Rapido Trains saves an RDC!

Markham, ON-based model train manufacturer Rapido Trains—headed by TRHA advisory board member Jason Shron—announced on Saturday, January 23, 2016 that it has bought ex-VIA Rail Canada RDC No. 6133, saving it from being scrapped.

Rapido Trains had previously bought the former VIA Rail sleeping car Edmundston in April 2015 and Jason was instrumental in organizing the TRHA's acquisition of LRC locomotive No. 6917 in 2010, so in a way, the effort to save RDC No. 6133 was nothing new.

This time however, the urgency was much greater. All of the ex-VIA Rail RDCs stored at the former Industrial Rail Services Inc. shops in Moncton, NB, are headed for an imminent date with the scrapper. Some have already been broken up. It took an eleventh-hour flight to Moncton by Jason and diesel locomotive expert Chris Fox to identify No. 6133 as a good candidate for restoration and to make arrangements for Rapido to buy it.

RDC No. 6133 began life in 1956 as Dominion Atlantic Railway No. 9058, providing passenger service in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley. It later moved to Dominion Atlantic's parent company CP and—still lettered for the DAR—ran on passenger trains out of Montreal's Glen Yard. It was sold to VIA Rail Canada in 1978 and rebuilt and renumbered to No. 6133 in 1980. VIA used No. 6133 on the Vancouver Island passenger trains between Victoria and Courtenay, BC until that service was suspended indefinitely in 2011.

Rapido is seeking funding support to help move No. 6133 back to the Toronto area and to fully restore it to operational condition. For more information, or to make a donation, see the page dedicated to No. 6133 on the Rapido Trains website.

http://rapidotrains.com/6133/

Posting by Andrew Jeanes

Image above: VIA Rail No. 6133 at Duncan, BC, May 20, 1986 by Manfred Kopka
(CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Images below:
Top - DAR/CPR No. 9058 at Montreal West, QC, May 1966 by Derek Boles
Middle - CP Rail No. 9058 at Glen Yard, QC, March 6, 1976 by Bruce Chapman
Bottom - VIA Rail No. 6224 being scrapped at Moncton, NB, January 14, 2016 by Jason Shron

Click on each image for a closer look!