Port of Tillamook Bay RR RDC-1 #553 is a very long way from its original owner, Central of New Jersey, for which the Budd Company built it in the early 1950s.

After a long career for both CNJ and New Jersey Transit, the 553 migrated to Oregon with sister #552 under the ownership of Citizens for Better Transit, a public transit advocacy group.

It operated in excursion service on the POTB before languishing on an industrial siding in northwest Portland for several years. POTB purchased the two cars outright, and operated them in summer-season excursion service between Wheeler and Garibaldi, Ore., where the 553 is shown.

Both cars are now in excursion for the Oregon Coast Scenic RR, which operates the isolated POTB remnant west of the Coast Range.

Also in Oregon, the Pacific Northwest Chapter, NRHS owns two ex-B&M/MBTA RDC-9s. The three former BC Rail RDCs (two RDC-1s and an RDC-3) purchased by Oregon DOT and used in the "Lewis & Clark Explorer" service to Astoria from 2003 to 2005 were subsequently sold to the Wallula Union RR in northeastern Oregon, before subsequently moving to the Thunder Mountain Line excursion operation in Idaho.

TriMet operates two former Alaska RR cars, an RDC-2 and an RDC-3, on its Westside Express Service (WES) regional rail line in the Portland metro area. The cars are used as a backup trainset for when one of more of the operation's Colorado Railcar DMUs are out of service.

Photographed by Thomas McCann, August 14, 2001.
Added to the photo archive by Thomas McCann, November 15, 2006.

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