Illinois Railway Museum Blog

well folks , a small update

As some are aware, the genealogy of our RDC has been a bit cloudy.

We know that the CNW had only two RDC-1 units.  The information posted on the car when the passenger dept started in 2008 identified the car as both 9933 and 9934, almost in the same sentence.

As I began to explore the car, i located C&O/B&O markings that seemes to identify the car as 9934, and research from the good folks at Strahorn supported the idea that the car with the markings i found was in fact 9934.

However, that still was not the end of it.

First, our unit has pilots on it, and the rumor from the past was that, since the three cars were operated as a set, the 9934 would not have had a pilot attached, being the center unit throughout its time in Chicago.

Second, there were other folks that persisted in the theory that the identity of the units was mixed up after moving to the east coast, perhaps during the renumbering process.

Lo and behold, after doing a bit more exploration under the car in the milder weather of spring, we discovered the Budd builders plate on the center sill.

Car built 5003 which translates as ....9933!

http://www.irm.org/gallery/CNW9934/acn

In the absence of any written documentation at this point, it appears the numbering got switched during the cars life at C&O

Soooo, for now, we will consider that the current location is

9933 here at IRM , 9934 in Minnesota, 9935 wrecked, 430 in French Lick Indiana

Our thanks to everyone that kept digging up info to keep the question active, and now apparently answered once and for all.