Canadian Railroads > RDCs Return To The Maritimes (Briefly)

Back in November of 2017 VIA did some testing of RDCs in northern New Brunswick to explore the feasibility of bringing back daily passenger service on the old Intercolonial line on the east coast.  This is the same route as the Ocean, but it now only makes 3 round trips a week, instead of 6.  Other than a a few one-off Family Day events in Moncton and Halifax for CN employees, this would be the first time the Budd cars operated in New Brunswick under their own power since the January, 1990 service cuts.

The testing started with 3 Budd cars, RDC-1 6105, RDC-2 6208 and RDC-4 6251, being ferried to Bathurst from Montreal on the rear of the Ocean, arriving November 6.  The drive shafts were connected back up later that day (they need to be disconnected when the cars are towed), and the 3-car set was waiting at the Bathurst VIA station for the trials the next day.  VIA and CN officials were particularly interested in how the relatively light cars would work with the crossing circuits, so the first tests were done rather slowly, gradually moving to faster tests (50 mph) later in the day.

CN had an army of signal maintainers on duty, as well as some from neighbouring shortline SFG (Gaspé line), to monitor the performance of the signals circuits and protect the crossings for the public.

In the first photo, the 3-car train is a mile east of the VIA station, doing slow speed tests (still in cautionary limits).  In the second, they had moved back up to the station on the main line, with plenty of white hats in attendance.  November 7 was a Tuesday, the only day that doesn't see a VIA train in either direction, although CN was running a roadswitcher job (564) up to Belledune and back.

In the last photo the cars have just finished testing the crossing circuit for the siding east of the station.  In that case there was so much rust on the rails that the lights did not activate.  In fact the signal maintainer had a hard time making contact with a shunt.  He had to rough up the rail with a file first.

6105 and 6251 are still in VIA's fleet and assigned to the White River run.  6208 was sacrificed in the destructive testing of the HEP fleet two years ago.  In the end, nothing more came of the testing.  Bathurst still only sees a passenger train 6 half-trips a week.

GTD

 

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Excellent coverage.
Bob

Smart looking equipment.

Great catches.
JB

I know there were a couple of options that were being floated around:

• Tri-weekly service for the RDC Budds
• Daily service
• Two segments essentially - Moncton-Campbellton 3x per week, Moncton to Halifax 3 x per week,
• One segment Moncton to Halifax daily. 

Train would have been a nice option as these roads to get congested......even after widening and improvements. Had hoped something would have materialized after the 1990 massacre to the Maritimes. Still hoping the train to Gaspe (Chaleur) gets re-launched after the railroad is rebuilt. I know it's been a slow, but steady process I believe. 

A rare RDC4 looks great!

Excellent views, Geoff!

texchief1

I like Pic 2!!