Doing a little research in Crouse's book Budd Car- The RDC Story yielded the following info on B&O 9918. Built in 4/52, 9918 wears a "one of a kind" paint scheme which B&O applied to cover the ATSF red & yellow scheme this Budd originally wore when it was ATSF DC191. ATSF sold off its 2 RDCs after a very serious accident 1/22/1956 at Redondo Junction, CA wile running in Los Angeles - San Diego service. Both RDCs derailed at spped, landing on their right hand sides reportedly killing 29 persons and injuring 153. It seems hard to believe that ATSF had actually considered running their RDCs in a low-fare "no frills" Chicago - Los Angeles service with meal stops along the way to compete with bus service over this same route. While 9918 does not appear to have been conveyed to MARC (Maryland Rail Commuter) as were most B&O RDCs, I did see it stored in the Brunswick MD yard amongst other MARC equipment, sometime in the late 1980s. The second RDC in the photo B&O 9917 became MARC 9805 then MARC 13.
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Thanks for your research.
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