Joe Ludley's article in the March 2002 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman about building a video camera car describes how to install a color television camera and transmitter in a Life-Life Proto 1000 Budd RDC car. I'd been planning to build a camera car, and Joe's article showed me a good vehicle.
I made several improvements, including shortening the camera lens shade so it doesn't need to protrude from the front of the car. Everything is enclosed in the front vestibule, and the camera looks out an enlarged window in the door.
I should point out that the article has several inaccurate dimensions, including the needed width of the slot cut in the RDC floor and the height of the styrene box that mounts in the slot. Keep your wits about you if you decide to build a similar camera car.
Here are a few photos from the first run over the railroad. There were taken with a digital camera pointed at a 13" television screen, so the quality is not very good.
Sitting in the engine terminal, we see an Alco RS-3 and a Fairbanks-Morse Train Master straight ahead. To their right are two tank cars unloading diesel fuel into the storage tank in the background.
Looking eastward through the yard on A/D track 2. The westward Gap Shifter (empties) is sitting on A/D track 1, to the right, and the Radford Turn is being put together on the second yard track on the left.
Moving eastward through the yard on A/D track 2, we pass the Gap Shifter on the right, and come to a gondola loaded with scrap metal, waiting for No. 78 to arrive from Hinton in the morning. The engine terminal can be seen in the distance.