Model Railroading > RDC bell question

Hi guys,

I've now had two people tell me they've seen the RDC bell located on the roof inside the blister, between the stacks.

This was not an option offered by Budd as far as we know.  We have all sorts of Budd documentation and the bell was always located under the floor.  It was the same bell every time: Riverside Brass #RB20052. (As I said, we have a LOT of documentation! ;-)

Does anyone have photos of American RDCs with the bell in the roof?  I'm specifically looking for in-service shots rather than preserved or rebuilt units. If this was a common modification, we need to tool up this bell.  The tooling has already started so we need to get this info quickly.

Thanks in advance,

Jason


 

Sounds like a field modification to keep the bell from being fouled by snow/ice.

I cross posted this to the Nostalgia page.

I've done some digging and discovered it was a railroad modification and they differed from one RDC to the next, one railroad to the next.

We're going to tool up a generic bell on a bracket which can be installed in the roof blister. See a rough sketch below. The actual part will be a bit chunkier than this as I think I have drawn parts of it 1/16th of an inch thick!

-Jason
 

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