Monday through Friday during May, our RDC the Millie is in service on the Valley Trains. Between 1949 and 1962, three hundred and ninety-eight Budd Rail Diesel Cars, (commonly referred to as RDCs), were built by the Budd Company of Philadelphia, PA. These cars were a familiar site in rural areas like the Mt. Washington Valley, with its low traffic density, because they were less expensive to operate than a traditional locomotive-drawn train. The cars could be used singly or several coupled together in train sets and controlled from the cab of the front unit. The car seats 88 people and is climate-controlled.
Conway Scenic Railroad’s car is an RDC-1 which was built for the New Haven Railroad in 1952 as their #23. It became Penn Central #68, then Amtrak #18, then Metro North #18 and was then sold to the NYSW where it was numbered M-5. As is the Conway Scenic tradition, the car reverted to its original number and became CSRR #23.
