Budd Company

A rear view of Santa Fe's El Capitan and its Budd-built observation car as it approaches the Raton Tunnel (Colorado side) on June 26, 1938.

The Budd Company (now ThyssenKrupp Budd) is a metal fabricator and major supplier of body components to the automobile industry. The company is headquartered in Troy, Michigan. It was founded in 1912 by Edward G. Budd, whose fame came from his company's invention of the 'shotweld' technique for joining pieces of stainless steel without damaging its anti-corrosion properties.

An automotive pioneer

In 1916, Budd built one of the very first steel car bodies, for Dodge.^[1] They held an interest in Pressed Steel Company (Cowley, England), which built bodies for Ford, and Ambi-Budd (Germany), which supplied Adler, Audi, BMW, NAG, and Wanderer; and earned royalties from Bliss (who built bodies for Citroen and Ford {Dagenham, England}).^[2]

A railroad legend

The first Budd passenger railcar, the Lafayette, in 1932.

From the 1930s until 1989 The Budd Company was also a leading manufacturer of stainless steel streamlined passenger rolling stock for a number of railroads. After briefly dabbling with French Michelin rubber-tired technology, they built the Pioneer Zephyr for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad in 1934, and hundreds of streamlined lightweight stainless steel passenger cars for new trains in the USA in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1949, Budd built ten prototype stainless steel R-11 subway cars for the New York Board of Transportation^[3]; these were intended for the Second Avenue Subway^[4]. In the 1950s Budd built a set of two-story or high-level cars for the Santa Fe's El Capitan and Super Chief passenger trains, which became the prototypes for the Amtrak Superliner cars of the 1980s. Budd also built two-story gallery passenger cars for Chicago-area commuter service on the Milwaukee Road, Burlington Route, and Rock Island lines during the 1960s and 1970s; most of these cars are still in service on today's Metra routes. Stainless steel Budd cars originally built for the Canadian Pacific Railway's 1955 train The Canadian are still in service with Via Rail Canada. Since 1951 two formations of 6 Budd cars run a weekly service called "El Marplatense" from Buenos Aires to the ocean-side city of Mar del Plata in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina for Ferrobaires; the cars were originally built for the Chesapeake & Ohio RR.

Train in one car

A Budd M1 train on the Long Island Rail Road.

In 1949, Budd introduced the Rail Diesel Car or RDC, a stainless steel self-propelled 'train in one car' which prolonged rail service on many lightly populated railway lines, but also provided a flexible, air conditioned car for suburban commuter service. More than 300 RDCs were built, and some are still in service in Canada, the USA and Australia. One example is OnTrack in Syracuse, New York. In the 1960s, Budd built the Pioneer III electric m.u. coach for intercity travel. Six were built and were bought by the former Pennsylvania Railroad, but in 1966, these Pioneer III cars, later called "Silverliner I" cars, were replaced with the "Silverliner II" cars, which used the Pioneer III body, but with many improvements, for Philadelphia-area commuter rail service on both the PRR and Reading Company lines. Budd was also contracted to build the original Metroliner m.u. coaches for Washington-New York City service on the Northeast Corridor, but these have since been either retired or de-powered and used as cab cars. Currently, the "Silverliner II" cars, which are now slated to be retired starting in 2010 with the new ROTEM-built "Silverliner V" models, have a top speed of 90 m.p.h., but originally was able to run at 100 m.p.h. when the PRR used them for Philadelphia-Harrisburg service. The Metroliner m.u. cars operated at speeds of 110 to 125 m.p.h., although breakdowns in the system lead to Amtrak to operate them at speeds of 90 m.p.h., despite the advertised speed of 150 m.p.h. – speeds regularly achieved by Amtrak's TGV-based Acela service. Since their retirement from regular service, Amtrak has used the Metroliner m.u. coaches as cab-coaches on various services.

Mural features the Reading "Crusader" train. Originally built in 1937 by the Budd Company for the Reading Railroad.

Almond Joys

In 1960, Budd manufactured the first stainless steel production subway cars for Philadelphia's Market-Frankford Line. 270 M-3 cars (nicknamed the "Almond Joys" because the four hump-shaped ventilators on top of the roof of each car evoked the famous Almond Joy candy bar marketed by The Hershey Company) were jointly owned by the City of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Transportation Company (now SEPTA), or Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority). 46 single units and 112 married pairs (the pairs were of "mixed" marriage because the odd-numbered car came with General Electric motors and equipment was permanently coupled to the even-numbered car, which had Westinghouse motors and equipment). These cars were replaced with more modern, air-conditioned M-4 units in 1997-99, although some cars were retrucked (the Market-Frankford line is a broad-gauge line with the running rails five and one half feet apart) and used on the Norristown High Speed Line (a standard railroad gauge line, with running rails 4'8.5" apart) until 1995.

Transportation innovations

In the center is an Amtrak Amfleet traincar, built by Budd Company. IT is car 20138, but is surrounded by other cars.

During World War II, Budd designed and built the RB-1 transport airplane for the U.S. Navy using much stainless steel in place of aluminium. Only 25 were built but, after the war, 14 aircraft found their way to the fledgling Flying Tiger Line which provided a good start for that company.

In 1962, Budd produced a fully-functional concept car, the XR-400, for evaluation by American Motors Corporation (AMC). It was designed to use AMC's existing chassis for the sporty-model market segment before the introduction of the Ford Mustang. The proposed car did not enter commercial production.

In 1966, Budd designed and manufactured a front disc brake system for Chrysler and Imperial automobiles, used for the 1967 and 1968 model years.

Final years

A Budd-built Baltimore Metro Subway train

A Budd train built by Mafersa in São Paulo Metro Subway

Budd also built two series of "L" cars for the Chicago Transit Authority, the 2200s (1969) and the 2600s (1981–1987). The New York City Subway R32 (1964-1965), the first PATCO Speedline cars (1968), Long Island Rail Road/Metro-North Railroad M-1/M-3 (1968–1973,1984-1986) and M-2 (1972-1977), SEPTA Silverliner IV and NJ Transit Arrow II (1974-1975), NJ Transit Arrow III (1978), Baltimore Metro and Miami Metrorail cars (1983) were also built by Budd.

All of Amtrak's 492 Amfleet I and 150 Amfleet II cars were built by Budd in 1975-77 and 1981-83 respectively. The Amfleet body was recycled for usage in the SPV2000, a modernized diesel passenger car which was very problematic, saw only three buyers (Amtrak, Metro-North, and Connecticut Department of Transportation), and saw very premature retirements within 15 years. The fallout from the SPV2000 furthered the decline of the company.

In the early 1980s, Budd reorganized its rail operations under the name TransitAmerica, this name appearing on the builderplates of the Baltimore/Miami cars and Chicago's later order of 2600-series cars (but not the LIRR/MNCR M-3s). The new name did not save the company, and in April 1987 Budd ended all railcar production at its Red Lion plant in Northeast Philadelphia and sold its rail designs to Bombardier Transportation. Many of its engineers joined the staff of the Philadelphia office of Louis T. Klauder and Associates, a local railway vehicles and systems engineering consulting firm.

See also

• Slumbercoach
• Tokyu Car Corporation - member of licencee for stainless steel body manufacturing

References

• R-11 Datasheet
• "A Museum Quality Car for a Subway Yet Unbuilt" NY Times March 24, 2007

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