Arago: Railway

This is an HO-scale replica of a Budd Rail Diesel Car (RDC). Each HO-scale model is 1/87th of the full-size prototype. The model represents an eighty-five-foot RDC-3. This style of car contained a fifteen-foot Railway Post Office apartment, a baggage compartment that also may have carried Railway Express, and forty-four passenger seats.

The Budd Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, built 398 RDCs in five different configurations between 1949 and 1956. These cars were used for passenger service in rural areas with low traffic density or in short-haul commuter service. The operating expense was less than a conventional locomotive-drawn train. RDCs could be used singly or in multiple units. Each was self-propelled and contained its own diesel-hydraulic drive. When used in multiple units, all were cab-controlled from the front unit.