Understood. The nice thing about the lightweights is that they do present a unified appearance.

Over the past 10 years you guys have established a tourist train in a market where not much else existed for families to do (other than the Crayola experience and the Canal Museum... I guess the Pez museum counts, too). What I find interesting is that instead of growing the railroad facilities (you didn't build a fancy station or formal platform area) you developed (or developed relationships with) attractions that the train takes riders to (corn maze, mine, winery, etc...).

It's a brilliant plan. I think most operations would have expanded infrastructure first. Instead, you focused on giving people a reason to ride. You barely have a run around track yet within this modest infrastructure you still pull off Thomas events, pumpkin trains, Polar Express runs and more.

Of course, the one area you did make infrastructure a priority was in extending the route. It is a great draw for repeat riders to know there's new trackage to ride. All the while, you've pretty much been able to stay in steam.

It is an interesting case study. You guys should be quite proud of what you have built there in P'burg.

Rob

When TVRM originally started running it's ex-B&O RDCs, the intention was to keep them as self propelled units. You can tow them arouund all day as long as the transmissions are in neutral and the motors are running. In a pinch, they will pull if the grade is minimal. One day we were running an RDC as a coach on the local train with two other heavyweight coaches and an RSD-1. We had just started out of the station and the RSD-1 crapped out, leaving the train fouling the No. 1 switch. The only locomotives available were on Track 7 or 8, both of which connect with Track No. 2 at the No. 2 switch. The distance between No. 1 switch and No. 2 switch's points is so short than anything fouling No. 1 switch will prevent any locomotive from coming out of Track 7 and 8. Due to the situation, we decided to try to pull the train back with the RDC and did manage to get it to pull enough to clear the switch.

Recently on Trainorders a photo was posted of Southern Pacific's lone RDC being rescued by a steam locomotive reassigned from a way freight:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,5019694

Reading Company received the last 12 Budd RDC's (RDG 9153-9162, 9151-9152) in 1962, and added LV 40 (RDG 9163) to the fleet. At the time, the Reading Locomotive Shop switcher was 0-6-0T 1251 so if one of the RDC's need shop time, it would be switched into the shop by steam. 1251 and LV 40 are both at the RR Museum of PA. 1251 owed its longevity to an agreement that the hand-fired steam engine could be operated by one man. If a diesel were assigned to the Shop job, the crew caller had to call a fireman.

RDG later added three ex-B&M RDC's (RDG 9164-9166) to the fleet, for a total of 16 cars. Budd strongly discouraged railroads from pulling anything with an RDC but RDG would pull one Budd Silverliner MU car to Reading Shops behind 3 RDC's on the water-level Main Line. Heavier and non-roller bearing Old and Blue MU cars would move in freight service. [the underfloor wheel truing machine was at Reading Shops]

I should note Budd violated its own teaching on PRSL where Budd's demonstrator RDC pulled Budd's prototype Pioneer III coach.

Now that we're on PRSL, between 1952 and 1955 the Tuckahoe-Ocean City and Wildwood Jct.-Cape May shuttles were operated with both PRR E6s 4-4-2's and steam coaches, and PRSL RDC's. In Classic Trains' In Search of Steam Vol III there is a Philip R. Hastings photo of a PRSL RDC (can't see the number) and PRR E6s 645 at Cape May station. (pp 64-65). David P. Morgan titled the photo "The shiny and the gritty."

Phil Mulligan

That’s what we did at TVRM. We would only move them dead if we were switching the yard.

Not steam, but it appears that the Boston & Albany occasionally powered its RDC locals with a locomotive with extra coaches, perhaps because one of the RDCs normally used was out of service. My brother got this shot of such a consist at Pittsfield, Mass. in 1960.
https://www.railarchive.net/nyccollection/nyc8258_dvl.htm

BTW, this car still exists, it was flooded while preserved in Galveston TX but a group in Woodland CA is restoring it, here is was in 2018, from the "RDC SP-10" facebook page.

Tooele Valley Railway in the 1950's (possibly February 22, 1954? The Denver Public library has the photos labeled for October 1945 but that doesn't add up). Western Pacific sent a Zephyrette car (WP 375) out on an excursion to WP branchlines in Utah such as the Marblehead and Warner branch. At Warner the Tooele Valley Railway's #11 a 1910 ALCO Brooks 2-8-0 coupled up with the WP RDC and ran with the RDC up the length of the Tooele Valley Railway to the line's terminus at International.

Other than the occasional cab or caboose ride that Tooele Valley employees offered to visitors up until the line shut down (and a few military events that saw a few trains from the local Army Depot go part way up the Tooele Valley to about Main and Vine to pick up guests who would then travel to the Army base), this is commonly believed to be the last public passenger move on the length of the full Tooele Valley. It is also believed to be the only time WP ever had any passenger moves on the normally freight only Warner and Marblehead branches. Of course #11 still survives in static display at the Tooele Valley Museum in the present day.

There are some photos here, although as I said already I think the date is wrong on them in the Denver Public Library system. https://digital.denverlibrary.org/digit ... osuppress/

This has been an unanswered question that, now, promises a more definitive answer.

In automotive automatic transmissions, to save weight and cost, some of the internal transmission bearings are lubricated either with an engine-driven pump or via an internal pump driven by engine power. (In other words, with the transmission decoupled from the torque converter or fluid flywheel and the combustion engine off, some of the bearings don't get positive-pressure lube even if the tailshaft is being backdriven at high speed).

My understanding was that the transmissions in the RDC had lubrication via a pump geared to the output shaft, rather than 'internally', and that there would be no problem with the transmission being 'turned' from either end. Some of this may be related to how the converter is filled or emptied going from converter to direct.

What's the actual, constructed truth ... and does it vary by year, drive type, or rebuilding? I'd put an external assist lube pump on one of these drives about as quickly as I'd put a preluber on the diesel engine ... in other words, quickly. For the price of a small battery or battery feed this would allow you to run with the shafts in and the engines off, not just providing air-conditioning or whatever, as fast and long as any preservation outfit would logically need -- including ferry moves.

(I apologize in advance for participating in a zombie thread revived from 2014 and specifically referencing a post of that age...)