International Railroad Discussion > RDCs in Australia

In 1951 the Budd company exported a grand total of three Rail Diesel Cars to the Commonwealth Railway in South Australia. On my 1987 visit to Adelaide SA, I was able to find two of the three sitting in the Adelaide station looking quite spiffy in relatively new Australian National livery. 

Wikipedia tells me that they ran from 1986 to 1990 between Adelaide, Port Pirie, Port Augusta, and Whyalla.

WP17

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Built to a basic Budd design ,but slightly smaller and shorter than the US cars.ran  from Sydney to Nowra (Bomaderry) on the south coast as the South Coast Daylight. John Coyle photo.
Regards,dK

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Out of the three RDC's in Australia, two still survive. CB1 is at the National Railway Museum at Port Adelaide where it has been since the mid 1990's after it was withdrawn by Australian National.

CB2 is currently privately owned (and for sale) and stored at the Port Augusta Workshops. Both it and CB1 were last used by Australian National in 1990.

CB3 was damaged beyond repair in a fatal level crossing accident (driver and a passenger of the RDC killed) with a semi trailer at Direk, South Australia in 1988. It was eventually scrapped in 2001. These deaths were the last time anyone was killed on board a train in South Australia during an accident.

Justin

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