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Post by cpr4200 on Mar 27, 2024 8:14:07 GMT -8
SXT might be a good bet for the C30-7 ... they've done the much less numerous C32-8. There were hundreds of C30's on NS, Santa Fe, UP, and BN, plus CR, CSX, and Family Lines. Would be a good seller.
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Post by packer on Mar 27, 2024 8:21:05 GMT -8
SXT might be a good bet for the C30-7 ... they've done the much less numerous C32-8. There were hundreds of C30's on NS, Santa Fe, UP, and BN, plus CR, CSX, and Family Lines. Would be a good seller. I personally would have rathered them do it. Bonus points for probably not having to speed match to their SD40-2. |
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Post by Baikal on Mar 27, 2024 8:33:40 GMT -8
On this forum they get panned no matter what they do. I'm no Rapido fan boy but this seems like them trying to make a step in the right direction to keep people satisfied and I'm amazed they're still being almost universally panned for it.
Because experience shows buyers are likely to get Charlie Browned. |
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Post by NS4122 on Mar 27, 2024 9:21:27 GMT -8
I'm not a Rapido fanboy either, but my experience with the products I have purchased from them so far have all been positive. On this forum they get panned no matter what they do. Because experience shows you're likely to get Charlie Browned. |
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Post by riogrande on Mar 27, 2024 9:35:34 GMT -8
That is the same delivery date I've been seeing since the GP40's were announced weeks ago. |
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Post by Baikal on Mar 27, 2024 10:05:18 GMT -8
I'm not a Rapido fanboy either, but my experience with the products I have purchased from them so far have all been positive. Because experience shows you're likely to get Charlie Browned.
That means you haven't bought any of the models that have problems. Many people, here and elsewhere, have called out specific issues that affect entire production runs. |
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Post by riogrande on Mar 27, 2024 10:23:11 GMT -8
I do need GP40's because they were more common on the east end of the D&RGW during the 1970's, but since they are not among those announced by Rapido, that may be ok.
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Post by gevohogger on Mar 27, 2024 10:27:52 GMT -8
I do need GP40's because they were more common on the east end of the D&RGW during the 1970's, but since they are not among those announced by Rapido, that may be ok. What part exactly of the D&RGW do you model? |
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Post by delta767332er on Mar 27, 2024 11:31:34 GMT -8
I'm no Rapido fan boy but this seems like them trying to make a step in the right direction to keep people satisfied and I'm amazed they're still being almost universally panned for it. If one’s perspective is that of a semi-interested bystander that just sees Rapido “innocently” trying to make a product a little better, I suppose I can understand the lack of understanding of the frustration, sort of a glass-half-full point of view. My glass is half-empty. I’ve spent almost an entire man-week of labor, or perhaps a little more, researching and attempting to provide feedback on what was originally a very, very shoddy initial design, including lots of dialog on trying to get an EMD with usable fans matching the detail of the rest of the model for the first time in history, basically trying to diplomatically say “the fans suck” throughout the whole process, having the project designer (edit: typed designer, obviously meant PM) I was communicating with leave or be fired from Rapido mid-project for the second time, and personally “painted” and arranged all of the stenciling for the CSX units (mostly with Nick O’Dell’s original work), and then have this video to be released after production with some silly awakening that the fans suck……it’s very frustrating. They are always putting out last-minute fires at great cost to themselves and/or the modeler, at least indirectly, because their initial design work is very, very poor. A good model is the result of a solid and accurate initial design and then being tweaked to excellence through the design process. Rapido starts with a junk design, spends its tweak time getting it to average at best, and then goes to production still with fatal flaws that they sometimes go back and fix late in the game, and then we’re supposed to applaud that and be thankful we’re getting a model that’s of the quality that the original design should’ve been to base refinements on…..maybe. The GP38 and C30-7 designs were shoddy, and that’s going to result in a subpar model coming to market. I’ve already stated how I think the fans are gonna go. I hope to come back here in a year and shovel crow down my throat, for sure. I have no predisposition to “pan,” or be a fanboy of, any particular brand. My opinions are a direct result of a company’s products speaking for themselves, relative to my needs. With Rapido, I have B36-7s that I have to modify the stepwells on, SP boxcars with missing waffles, tankcars with too-narrow barrels, 5820s with glued-on outlets that have to be pried off and oriented correctly, along with not-great Procor artwork on them, a whole run of Canadian cylindricals that were so bad they were redone, but too bad for me for buying the first run, a second barely-last-minute-saved SP boxcar that in my opinion still has dimensional issues, though minor at this point, broken bulkheads on another car with average-at-best artwork, X72s with very poor artwork, and now they wanted to plant their flag all over the engine market and rushed the GP38 out the door with unusable fans (we’ll see), and likely unusable trucks for anyone that’s actually looked at a real Blomberg before. And a C30-7 with unknown dimensional issues because again, the original design was flawed and now we’re going to get the self-proclaimed cheap fix of stretch and drooping features to mask the error, which should have never got to this point. Designing a model from the ground up is an extremely difficult and laborious process that most of us, including me, don’t fully appreciate. But as a consumer with just a little bit of a peek at the inside from time to time, it’s simple - others do it better with less talking, so therefore Rapido is frustrating to me. They talk a lot while continuing to release products that I consider subpar, and most importantly, products that I need badly for my recreational hobby/layout goals, that I’m unapologetically passionate about. I’ll end on this - I’m pretty happy with my centerbeams. But I don’t know very much about centerbeams. ;o) |
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Post by riogrande on Mar 27, 2024 12:48:24 GMT -8
I do need GP40's because they were more common on the east end of the D&RGW during the 1970's, but since they are not among those announced by Rapido, that may be ok. What part exactly of the D&RGW do you model? Grand Junction CO and west into Utah. |
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Post by markfj on Mar 27, 2024 13:05:03 GMT -8
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Post by cpr4200 on Mar 27, 2024 13:23:38 GMT -8
So what's the deal with the "project managers" at Rapido? Are they freelancers/independent contractors or employees? Are they assigned to one project or do they collaborate?
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Post by cera2254 on Mar 27, 2024 13:28:44 GMT -8
Wasn’t Matt Gentry the one on the GP38 project? He got let go?
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Post by cemr5396 on Mar 27, 2024 13:50:01 GMT -8
So what's the deal with the "project managers" at Rapido? Are they freelancers/independent contractors or employees? Are they assigned to one project or do they collaborate? I think the problem Rapido has is there is way too much going on, whoever has the most time available at any given time gets shuffled onto whichever project needs the most time spent on it. the lead Project Manager on a model being changed at least once during the development seems pretty much inevitable with them these days. the last person I actually remember leaving Rapido was that English guy who started the B36 project. |
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Post by locochris on Mar 27, 2024 14:10:28 GMT -8
If one’s perspective is that of a semi-interested bystander that just sees Rapido “innocently” trying to make a product a little better, I suppose I can understand the lack of understanding of the frustration, sort of a glass-half-full point of view. My glass is half-empty. I’ve spent almost an entire man-week of labor, or perhaps a little more, researching and attempting to provide feedback on what was originally a very, very shoddy initial design, including lots of dialog on trying to get an EMD with usable fans matching the detail of the rest of the model for the first time in history, basically trying to diplomatically say “the fans suck” throughout the whole process, having the project designer I was communicating with leave or be fired from Rapido mid-project for the second time, and personally “painted” and arranged all of the stenciling for the CSX units (mostly with Nick O’Dell’s original work), and then have this video to be released after production with some silly awakening that the fans suck……it’s very frustrating. They are always putting out last-minute fires at great cost to themselves and/or the modeler, at least indirectly, because their initial design work is very, very poor. A good model is the result of a solid and accurate initial design and then being tweaked to excellence through the design process. Rapido starts with a junk design, spends its tweak time getting it to average at best, and then goes to production still with fatal flaws that they sometimes go back and fix late in the game, and then we’re supposed to applaud that and be thankful we’re getting a model that’s of the quality that the original design should’ve been to base refinements on…..maybe. The GP38 and C30-7 designs were shoddy, and that’s going to result in a subpar model coming to market. I’ve already stated how I think the fans are gonna go. I hope to come back here in a year and shovel crow down my throat, for sure. I have no predisposition to “pan,” or be a fanboy of, any particular brand. My opinions are a direct result of a company’s products speaking for themselves, relative to my needs. With Rapido, I have B36-7s that I have to modify the stepwells on, SP boxcars with missing waffles, tankcars with too-narrow barrels, 5820s with glued-on outlets that have to be pried off and oriented correctly, along with not-great Procor artwork on them, a whole run of Canadian cylindricals that were so bad they were redone, but too bad for me for buying the first run, a second barely-last-minute-saved SP boxcar that in my opinion still has dimensional issues, though minor at this point, broken bulkheads on another car with average-at-best artwork, X72s with very poor artwork, and now they wanted to plant their flag all over the engine market and rushed the GP38 out the door with unusable fans (we’ll see), and likely unusable trucks for anyone that’s actually looked at a real Blomberg before. And a C30-7 with unknown dimensional issues because again, the original design was flawed and now we’re going to get the self-proclaimed cheap fix of stretch and drooping features to mask the error, which should have never got to this point. Designing a model from the ground up is an extremely difficult and laborious process that most of us, including me, don’t fully appreciate. But as a consumer with just a little bit of a peek at the inside from time to time, it’s simple - others do it better with less talking, so therefore Rapido is frustrating to me. They talk a lot while continuing to release products that I consider subpar, and most importantly, products that I need badly for my recreational hobby/layout goals, that I’m unapologetically passionate about. I’ll end on this - I’m pretty happy with my centerbeams. But I don’t know very much about centerbeams. ;o) This a really good post, thanks for the information. When I first joined these forums it seemed like people here were overly critical of Rapido, but I'm understanding the situation better now thanks to posts like these. |
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Post by ambluco on Mar 27, 2024 14:36:56 GMT -8
I thought we just learned Blaine was also hired and left last year? If one’s perspective is that of a semi-interested bystander that just sees Rapido “innocently” trying to make a product a little better, I suppose I can understand the lack of understanding of the frustration, sort of a glass-half-full point of view. My glass is half-empty. I’ve spent almost an entire man-week of labor, or perhaps a little more, researching and attempting to provide feedback on what was originally a very, very shoddy initial design, including lots of dialog on trying to get an EMD with usable fans matching the detail of the rest of the model for the first time in history, basically trying to diplomatically say “the fans suck” throughout the whole process, having the project designer I was communicating with leave or be fired from Rapido mid-project for the second time, and personally “painted” and arranged all of the stenciling for the CSX units (mostly with Nick O’Dell’s original work), and then have this video to be released after production with some silly awakening that the fans suck……it’s very frustrating. They are always putting out last-minute fires at great cost to themselves and/or the modeler, at least indirectly, because their initial design work is very, very poor. A good model is the result of a solid and accurate initial design and then being tweaked to excellence through the design process. Rapido starts with a junk design, spends its tweak time getting it to average at best, and then goes to production still with fatal flaws that they sometimes go back and fix late in the game, and then we’re supposed to applaud that and be thankful we’re getting a model that’s of the quality that the original design should’ve been to base refinements on…..maybe. The GP38 and C30-7 designs were shoddy, and that’s going to result in a subpar model coming to market. I’ve already stated how I think the fans are gonna go. I hope to come back here in a year and shovel crow down my throat, for sure. I have no predisposition to “pan,” or be a fanboy of, any particular brand. My opinions are a direct result of a company’s products speaking for themselves, relative to my needs. With Rapido, I have B36-7s that I have to modify the stepwells on, SP boxcars with missing waffles, tankcars with too-narrow barrels, 5820s with glued-on outlets that have to be pried off and oriented correctly, along with not-great Procor artwork on them, a whole run of Canadian cylindricals that were so bad they were redone, but too bad for me for buying the first run, a second barely-last-minute-saved SP boxcar that in my opinion still has dimensional issues, though minor at this point, broken bulkheads on another car with average-at-best artwork, X72s with very poor artwork, and now they wanted to plant their flag all over the engine market and rushed the GP38 out the door with unusable fans (we’ll see), and likely unusable trucks for anyone that’s actually looked at a real Blomberg before. And a C30-7 with unknown dimensional issues because again, the original design was flawed and now we’re going to get the self-proclaimed cheap fix of stretch and drooping features to mask the error, which should have never got to this point. Designing a model from the ground up is an extremely difficult and laborious process that most of us, including me, don’t fully appreciate. But as a consumer with just a little bit of a peek at the inside from time to time, it’s simple - others do it better with less talking, so therefore Rapido is frustrating to me. They talk a lot while continuing to release products that I consider subpar, and most importantly, products that I need badly for my recreational hobby/layout goals, that I’m unapologetically passionate about. I’ll end on this - I’m pretty happy with my centerbeams. But I don’t know very much about centerbeams. ;o) This a really good post, thanks for the information. When I first joined these forums it seemed like people here were overly critical of Rapido, but I'm understanding the situation better now thanks to posts like these. |
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Post by lvrr325 on Mar 27, 2024 14:52:13 GMT -8
I would tend to agree Rapido is trying to do too much, too fast. They're aiming to have as many models as an Atlas or Walthers even though those companies have been around much longer and most of their product can be run by dusting off the tooling and creating some new artwork, where Rapido has to tool up from scratch.
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Post by Partial_List on Mar 27, 2024 17:36:57 GMT -8
Wasn’t Matt Gentry the one on the GP38 project? He got let go? If Matt Gentry is already gone that gives me a pretty good idea of where the problem lies… |
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Post by hudsonyard on Mar 27, 2024 18:15:38 GMT -8
Rapido makes a couple halfway decent 25 dollar freight cars that happen to cost 50 dollars. I won't go anywhere near their locomotives. I've spent a lot of time around the independent music industry, playing in bands, booking in venues etc etc, I know a douchebag huckster when I see one and alarm bells go off whenever i'm unfortunate enough to watch one of those videos.
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Post by locochris on Mar 27, 2024 19:06:34 GMT -8
I think Matt Gentry was a project manager, not a designer.
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Post by Partial_List on Mar 27, 2024 19:21:18 GMT -8
I think Matt Gentry was a project manager, not a designer. That would make his possible departure even more apprehensive. Interestingly, they seem to have a significantly high turn-over rate for designers/project managers compared to other manufacturers. Imagine that… |
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Post by delta767332er on Mar 27, 2024 19:23:20 GMT -8
I think Matt Gentry was a project manager, not a designer. Yeah, I don’t know why my brain typed designer. Of course he was a PM. Won’t speak out of turn, but it’s pretty clear the *design work was done by someone many thousands of miles away from the nearest GP38. |
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Post by Baikal on Mar 27, 2024 20:15:47 GMT -8
Rapido makes a couple halfway decent 25 dollar freight cars that happen to cost 50 dollars. I won't go anywhere near their locomotives. I've spent a lot of time around the independent music industry, playing in bands, booking in venues etc etc, I know a douchebag huckster when I see one and alarm bells go off whenever i'm unfortunate enough to watch one of those videos.
Some people like that kind of abuse.
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Post by Colin 't Hart on Mar 27, 2024 22:30:55 GMT -8
Sigh, that does look too large. Frustrating since they are real ones that they measured and the error is just somewhere in the cad and should have been easily correctable. Par for the course for Rapido. Everything is CAD that can be easily corrected before someone there says, "Meh, good enough!" |
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Post by gevohogger on Mar 28, 2024 3:56:26 GMT -8
I'm surprised that Rapido would venture across America at the time of a massive invasion and then stop at these Democrat controlled sectors which have 700% increased crime rates and have people that would just love to carjack a bus. Hmmmm, I didn't see Portland on their itinerary.
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Post by Colin 't Hart on Mar 28, 2024 5:11:09 GMT -8
I'm surprised that Rapido would venture across America at the time of a massive invasion and then stop at these Democrat controlled sectors which have 700% increased crime rates and have people that would just love to carjack a bus.  |
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Post by csxt8400 on Mar 28, 2024 8:55:44 GMT -8
Brian made the best of points in an articulate manner, so adding this won't move the needle much admittedly.
If Rapido produced a model that each person here considered a "must have" for their operation, I happen to think the feeling of being let down would sink in a lot quicker. I am an artwork snob when I have the information to know enough, and when Rapido does equipment that I am very familiar with, the shortcomings become front and center. Like mentioned, the casual observer who is happy with a general iteration may not care enough to know enough, which is their prerogative. I've found that once the threshold of information is crossed, it's hard to be content with a model/artwork that was not created with passion and care to make things as correct as possible. Slapped together and sent out the door starts to feel like an insulting use of a $50 spot, much worse for a locomotive. This has been where Tangent, Moloco, and depending on the run, Exactrail/Arrowhead shined through much better. You could take a close look and see that the project was crafted with intent to match the prototype.
Now, saying that is also acknowledging that when I and others whom are passionate about their work take on projects, it's usually on our own timelines. If I worked at a major model company I doubt they would enjoy a three or four month time slot dedicated to tracing all lettering on a freight car, orientating it correctly, making sure the stroke size matches, etc. So, the limitations of being a project manager surely can create an impact where using a font instead of crafting an accurate rendition by hand wins out. And that is where the fundamental differences lie in terms of companies I choose to support in nearly every release, and those that I only patronize when it's a needed product that I feel I can utilize.
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Post by cpr4200 on Mar 28, 2024 9:00:19 GMT -8
"This has been where Tangent, Rapido, and depending on the run, Exactrail/Arrowhead shined through much better." Did you mean Rapido? Or maybe Moloco, who, it appears, does trace all the lettering on a freight car?
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Post by csxt8400 on Mar 28, 2024 9:03:16 GMT -8
"This has been where Tangent, Rapido, and depending on the run, Exactrail/Arrowhead shined through much better." Did you mean Rapido? Or maybe Moloco, who, it appears, does trace all the lettering on a freight car? Yes, proof reading failed me it seems. Corrected. And yes, Moloco is certainly one of cream of the crop when it comes to recreating artwork instead of searching through serif/non-serif fonts on Adobe. |
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Post by kangaroose on Mar 28, 2024 9:39:38 GMT -8
Correct, we do NOT use ANY, not ONE font from commercial sources, they are all drawn from scratch following detailed crisp images only, right down to the 1" lettering. We have always done this. To me this attention to detail shows in our cars when you compare them to the prototype. Likewise on the CAD side for moloco, i do all the CAD work myself, no 3rd parties. I'm a professional industrial designer (since 1986) and toolmaker (since 1996) and a freight car nut, it's the only way to do all this correctly in my opinion. Nick nick molo, owner and founder Moloco "This has been where Tangent, Rapido, and depending on the run, Exactrail/Arrowhead shined through much better." Did you mean Rapido? Or maybe Moloco, who, it appears, does trace all the lettering on a freight car? |
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