Rapido B-70-69/71/75 boxcars arrived

[lvrr325]

These hit my distributor today; I should have mine sometime Friday, doing a show this weekend so I opted for faster shipping.   Will try and take some pictures probably Saturday, UPS usually doesn't make it here until fairly late.  Hopefully these move better than those chloride hoppers.   

[mdq]

Pictures are always good.

[prr 4467]

Rapido products in general are completely off my radar unless or until they fix the nagging QA/QC issues that have been cropping up on virtually every single project.

In the case of freight cars, I won't touch them with a 10-foot pole because they have gone out of their way to design some poorly operating freight car trucks that cannot be easily retrofitted with somebody else's wheelsets, and in some cases aftermarket trucks will not adequately or easily fit certain Rapido freight cars. 

[riogrande]

Jan 19, 2024 9:49:04 GMT -8 prr 4467 said:

Rapido products in general are completely off my radar unless or until they fix the nagging QA/QC issues that have been cropping up on virtually every single project.

In the case of freight cars, I won't touch them with a 10-foot pole because they have gone out of their way to design some poorly operating freight car trucks that cannot be easily retrofitted with somebody else's wheelsets, and in some cases aftermarket trucks will not adequately or easily fit certain Rapido freight cars. 

Not an SP fan John?

[lvrr325]

One has a loose weight inside, so that one will be opened for pictures and I'll see if I can figure out how to re-attach it.

It's been shipped from Rapido to my source then from them to me, so it's been shaken around a lot.


Okay, I was able to repair the car fairly easily, but this is weird.  The weight in these is two pieces of metal along the lines of the weight in your Athearn blue box kit, but rather than full car length they fit between the trucks.  They go over three lugs and mount with a small self-tapping screw.  Although all three lugs have screw holes in them, the car uses just one screw - and rather than the middle hole, it goes in one end.  The end holes in the weight are slotted, probably so the same weight can be used in other cars.  So in rough handling somewhere the weight snapped off that end lug and that let the weight come loose.  The fix was to put the screw in the middle lug.  

I thought maybe they forgot a screw or something but the direction sheet and diagram shows one screw, and goes in one end. Makes no sense, if they just put it in the middle, you'd never have this problem.  

The only good news is if yours has this happen it's pretty easy to take apart to fix, the chassis is not glued in, the shell spreads easy, the only challenge is to take the coupler cut lever out of it's pinhole in the coupler box. But the levers are pretty sturdy and here too there's no glue, they're press fit. 

I'll take a picture of the sheet when I shoot the car tomorrow afternoon.  I didn't see any obvious boners on them, they look pretty nice.  

[hudsonyard]

You'd think after nearly 70 years you wouldn't need to re-invent mounting a weight in a car.

[lvrr325]

That's what I thought was odd, it's mounted about the same as some of the older kits, inside the car over a peg or lug with a screw. Just that putting the screw in one end lends to the weight snapping it off if UPS uses the box for a football.  You can see in the diagram the screw is shown at the end lug, behind upper right corner of the doors. 

The whole thing in the box was a little over 7 ounces on my scale. 













About 14' F with light snow this afternoon. Had to try the porch to get some kind of decent light and not get snowed on.

[lyndenbranch]

Well. that sun-faded blue paint is a tough one to pull off on a factory painted model. The blue fade isn't always uniform, that's part of what makes it so interesting. These look not so much light faded paint but light blue paint.

[lvrr325]

It compares well to some real cars I've seen, but needs some weathering and probably some graffiti to be spot on.

The underframe probably should be the original blue, though, the sun didn't shine on that part often enough to fade. Or maybe black or the original brown color, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't paint the underneath when they became Golden West cars.

[markfj]

One screw at the “end” of the weight stack?! That’s gotta be a mistake and something got lost in translation between Rapido and the factory. Determining the best place to secure those weights is commonsense, basic mechanical engineering stuff, it's not like trying to land a rocket on the moon.
And no glue either? Very odd.

Overall not a bad looking car and about what I would expect from Rapido. I can see getting one of the SP cars soon.

Thanks, Mark

[lvrr325]

I agree, it looks good, there's not much to nitpick here. I did find photo evidence of one on the LV when new, in a wreck no less, so now I remember why I pre-ordered a few more than usual.

[champagnetrail]

Jan 21, 2024 19:12:00 GMT -8 lvrr325 said:

I agree, it looks good, there's not much to nitpick here. I did find photo evidence of one on the LV when new, in a wreck no less, so now I remember why I pre-ordered a few more than usual.

In a wreck?  On the LV?  Nah...

-pat

[gevohogger]

Jan 21, 2024 0:46:24 GMT -8 lvrr325 said:

It compares well to some real cars I've seen, but needs some weathering and probably some graffiti to be spot on.

+2

The surviving examples of Golden West cars are now mostly a really weathered (faded) blue with tons of rust and graffiti.  Doing up that car would be an interesting but fun challenge.

[riogrande]

I'm looking forward to picking up a few of the SP/SSW versions in the coming week or two when my pusher gets them in.