Victoria BC: VIA Rail 1950s Budd RDCs on Vancouver Island (CORRECTION in description)

When I arrived on Vancouver Island in 2001 I was overjoyed that the daily up and down Island train was run with none other than various RDC (Rail Diesel Car) carriages made by Budd in the 1950s. What a dream! This tickled my love of trains, railway history, and antique railroad vehicles.
RDCs 1648 and 1635 feature prominently in this video but there were about four RDCs on the Island that I remember and I rode them all. The clips in this video were made with a not great, early, and little digital camera and were meant as home movies. Most of the clips in this video are from 2005 and 2006 after which I simply occasionally enjoyed the ride.
The service was cancelled in 2011 and it has been a very long time since there has been any freight moved by rail on the Island.
CORRECTION: As pointed out by Vancouver Island Railfan the Southern Railway of Vancouver Island still brings railcars by ferry to the yard in Nanaimo and still operates a short bit in the Nanaimo area. Freight trains no longer run down from Nanaimo to Victoria. The operation is much smaller than it used to be. I was very excited to hear this and must get up to Nanaimo to check it out! See recent trains in Nanaimo at Railfan’s channel, here: / vancouverislandrailfan
The VIA Rail RDC service is still greatly missed by a lot of people - even many along the line that simply loved seeing the train pass as part of the Island experience. There’s something noticeable about losing the daily train whistle. It does feel something is lost.
For this reason I decided to piece together some of my old home clips to share because the service has now become part of the Island’s historic landscape. Any bits of video anyone has of these trains is now of historic value.
Riding the RDC was not like riding in some ultra-modern and slick commuter train. It felt grander somehow. Heavier and more stately. Even the sway of the carriage was smoother than modern-trucked and more precise railcars. In a way it reminds me of cruising in Calgary, Alberta in my cousin’s 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air.
The one freight train seen in the video was during the era when Rail America operated the historic Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway - originally a subsidiary of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
Finally, there are a few hints HO and N scale modellers May enjoy.
Happy railfanning!
Terry