Train Post
I recently had to take both of the Crescent City Branch RDCs out for repair for electrical issues. SP 10 had a broken motor wire on one of the motors, and SV 11 had problems with the pickups.
I fixed the broken joint on SP 10, then checked over SV 11's pickups and found there was some issues with contact between the axles and the pickup plates. All I could think of for now was adding a piece of Tichy wire like a spring through each sideframe to add some tension to the axles. It tested out fine so far, but if it doesn't work long term, I have a few solutions to throw at it that should more than cover the issue.
I also compared the speed tables on these to a friend's identical RDC. The previous locomotive guy had cut the speed table in half, and was using the, while admittedly prototypically accurate, much worse speed curve. These are run with people who are expecting everything to behave roughly the same, so I upped the speed table to normal and set it to use 3-step. They behave much more predictably and run a lot more smoothly.
SV 11 is slightly faster than SP 10.
SP 10 is a catalog option from one of Rapido's runs of RDCs. SV 11 is a custom painted undecorated kit from another of Rapido's RDC runs. The paint and decal work was done by me, with the decal art and printing done by Circus City Decals. Rapido also saved my ass on this project, as my dog had gotten ahold of the original shell while it was covered in masking tape (he liked to eat tape do not ask me why) and wrecked it. Rapido was able to find another RDC-3 shell spare and send it over.
