Roger Williams (train)

The Roger Williams was a six-car streamlined lightweight diesel multiple unit passenger train that the Budd Company built in 1956 for the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. It was based on Budd's successful Rail Diesel Car, with a streamlined locomotive-style cab and nose on each of the two end cars and no controls in the four middle cars. For running into Grand Central Terminal each car carried third-rail shoes and small traction motors, so the train could move under electric power with its engines shut down. Under Patrick McGinnis the New Haven ordered three experimental high-speed trainsets in 1955, the Dan'l Webster, the John Quincy Adams and the Roger Williams, all with interiors and exterior styling by the architect Marcel Breuer for the railroad's new visual identity. After a short time in high-speed service the train was split up and its cars joined the New Haven's other RDCs, later running for Penn Central and Amtrak until the last were retired in the 1980s. Three cars survive at the Berkshire Scenic Railroad.