Rapido Trains

[Heartland Division CB&Q]

Jason... 

Thanks for your time explaining to everyone what your company is doing currently. The turbo project sounds like a huge challenge.

I have a suggestion for you.  (This, too, may be a challenge.)  Would you consider offering passenger cars with opening vestibule doors?  Your cars look fantastic as they roll through the layout's countryside.  However, they stop at the station, and the passengers are left on the platforms. It would be neat to have open doors along with the steps! 

I'm dreaming.  Right?

Happy Model Railroading

 

[Rapido]

Jason

Whens the turbo gonna arrive? I see the arrival date got pushed back, still having issues with the train reaching accurate speed?

Caso

Well here's a quick update on where we are at:

The body tooling changes are just about done. The problem was that there were visible mold parting lines on the model so the molds had to be redesigned.

We just received samples of the real rubber operating diaphragms.  This was a difficult hurdle to overcome but I am pleased to say they look great.  It's not easy to have working full-width seamlesss diaphragms that can go around a 24" radius curve.

On our test models, the single-axle trucks were picking the turnouts.  We have now solved this by improving the centering springs.

We improved the torque but the train is going to require some further tweaking of weight placement and motor balance to get a good speed range out-of-the-box. 

There are still some improvements to make to the injection of the interior parts, as well as the final locations of the wiring channels. 

The electrical pickup is excellent - every wheel on the train picks up power.  There are microplugs between cars. 

We're exploring completely new ground here - nobody has ever designed a train even remotely close to this one.  So all I can say is we'll try to deliver the first of the trains by the end of the summer as promised, but I would rather iron out all of the wrinkles before we release the model even if it means we are late.  I think it is better to release a perfect model late as opposed to a flawed model on time.

Regards,

Jason 

[Caso.Sub]

easy now

I have my ear to ground, I knew there was problems with the Turbo. Just because I ask doesn't mean I would buy something that doesn't even fit into my modelling. The train wasn't even in my area, so why would i have it? Obviously Im gonna take some heat for what I said. I do stand by what I say.

[MRAMTRAK]

Not to mention, fading from the sun and other weathering, different paint lots and different shops doing the painting.  The Lehigh Valley is the biggest example, in my opinion, of different shades of their "Cornell Red" and "Pennsy Tuscan", when they were owned by the Pennsy. There were very few train "perfectly" matched, unless they all came out of the same paint shop at the same time.

Dave

[CAZEPHYR]

On the downside, for NP the color scheme is very different than the other products on the market.  To be fair, it is closer to prototype based on photos I have but it means your train won't match any of the available engines.  Also, the sides of my car did not fit tightly and I will likely have to glue them which is less than ideal.

 

I agree with you comment about the color scheme being different than other model cars.  They cars have nice detail, but I compared the tuscan colors and they are very poor along side any other tuscan cars I own.   If you purchase these cars and they do not match or even come close to other model cars that you own, they are worthless.   Tuscan is a standard color and it should have been easy to get close to being correct.   

[Caso.Sub]

Jason

Whens the turbo gonna arrive? I see the arrival date got pushed back, still having issues with the train reaching accurate speed?

Caso

[Dallas Model Works]

I hope this message classifies with the moderators as "information" and not "advertising," as it is not meant as such.

I hope so, too. I may be biased, but this kind of information is very useful and relevant.

c

[ShadowNix]

Kudos to you, Jason, for paying attention to your customers on this web site... It is an all to rare thing nowadays.  Much appreciated by me (and I assume many others).

Brian

[Rapido]

I have a few Rapido 1961 scheme CN cars and some blue VIA cars on my layout and I quite like them. Didn't buy the 1954 scheme CN cars when I had the chance and now they've been hard to find, but I'm working on it.

As for the Walther's cars, I have a number of their VIA cars but the 46-seat coaches are out of production. Instead, I bought some NYC and Rock Island 26-seaters and used Micro Scale decals to VIA-ize them.

c

We are rerunning the VIA, CN and CNR coaches and sleepers, as almost everybody sold out in minutes (especially of CNR).  But we are not making that many more - just enough to meet the current demand.  We also reran NYC and B&O coaches; MILW 1955 sleepers; and NP, CPR, GN and MILW 1950 coaches and sleepers.

The new VIA cars arrive next week; the CN and CPR cars arrive the first week of June; and the CNR cars will arrive the second or third week of June.  The US roads arrived last week, except for GN which arrives next week.

So you can still get them, but if you want the CNR cars I suggest pre-ordering with your local hobby shop as we are already sold out at our end.

I hope this message classifies with the moderators as "information" and not "advertising," as it is not meant as such.

Regards,

Jason 

[Caso.Sub]

Hello Antonio

Just a few points, some of thepeople that model that era are dieing off, secondly the demand has been good because the kits and RTR were not available before. The passenger market has reached its high point. What im saying is Rapido should diverse their product lines to cope with cyclincal demand. The market is smaller every day, you and everyone might think differently. I will give you some key economic stats to think about.

Rise of Gas, which then reduces Disposable Income.

Depreciation in the US Dollar.

Potential Crash of the US housing market, and foreclosed mortages.

Model Trains are a luxury item, the first items to get cut when disposable income gets reduced.

The prices of model trains has increased greater than inflation rates.

 

[Dallas Model Works]

I have two Rapidos in CN green/gold livery. Real nice lookers and I have another on order.

As for price fixing Nintendo does the same thing the posted price is the posted price nothing lower and nothing higher. Everyone is on equal ground. I got my Rapido's for $53. A good price by any standard. Why do we pay so dear in Canada you may ask? Because the majority of suppliers/distributers are US based between shipping/border costs and secondary distributor rights we can't win. Are population base of 35 million kinda means supply/demand is not as strong but we've all heard this before.

Fergie 

The good news is, there is no duty on model railroad equipment shipped into Canada. If somebody is charging you for it, you're gettin' robbed. 

The ever unavoidable GST adds another six percent, though.

If you're buying directly from the US, check the exchange rate that your credit card charges. Credit card companies always charge more than they ought to for exchange; find a credit card with the best exchange rate for your online shopping. Even with the loonie as strong as it is, this is worth doing.

Also, if ordering from the states, don't allow shipping via UPS -- their brokerage fees are insane. FedEx, on the other hand, charges no brokerage fee on orders under $200.

We ship UPS within the US but use FedEx to The Great White North.

If you do a bit of homework, you can save a few bucks.

c

 

 

[Dallas Model Works]

hey everyone

I was looking at buying some of their passengar cars in VIA. They seem pricy and there being run by Hobbycraft.
Can I justify 60 for a passenger instead 35 for a walthers VIA car?

Does anyone have any past Rapiod models?

Thanks

I have a few Rapido 1961 scheme CN cars and some blue VIA cars on my layout and I quite like them. Didn't buy the 1954 scheme CN cars when I had the chance and now they've been hard to find, but I'm working on it.

As for the Walther's cars, I have a number of their VIA cars but the 46-seat coaches are out of production. Instead, I bought some NYC and Rock Island 26-seaters and used Micro Scale decals to VIA-ize them.

c

[AntonioFP45]

Hello Caso,

Interesting points, however, we should not forget that the demand for HO/N passenger cars has actually "increased" since the 1990s. ( Check Kalmbach's stats).    That's why Walthers made the large, very costly investment into its passenger car lines and other companies such as BLI, Kato, and Rapido have responded to the demand as well with their smaller but beautifully detailed selections.  

I'm in my 40s and can tell you that in the past the selection for 85ft long, ready-to-run passenger cars for under $100 that looked "reasonably decent" was incredibly small.  For streamliner modelers like me, Rivorossi (corrugated sides) and AHM (smooth sided) were about the best you could get.  Even then when you purchased them you had to perform quite a number of modifications just to have them run decently on a layout.

The industry is shrinking? There are far, far more model railroad products available today than there were just a couple of decades ago. If indeed it is shrinking it is still bigger, higher in quality/detail, with greater selections than what you had just 10 years ago. 

Just something to consider....

Peace and High greens

[Fergmiester]

I have two Rapidos in CN green/gold livery. Real nice lookers and I have another on order.

As for price fixing Nintendo does the same thing the posted price is the posted price nothing lower and nothing higher. Everyone is on equal ground. I got my Rapido's for $53. A good price by any standard. Why do we pay so dear in Canada you may ask? Because the majority of suppliers/distributers are US based between shipping/border costs and secondary distributor rights we can't win. Our population base of 35 million kinda means supply/demand is not as strong but we've all heard this before.

Fergie 

[coborn35]

Well, im pretty sure your a minority. Il bet more people model Pre-1970's passenger trains then current Amtrak, VIA, GO etc.

[Caso.Sub]

Rapido might be a great company.

If they live on passenger cars they will die.

The industry is shrinking faster and faster every day.

Six guys I know pasted away in the last 8 months they had a bunch of passenger cars from rapido.

Im a modern modeller, unless I see some modern passenger stuff, I won't purchase any of the cars, ever.

[Anonymous]

China is finally feeling the demand for better wages, products and living. No longer will the factory worker in China be paid 10 cents. Now that worker needs 1 dollar to do the same day's work. When they adopt unionization and demand 10 dollars pay then there is no point in outsourcing our domestic needs overseas at all.

Heck, a recent news article and a short broadcast featured a california news paper editor who hired people in India overseas to report on Live City Hall Video Feeds via the internet and file those reports to the local paper in the same city for less pay.

I fully expect products coming out of a modernized and developed China to be very expensive.

And no, they dont need our money to do thier economy or monetary system anymore. They have enough horsepower to run the land now.

I'll still purchase some rapido passenger cars because I think the Company or at least the people do a good job with the products and communicate well. Not like trying to get a set of IHC Passenger cars from a website and learning that one needs to upgrade or otherwise work on the items to make them run well.

[Heartland Division CB&Q]

I expect higher prices for Rapido and for other Chinese-made models.  China has just announced they will allow its currancy exchange rates to increase to a higher level.  That means imports from China will be priced higher.

As for Rapido, again I like my Rapido cars lettered for GN and for NP.

Good stuff!

[Anonymous]

Well done Rapido.

I think that your example and Leadership demonstrating to us, the buyers on these forums is something that most manufactors are very reluctant to do for a variety of reasons today.

I look forward to the future releases, as it stands right now the small consist looks like a little Commuter with it's two coaches and one sleeper.

[Rapido]

I appreciate your response, and would like to take the opportunity to clarify my opinion of your models. I have said it before, and will say it again; you have an awesome product. Your cars are very nicely detailed and, in my opinion, exceed some brass offerings. I would just like to see a little more variety. Some fluted cars would be nice, along with some different types of trucks. I like what Walther's has done with their passenger car line. Their cars include models from three different builders (Budd, ACF, and P/S) with several different types of trucks, body styles (i.e., skirts vs no skirts), and certain details. The only problem is that they haven't matched the level of quality of your cars and some other manufaturers.

I understand that you may not be at the point yet of offering this sort of variety, but who knows what the future may hold......

Respectfully 

Smitty

Thanks for your compliments.  We're getting there...

Our fifth car is currently under development, and we plan to offer two types of trucks with these cars (outside swinghanger and inside swinghanger), depending on what the specific railroad owned.

We can then offer the new trucks separately for people to retrofit their older Rapido cars if they want inside swinghanger trucks underneath them. 

As we produce more cars, we will produce a greater variety of trucks and other details, which can then be used to improve the accuracy of our other cars....  At this point our biggest hurdle is the development time.  The two new cars took almost a year to develop and they share most of the components of our first two cars.  The most recent delay was caused by the fact that our sleeper was missing an interior wall.  I failed to catch this in the test castings and I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if that wall wasn't there. 

The TurboTrain has been under development with our current factory since January 2006, and we are still on tooling corrections - the fourth round, actually.  Granted, the Turbotrain is 5 different cars and 3 different engines, so it was expected to take a long time.

We are taking the necessary steps to shorten the development time on new products, so it is entirely possible that we will bring out 3 or 4 new car styles in 2008, instead of the current 2 per year.

Best regards,

Jason

 

[csmith9474]

Looks to still be the same Canadian prototypes painted in fantasy paint schemes. I was hoping they would get away from that.

Now that is funny!Those of us north of the the 49th parallel have been putting up with that for eons.  Nice to see the tables turned for once

Unless you are doing one of the common pre-war Pullman plans (4-4-2, 6-6-4, etc.), every ready-to-run passenger car will only be accurate for one or two paint schemes, maybe a few more if it lasted a long time in service.

I don't think there is much difference between an American prototype car painted in fantasy schemes and a Canadian prototype car painted in fantasy schemes.  The fantasy schemes are still fantasy schemes.

The sad truth of the matter is that it simply would be impossible to be accurate for every railroad, even when more than one railroad owned the same Pullman plan - there were often subtle variations (usually represented by a letter after the plan number).

Our exact 10-5 was owned by CN (later VIA) and Erie (later Erie-Lackawanna, Conrail and still today by CSX).  While our model is 100% accurate for the CN car (I'm a VIA-CN modeller, so there's no mystery there), Erie chose to add a porter's room which had a small window.  In the CN car this was a closet, so no window was needed.

So we had to look at our budget and say: OK, the Erie car had skirts that are a different design from our current skirts.  Do we spend the money to add a small window that most people don't know is there or do we spend the money to put on the correct skirts?  We chose to put on the correct skirts.  I asked the opinion of several prominent Erie modellers and most of them didn't think the missing window would cause many conniptions.

So even when two railroads had almost identical cars, there are still subtle differences.

Now on to the issue of fantasy paint schemes in general: if we just released our cars only in 100% accurate paint schemes we would be out of business in six months.  Unless we do a super-popular train like the California Zephyr or the COLA, we have to paint our cars in fantasy paint schemes just to stay alive.  The key is to be honest about it.  I will clearly state what the prototypes are for our cars if anyone asks, and our advertising often states the plan number where there is one.  Most other manufacturers take the same approach.

Believe it or not, most model railroaders are not too picky if a car has a couple of extra windows or has a Frigidaire AC instead of a Trane AC.  They just want a good model.

We are developing some more US prototypes for release down the line.  But to be honest, I don't think it matters whether the prototype was American or Canadian.  What matters is that it is a well-designed model that is as accurate as possible for the prototype it is trying to represent.  That is the goal to which I will continually strive.

Best regards,

Jason 

 

I appreciate your response, and would like to take the opportunity to clarify my opinion of your models. I have said it before, and will say it again; you have an awesome product. Your cars are very nicely detailed and, in my opinion, exceed some brass offerings. I would just like to see a little more variety. Some fluted cars would be nice, along with some different types of trucks. I like what Walther's has done with their passenger car line. Their cars include models from three different builders (Budd, ACF, and P/S) with several different types of trucks, body styles (i.e., skirts vs no skirts), and certain details. The only problem is that they haven't matched the level of quality of your cars and some other manufaturers.

I understand that you may not be at the point yet of offering this sort of variety, but who knows what the future may hold......

Respectfully 

Smitty

 

[Heartland Division CB&Q]

Jason says: "They just want a good model. "

That's absolutely correct!

That phrase applies to Rapido's cars and to BLI's Zephyr cars. I have both. I really could not ask for better cars in either case.

[Rapido]

Looks to still be the same Canadian prototypes painted in fantasy paint schemes. I was hoping they would get away from that.

Now that is funny!Those of us north of the the 49th parallel have been putting up with that for eons.  Nice to see the tables turned for once

Unless you are doing one of the common pre-war Pullman plans (4-4-2, 6-6-4, etc.), every ready-to-run passenger car will only be accurate for one or two paint schemes, maybe a few more if it lasted a long time in service.

I don't think there is much difference between an American prototype car painted in fantasy schemes and a Canadian prototype car painted in fantasy schemes.  The fantasy schemes are still fantasy schemes.

The sad truth of the matter is that it simply would be impossible to be accurate for every railroad, even when more than one railroad owned the same Pullman plan - there were often subtle variations (usually represented by a letter after the plan number).

Our exact 10-5 was owned by CN (later VIA) and Erie (later Erie-Lackawanna, Conrail and still today by CSX).  While our model is 100% accurate for the CN car (I'm a VIA-CN modeller, so there's no mystery there), Erie chose to add a porter's room which had a small window.  In the CN car this was a closet, so no window was needed.

So we had to look at our budget and say: OK, the Erie car had skirts that are a different design from our current skirts.  Do we spend the money to add a small window that most people don't know is there or do we spend the money to put on the correct skirts?  We chose to put on the correct skirts.  I asked the opinion of several prominent Erie modellers and most of them didn't think the missing window would cause many conniptions.

So even when two railroads had almost identical cars, there are still subtle differences.

Now on to the issue of fantasy paint schemes in general: if we just released our cars only in 100% accurate paint schemes we would be out of business in six months.  Unless we do a super-popular train like the California Zephyr or the COLA, we have to paint our cars in fantasy paint schemes just to stay alive.  The key is to be honest about it.  I will clearly state what the prototypes are for our cars if anyone asks, and our advertising often states the plan number where there is one.  Most other manufacturers take the same approach.

Believe it or not, most model railroaders are not too picky if a car has a couple of extra windows or has a Frigidaire AC instead of a Trane AC.  They just want a good model.

We are developing some more US prototypes for release down the line.  But to be honest, I don't think it matters whether the prototype was American or Canadian.  What matters is that it is a well-designed model that is as accurate as possible for the prototype it is trying to represent.  That is the goal to which I will continually strive.

Best regards,

Jason 

 

[genelbradleyjr]

I don't own one either but the detail appears to be fantastic. I have seen them on ebay for slightly, ever so slightly less $39.99 + 6.20 shipping.

MRR articles have said Rapido is committed to fixing the problems with the earlier runs of the cars. I'll be ok with the undecorated coach, but the L&N from what I can tell in the pictures is the wrong blue (not dark enough)

Still debating on whether to buy this one or not....  I probably will

[dmitzel]

Anyone know which ACR (Algoma Central) paint scheme is planned... the "early" lightweight scheme (maroon letterboard) or the later, '90s scheme with the Black Bear graphic?

I'm hoping for the former (older) scheme. May look good with my Kato SD40s.

[RicHamilton]

Looks to still be the same Canadian prototypes painted in fantasy paint schemes. I was hoping they would get away from that.

Now that is funny!Those of us north of the the 49th parallel have been putting up with that for eons.  Nice to see the tables turned for once

[csmith9474]

Has there been any updated Rapido trains lately?

Looks to still be the same Canadian prototypes painted in fantasy paint schemes. I was hoping they would get away from that.

[Anonymous]

Has there been any updated Rapido trains lately?

[coborn35]

Jason Shron seems to me like a very good guy. I get a kick out of people ripping on him about paint and handling, when they have not taken time to either read his posts on the matter on our forum nor check the website for news.