|
Post by rapidotrains on Apr 14, 2013 17:58:51 GMT -8
I'm in the industry and I can tell you with complete insincerity that it is the CN Tempo complete train, including rebuilt RS18 units. Unfortunately I am their only customer so the project is expected to post a staggering loss. But don't worry - this will be made up for when they release their 100% accurate model of VIA's battery charging car. I know at least three people who will buy it. -Jason
|
|
|
Post by rapidotrains on Dec 11, 2012 18:19:02 GMT -8
Hi all, The latest Rapido news is online, featuring our official F9B announcement as well as a special offer on the TurboTrain. www.rapidotrains.com/rapidonews42.htmlAlso, here is a public service announcement about the poorly-treated F9B locomotive: Thanks for looking, Jason
|
|
|
Post by rapidotrains on Nov 15, 2012 13:10:23 GMT -8
Hi all, The deadline for ordering the LRC locomotives and new cars is tomorrow. Please let your dealer know or order direct from us. www.rapidotrains.com/scllrc.htmlThanks, Jason
|
|
|
Post by rapidotrains on Nov 4, 2012 11:33:46 GMT -8
It seems like the new prices are going to prevent a lot of modelers from buying the new products which will lead to smaller runs and higher prices. Larry ------------------------------ And here's the rub the "experts" failed to mention. Bachmann keeps improving their product and could flood the market with low detailed locomotives with DCC and Tsunami sound and generic freight cars at the fraction of the cost of their competitors. Guys,Don't sneer to much as the other manufacturers are force to keep raising prices Bachmann can hold their price line since their locomotives and cars are less detailed. Bachmann can hold their price line because they are entirely vertical. Bachmann is owned by Kader, a Chinese company. The same company owns the factories where the goods are produced. It is the US and UK offices that are the "offshore" aspect of Bachmann. I have actually received an email asking "why can't your stuff be made in the USA, like Bachmann in Philadelphia?" They guy probably had a heart attack when I replied that Bachmann has been owned by a Chinese company since 1988. Because Kader is such an enormous company and makes so many different products, the more profitable lines can subsidize the less profitable ones. Nobody will ever know if Kader is making any money selling a sound-equipped locomotive for under $100 wholesale. They may be making money on that particular item or they may not. But I guarantee you that no model train company based in North America can do so. Best regards, Jason
|
|
|
Post by rapidotrains on Nov 3, 2012 15:12:11 GMT -8
Thanks guys for the kind words! They are appreciated. Jason The interior makes this car even more desirable than it was and that was over the top! I want to ask you about the glazing. It looks to be an excellent amount of tint, just right. Is this product available or is it cast just for this car? The windows in the dome seem to be flush, which looks excellent also. Are you considering any products exclusive to US railroad?? Sorry, I just had to ask. Larry Hi Larry, The Solex window effect was very carefully designed by Bill Schneider and Zhang in China to match the Solex windows that I have in my basement. Right now, only The Canadian cars come with the Solex tint but when we release the cars separately in both accurate and "foobie" paint schemes starting next year they will all have this effect. As for doing more US stuff, the only US-only models we have publicly on the go right now are the Osgood Bradley coaches and the Meat Reefer (which the factory has taken FAR TOO LONG to make). That being said, we have proper US freight and passenger prototypes on the go right now that nobody knows about. Because our stuff has taken so long to bring to market in the past we've decided to hold off announcing the new products until we are already starting production. For some of the cars, we'll only announce them once production is finished and it will be a "first come, first served" situation. Most of the emails we have to answer at Rapido are "it's great that you are shipping A, but I've been waiting for B for two years - when are they coming already? ?" Hopefully once we've caught up we will have a more reasonable production time for our new stuff. Best regards, Jason
|
|
|
Post by rapidotrains on Nov 2, 2012 5:50:33 GMT -8
|
|
|
Post by rapidotrains on Oct 16, 2012 13:11:16 GMT -8
Here is a photo of the chassis (if the attachment button works). The functionality of the DC version (lighting, especially) is severely restricted compared to the sound/DCC version. You will probably want to forget about using the DCC plug and hard wire a decoder or sound decoder in there so you can take advantage of more of the lighting effects. There is plenty of room. Of course, any after-market sound decoder you use will not sound as cool as ours.... -Jason Attachments:
|
|
|
Post by rapidotrains on Sept 20, 2012 11:36:44 GMT -8
You can't really compare the Walthers pricing with Bachmann pricing.
1. Bachmann is a vertical company. It is owned by Kader, which also owns the factories. The tooling and production costs are much lower than for an American company that outsources production.
2. The UK market is a lot larger than the US market, despite the fact that the US has five times as many people. And the Metroliners have a limited appeal as they only ever ran in the northeast.
Model railways are a way of life in the UK.
If we had the same kind of interest in railways here in North America, we would have far more preserved and tourist trains, far more railway museums, and far more affordable models.
-Jason
|
|
|
Post by rapidotrains on Sept 16, 2012 5:30:01 GMT -8
Jason, I'd love to see you put the time and effort into your Alco/MLW FA project, maybe that could be made to cover the FA-2s as well as your FPA-4s. Now there's an interesting thought, and a way to get a really top-notch FA2 to market for all those 1950's+ US roads that had FA2's... There is a glut of FA-2 models on the market right now. But an FPA-2 is another story... -Jason
|
|
|
Post by rapidotrains on Sept 15, 2012 19:05:05 GMT -8
Jason I watched the movie and it is impressive that the grills will go from those extreme temperatures and not warp!!! It is easy to understand that the channels allow them to slide and expand. Nice!! Now for the question of the day. I have one of the New Haven Hudsons. Which version of the smoker cars will go with the steam version of the train??The second question is, are you going to offer some of the F units detailed for any other railroads?? The credits indicate you were harmed during the test!!! I hope you are warmed up now or thawed out at least. Thanks for a great video. Larry Hi Larry, My pleasure! You'll want the Hunter Green smokers for your steam-hauled New Haven train. I'm not sure about the F-units. The FP9A is a unique engine, and while the tooling is modular I'm not sure I want to spend the money to do an FP7 given that there are two other models on the market. We'll see. Maybe. -Jason
|
|
|
Post by rapidotrains on Sept 15, 2012 16:55:03 GMT -8
Hi all, The 40th edition of Rapido News is now online: www.rapidotrains.com/rapidonews40.htmlWe're relaunching the LRC locomotive project and introducing new passenger cars as well. And a reminder that the deadline to reserve the New Haven Osgood Bradley Smokers and the NH and B&M Osgood Bradley 10-Window Coaches is the 1st of October. The new 10-Window coaches feature some lettering and skirting variations from the first run. Thanks for reading, Jason
|
|
|
Post by rapidotrains on Aug 28, 2012 17:37:03 GMT -8
Dear all, The recent changes that affected CMT/modeltrains.com took us all by surprise, and I am sure that many of CMT's customers are concerned about their outstanding orders for Rapido products. As a result, we have endeavoured in the past few days to find out as much as we could about the situation in order to provide you with this update. 1. Orders for Rapido products from CMT True Line Trains has confirmed to us that it has taken over the order book of CMT. True Line Trains has advised us that it intends to honour orders placed for Rapido products by CMT's customers. If you have ordered any Rapido products from CMT, please contact True Line Trains at www.truelinetrains.ca to confirm your order. 2. Orders for the CN Pointe St. Charles caboose project We are still many months away from delivering this caboose. From what we understand at this point, Tom Tomblin (who initiated the project) still intends to see it to fruition and honour all deposits. When the final tooling corrections are complete we will have more concrete information for you. Stay tuned to our newsletter for updates. 3. Rapido's relationship with CMT and True Line Trains Given all that has taken place in the last couple of weeks, I would like to clarify that Rapido does not have, and has never had, a financial or ownership interest in CMT. Rapido has simply been a supplier to CMT. Similarly, Rapido does not have a financial or ownership interest in True Line Trains, although we do share office and warehouse facilities with True Line. It is difficult for everyone - customers and suppliers - when there is uncertainty such as what has recently transpired with CMT. Rest assured, our primary concern is that CMT's customers get the Rapido products they ordered. True Line Trains has assured us that it shares this concern and will take good care of CMT's customers. Thanks and regards, Jason, Bill and Dan Rapido Trains Inc.
|
|
|
Post by rapidotrains on Aug 9, 2012 9:11:00 GMT -8
Why can't a US company design a machine (CNC) to add parts to a body shell, like a circuit board "Pick-and-Play" machine? They have the accuracy to place parts within the tolerance required. The reason it hasn't happened and won't for awhile is, cost again. You would have to make a lot of trains to make it viable to build a machine like that. Exactly. One of our tooling subcontractors has these huge PCB making machines upstairs. They shake the whole building. They make extremely complex PCBs very quickly and without any involvement from people. Trouble is they are making 500,000 circuit boards, and everything is installed on two planes - basically top and bottom. Custom-making a CNC machine to install parts on 20 different planes on a few thousand FP9A locomotives would send the retail price into the stratosphere. We think nothing of installing grabs on the corners of F-unit noses, but those angles suddenly make a CNC assembly machine that much more complex. -Jason
|
|
|
Post by rapidotrains on Aug 8, 2012 18:25:47 GMT -8
That may be the case in civil engineering but in the tool & die the CAD & CAM software I use makes it easier and faster to design, program, and verify (virtual machine) tooling. It would have taken 10 times longer 10 years ago. That and Faster computers, faster and more accurate machine tools makes it easier for us to compete with China. Actually, I don't think you'd find many of us manufacturers arguing against that. For tooling, it is certainly possible to be competitive with China. The problem is for assembly. 7 RMB per hour take home pay is actually very good and is more than the average assembly worker's wage. In Dongguan, you can go out for a decent dinner in the factory district for about 30 RMB per person. A cheap dinner (bowl of noodles, pop) will be 10 RMB per person. I eat at nice vegetarian restaurants, where it's more like 50 RMB per person. That's still well under $10. Over here, 7 RMB is a little over a dollar. You can't get a meal anywhere for that price (except maybe Ikea's breakfast). So even with the huge inflation of late, the cost of living and thus the cost of labour is much lower in China. And that is why it is so much cheaper to do assembly and decorating over there. -Jason
|
|
|
Post by rapidotrains on Aug 6, 2012 18:52:44 GMT -8
Thanks for the kind words, guys.
I, too, have heard a lot about companies that have made a success of it manufacturing over here. In fact, if you look at the auto industry and similar heavy equipment manufacturing (such as railcars and locomotives) it never really left.
The problems of domestic manufacturing arise for hobby products that have such small production runs. My father used to be a supplier of sportswear for Wal-Mart Canada. He could easily have an order for 300,000 pieces. Wal-Mart USA places orders ten times the size of Wal-Mart Canada. That 300,000 order would more likely be 3,000,000. In comparison, a really successful locomotive today will sell 3000-5000 pieces.
If we could sell 300,000 of any one thing we could certainly look at domestic sourcing opportunities. But it's not likely going to happen. There aren't enough model railroaders out there.
Rubbing my crystal ball, I think that in 30 years our hobby will be much more of a cottage industry, with home-made kits outnumbering the ready-to-run models. It will look more like the UK model industry of the 1970s than what we have today.
It will thrive, but it will be a smaller industry than it is now.
-Jason
|
|
|
Post by rapidotrains on Jul 10, 2012 15:28:57 GMT -8
Those are some gorgeous models - wow!
I have noticed though that most of the prototype meets in the States are filled with (primarily) modern freight.
In contrast, the prototype meets in Canada seem to be more of a mixed bag, with focus mainly on the transition era.
What is it about modern freight that attracts the prototype modeller, as opposed to transition era models?
-Jason
|
|
|
Post by rapidotrains on Jun 28, 2012 9:47:32 GMT -8
I really want to commend you for going to this much trouble. I listened to your podcast and loved it. Glad you are in the hobby. Looking forward to seeing these in real life soon. Thanks a lot for the kind words! The podcast was fun. To paraphrase Doctor Who: "The difficult thing is to stop me from talking." -Jason
|
|
|
Post by rapidotrains on Jun 28, 2012 9:45:47 GMT -8
Any idea when the replacement side steps will be available? Andy The tool is still being finished, and then they have to be painted and printed. It will be a month or two yet... -Jason
|
|
|
Post by rapidotrains on Jun 26, 2012 20:03:23 GMT -8
Hi all,
We got our sample of the revised packaging for the FP9A locomotive (CN and VIA versions). With the old blister, five of the six samples they sent us arrived damaged - same problem as on the first run of Canadians. The steps got crushed. The new design has eliminated the problem.
We performed some serious drop tests on the new packaging, hopefully emulating the worst that the courier companies will throw at us. We documented them here:
Now when we get the Canadian FP9A packaging sample that will be an interesting drop test to perform...
-Jason
|
|
|
Post by rapidotrains on Jun 5, 2012 10:50:46 GMT -8
Folks; I got a chance to run the entire train set at my local club on Friday night. Needless to say there were a number of admiring looks as I unpacked the train set from the box. I pre programmed 4 digit addresses into the two a units before I went. Only one has the sound unit...the other just a decoder. Both units ran flawlessly. Interesting to operate the two A's with dummy B between. Dirty track becomes very noticeable! Ran two loops and things seem to be OK. Lights, sound all work OK. I had one derailment which I believe was caused by the "tight" wheel sets. I broke another wind screen on one A unit (ouch) Those things are delicate. Lost two grab irons some where. They just fell out some where along the line and I did not recover. I wish that the locomotive lights had a little less of a greenish cast to them. Not sure what to do about this at this point. I will try and get some video and/or photo of the train in action and post.... Regards Jere Ingram Hi Jere, Both of the locomotives should have sound. I suggest you unconsist them and check them individually to be sure. It is possible you have a broken wire to your speakers. For any parts that fall off, give Dan a call at the office. If he has them he will be happy to send you replacements. Similarly, if you can't get the sound to come on one unit then call Dan. 1-877-738-6445. As for the headlights and number boards, that has been quite frustrating for us. Our samples were golden yellow, but then the production models had a cooler yellow tone (with more green).... but some of them had the golden yellow. It turns out that both yellows fall within the QC specs of the LED suppliers - they are both considered "golden yellow." To date we've only had a handful of complaints about the colours - most people are happy with them, and I have to say that so far we have not seen any that we've considered offensive. The trouble is that they can't be checked effectively until they are installed in the locomotives, at which point it is very time-consuming to remove them so it only happens if the LED is the wrong colour, such as red or bright green. The factory does not seem able to differentiate between golden yellow and golden yellow with a hint of green. I think at this point, delaying the rest of the shipments by several months while we try to nail down a small variation in tone would put us out of business, so we have to keep chugging along with production. -Jason
|
|
|
Post by rapidotrains on May 31, 2012 7:25:10 GMT -8
That should be a great test, but please video the tests and post them on Youtube if the unit has no major damage. I for one would like to see the tests and you might just win some new customers in the non train world and if you post them, please include the link here. There may be reasons that you would not want to do this and I understand if that is the case. Thanks for bringing to us some really great looking projects. :Larry You are most welcome! And filming the tests is a great idea. Now the factory has come back to me with a new idea. They want to build a rigid plastic (ABS) frame which will lock the FP9A models on all four sides and not allow them to move a millimetre. This would allow us to use the existing packaging and not require a separate box for the locomotives. Have a look: (ABS is rigid plastic, while EPS is white styrofoam.) There would be EVA foam between the hard plastic holder and the locomotive so that the paint does not get scratched. What do you think about this option? My only concern is the grills. The plastic frame would need to clear them to avoid crushing them. -Jason
|
|
|
Post by rapidotrains on May 30, 2012 6:16:59 GMT -8
I just think a more compact "brick" package would have been a better choice, although without the nice "trainset" display aspect. The brick would weigh the same and have the same stuff in it, but wouldn't be subjected to the flexing the large flat box gets. The issue is not the flexing - it's the damage due to transferred shock when the thing is dropped. We've looked into the brick packaging, and we're hesitant to change the packaging so drastically for two reasons: 1. it seems that we're about 90% of the way there with our current packaging. With some tweaks, we think it will do the job. However, if we change to the brick packaging we are essentially starting from scratch and we may end up finding new problems after the next shipment. I don't believe anyone has ever delivered a train of this size or complexity before so we can't go with precedents. If the brick fails, then we've delivered two Canadian shipments that don't survive US shipping instead of just one. 2. the factory looked into the costs of a complete packaging redesign. Including the new blisters and styrofoam moulds, plus the new cardboard packaging, we're looking at $30,000. That's a lot of money to gamble on a new packaging design that may or may not work. So we'll go with revising the current packaging, and we'll also ask our distributors to take greater care with the boxes on their end. Best regards, Jason
|
|
|
Post by rapidotrains on May 30, 2012 6:11:21 GMT -8
Hi all,
After several days of consultations with the factory, we've settled on the following packaging improvements for subsequent deliveries of The Canadian. I welcome feedback from you guys about this.
1. The FP9A locomotives will be packaged separately. Each Canadian will in essence be packed in two boxes: the train and the locomotives. Each locomotive will be in a newly revised clamshell package (to better avoid the stirrups), with EVA foam on the ends preventing end-to-end movement. The clamshell will be placed in an EPDM foam cradle and then placed in a 2mm cardboard box. The two boxed locomotives will then be placed in their own shipping carton.
2. We're adding foam to either end of each passenger car to prevent lateral movement when the big shipping box is dropped. We'll also test using thicker plastic sheet to wrap each car to better hold it in place.
We're also making replacement FP9 stirrups for anyone whose stirrups were damaged in shipping. These will be fully painted and will come with a drilling template to drill mounting holes into the bottom of the shell. They will be free for anyone who owns a Canadian.
While we haven't had that many complaints of damage in Canada, we are still aiming for no damage. Considering the rigorous testing that we did to the packaging, I can only imagine how they are being treated by the courier companies. When we get the revised packaging samples, we plan to throw the FP9A off of the second floor mezzanine to see what happens. If it survives that, then we know that any model damaged in shipping was treated WORSE.
Best regards,
Jason
|
|
|
Post by rapidotrains on May 29, 2012 7:53:58 GMT -8
Hi all, We've found the damage on some units very frustrating, and I'm sorry if you get a train that has damage - if you do, please call Dan at the office - 1-877-738-6445. There have been very few damage reports from inside Canada. Almost all are coming from the US. We've shipped seven times as many trains inside Canada as we have into the US. Yet we've had twice as many damage reports from the US as we have had in Canada. To test our packaging, we had a complete, packaged set sent by courier from China to Toronto, from Toronto to Calgary, and from Calgary to Toronto. No stirrups were broken on any of these trips, although on the way back from Calgary we didn't pack the F-units very well and some roof details were damaged. Obviously, after surviving those trips we thought our packaging was strong enough. In contrast, several sets that went to US distributors are getting bashed, with the stirrups and other problems. We are redesigning the packaging from the ground up to help fix this, but it is impossible to protect a train with 4000 parts from being damaged when thrown over fences and off of trucks. If I could design packaging for a complete train that is a manageable size yet will survive being thrown from six feet in the air onto concrete, I'd probably be a famous physicist or structural engineer earning a lot more money than I am now... -Jason
|
|