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The Pioneer III railcar was a short/medium-distance coach designed and built by the Budd Company in 1956 with an emphasis on weight savings. A single prototype was built, but declines in rail passenger traffic resulted in a lack of orders so Budd re-designed the concept as an electric multiple unit (m.u.). Six of the EMU coach design were purchased by the Pennsylvania Railroad with the intention of using them as a high-speed self-contained coach that could be used for long-distance commuter or short-distance intercity travel in the Northeast U.S. The 6 production Pioneer III units were the first all-stainless-steel-bodied EMU railcar built in North America and, at , the lightest.
The Pioneer III coach concept toured numerous North American railroads as a demonstrator unit, but due to the general decline in rail passenger traffic there was little interest in new rolling stock, especially one that represented a new and untested model.
The cars used the revolutionary, and aptly named, Budd Pioneer III truck, which was a lightweight, inboard Roller bearing railroad bogie designed for high-speed operation. This truck would see continued use by Budd on its subsequent Silverliner order, as well as MUs ordered by the Long Island Rail Road and Metro North, PATCO Speedline and the Amtrak Amfleet cars, where they would operate up to speeds of . The Pioneer III cars used a slightly different right-angle gearbox (adapted from the very successful Budd-built PTC M-3 transit cars) set the traction motors at a right angle to the axle instead of the more common lateral placement. The need for a larger traction motor resulted in the change to the more traditional layout in the Silverliner II design.
Power was collected from a diamond-shaped pantograph, and the control system consisted of a step-down transformer connected to an AC/DC rectifier powered by mercury arc Ignitron. The DC output was then fed into a camshaft motor controller which provided for smooth acceleration. No dynamic braking system was fitted. In 1961 the mercury arc tubes were replaced by silicon diode rectifiers.
The thin stainless steel carbody and other elements of the Pioneer III design combined with the lightness of the traction components resulted in the Pioneer III MU cars being the lightest all-metal electric multiple unit railroad passenger cars produced in North America. Unfortunately there were reliability and performance issues with the small traction motors and low capacity main transformer.
After taking delivery of the 38 Silverliner cars, the PRR took the Pioneer III cars off intercity operations and used them exclusively on Philadelphia-area commuter service. In 1967, when SEPTA and the PRR took delivery of a second Silverliner order from the St. Louis Car Company, the first (1963) "Silverliner" delivery became the "Silverliner II" cars and the 1967 order, the "Silverliner III." Although still officially called the Pioneer III, these cars were retroactively given the "Silverliner I" designation. As part of the Penn Central merger, the cars were also renumbered, out of sequence, to 294–299. By that time, the three disc-braked cars, together with all of the PRR Silverliner IIs, had been retrofitted with tread brakes, with which the Silverliner IIIs came equipped.
During the 1974–75 delivery of the "Silverliner IV" cars from General Electric numbered PC 270–303, the Pioneers were renumbered 244–248 (the 249 had been wrecked and retired by that time) to form a solid block of MU's containing both the new cars and existing Silverliner II and III cars. After purchasing a number of push-pull trainsets and AEM7s in 1987, SEPTA found itself possessing a sufficient number of Silverliner II, III and IV MU cars to retire the Pioneer III/Silverliner I cars. Retirement finally came with the spring timetable change on April 1, 1990, due to a requirement by Amtrak that all locomotives and self-propelled railcars operating on the Northeast Corridor be equipped with a new type of train control, a result of a 1987 train collision. Until 2000, the cars were kept in storage near Wayne Junction. Although there were plans to convert the cars into locomotive-hauled coaches, SEPTA finally decided to dispose of the fleet due to the expense it would have taken to deal with PCBs in the transformers and the lack of ADA compliance. Of the 5 remaining Pioneer III/Silverliner I cars, three of the cars were sent to the AAR/FRA test site in Pueblo, Colorado, for use in crash tests, while the remaining two cars were donated to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg. All cars have since been scrapped.
In 1969 the GT-1 was rebuilt using funds from the Urban Mass Transit Administration into a hybrid turbo-electric railcar, replacing the mechanical drive with an electrical generator providing power to 4, 150 hp traction motors. Re-classified again as GT-2, the coach was intended to test gas turbine railcar operation into the confines of New York Pennsylvania Station and therefore was also given the capability to draw power from the 700 VDC third rail. The GT-2 was also notable for being one of the first rail vehicles to be equipped with DC chopper propulsion control. The Pioneer III coach in the GT-2 configuration was tested from November, 1969 to December, 1970.
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