AZL Budd RDC-1 Cars

I always get excited when a new piece of motive power is released in Z scale, it’s a great indicator of where 1:220 is headed. Today AZL released their new Budd RDC-1 Car in 4 roadnames: Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe (ATSF), Western Pacific (WP), Canadian Pacific (CP) and Southern Pacific (SP).

Highlights of this release are roadname specific details, new tooling and an interesting new drivetrain in Z scale that the kit bashers out there might find useful! Here’s a quick description of the Budd Car from Wikipedia:

The Budd Rail Diesel Car or RDC is a self-propelled diesel-hydraulic multiple unit railcar. In the period 1949–62, 398 RDCs were built by the Budd Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. The cars were primarily adopted for passenger service in rural areas with low traffic density or in short-haul commuter service, and were less expensive to operate in this context than a traditional locomotive-drawn train. The cars could be used singly or several coupled together in train sets and controlled from the cab of the front unit.

This release gives us a nice bit of variety with passenger service that can fit in on almost any layout. More roadnames are slated for release in the upcoming months.

Category: Blog