Gotta say, an in law bought me a gift certificate to a hobby shop with best intentions, but the store sold mainly Lionel and other tinplate. I enjoyed the visit to the store but there was nothing I could use. Until I came upon a Athearn blue box! Upon checking it out, it was the RDC with rubber band drive. I bought it because, well there was nothing else! The rubber bands were old and dry and cracked, but I replaced them and had some fun running it at warp speed and dropping the throttle to zero, watching it actually lurch backwards as it came to a stop. It's in a box somewhere, and I had plans to install the jet engines on top like NYC.

I feel the need to cry . I tossed a set of C&O RDC cars one was a dummy one powered or supposed to be. I tried every thing I could think of to make it run and gave up on it. resulting in