N Pennsylvania Reading Seashore Lines RDC Decals

This set was produced to introduce an more comprehensive set for these classes.

The Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines took delivery of it’s fleet of 12 RDC-1’s from Budd in four batches, M402-M404 in 9/1950, M405-M407 in 10/1950, M408-M410 in 5/1951 and M411-M413 in 6/1951. As-delivered they had a simple scheme, just black lettering on a stainless steel carbody.

In 1965 all units received orange and black tiger striping on the ends and a PRSL circle logo on the left end of the window band on either side. Following a shopping at the Reading Shops in the early-1970’s some of the fleet received new tiger striping with wider lines. Following the Penn central crisis all of the RDC’s were sold to New Jersey Department of Transportation and leased back to the PRSL in state-subsidized commuter service. At this time they also received an NJDOT logo on the right end of the window band. The PRSL fleet wore this scheme up to 1979 when New Jersey Transit was formed, at which point the fleet was shopped and all received a standard NJT “Disco Stripe” scheme. Note the letterboard lettering was centered on the roof exhaust blister, not the carbody.

This sheet has enough data to do 1 complete RDC. All 12 numbers have been done. For the number boards you will need to paint them black and then apply the white decal lettering.

The best available version of the RDC-1 in N scale has been done by Kato. 

There is no definitive article on the PRSL RDC’s. However, pictures can be found in numerous PRSL related publications.