I ran it. I'm using a Ztechtronics controller, not that that should be of any significance. I just tried it again. It does not appear to be a mechanical problem. The trucks swivel normally, although one more freely than the other. The headlights also flicker when it's sputtering, and extinguish when it stalls. I decided to dig out my Optivisor and have a really close look. There were tiny patches of crud on the wheels, visible under ten-power magnification. I'm not sure what their origin was, as I've hardly run it, yet my SD75I's wheels are spotless and I've run that for several hours since I've been here. Only one truck appears to be picking up power from the track reliably, though. The other seemed at first to be completely electrically dead, although all wheels turn when the "good" one is on the rails. I did, eventually, manage to find one angle where it worked. If I lift the "good" truck off of the rails to one side of the track or the other, nothing happens. If I lift it just the right amount - neither too little nor not too much - the "bad" truck does pick up. Having cleaned the wheels under decent magnification by gently scraping with a thin piece of soft plastic, it's running much better now, at least at max voltage. At about half-speed, it's still a little jerky and the headlight flickers. If it stalls, it needs a prod to wake it up again. There is definitely something wrong electrically, somewhere betwixt rail and motor, albeit not as bad as I thought.
