Rapido 44-tonners due soon

[lvrr325]

Per today's newsletter from the distributor they expect Rapido 44-tonners next week.  Sometimes that means two or three weeks out, though so no promises.  

I did pre-order a NYO&W and an exclusive Arcade & Attica plus a few for a customer.  There probably will be extras right when they come in.  I meant to get one of the unlettered ones too.


incidentally a new run of the Bachmann one is out.  List price is only $399.  Yes you read that right, four hundred dollars for a sound engine with warmed over 30 year old tooling, vs. $299 for Rapido with sound and $189 without.  I predict closeouts in a few months for 50% off list still not selling because people will be struggling to sell them retail for that.


I can probably open one and post photos when they show up.  I might even test run the A&A to see how the sound is (they're sound only).   

[cpr4200]

Man, seems like it's all hitting at once. I have an HBS reserved with Trainworld. Hoping they do Pinsly roads in a later run.

[hudsonyard]

Maybe these will be nice, maybe they will make Middletown and NJ/Unionville units, maybe i will entertain buying one in the future.

[jonklein611]

I'm assuming that means the well cars are coming in too.

[lvrr325]

Nothing in the email I got but if they shipped out at the same time then probably.

The CN boxcars were super tight, I could get singles of the modern CNNA scheme extra and that's it.

[ambluco]

A reminder the A&A models represent the newest scheme, not the as delivered scheme. They look similar.

[lackawanna1223]

Aug 8, 2024 16:27:57 GMT -8 hudsonyard said:

Maybe these will be nice, maybe they will make Middletown and NJ/Unionville units, maybe i will entertain buying one in the future.

I’m hoping for the black and white scheme but I suspect they’ll do the blue and yellow if they do any at all. Maybe a special run for a distributor?

[hudsonyard]

Aug 8, 2024 18:43:28 GMT -8 lackawanna1223 said:

Aug 8, 2024 16:27:57 GMT -8 hudsonyard said:

Maybe these will be nice, maybe they will make Middletown and NJ/Unionville units, maybe i will entertain buying one in the future.

I’m hoping for the black and white scheme but I suspect they’ll do the blue and yellow if they do any at all. Maybe a special run for a distributor?

I'd be okay with either scheme, a M&U unit however could open up the possibilities of doing hanford, NJ as a small single location layout..

[edwardsutorik]

There were 386 44-tonners built.

If the average purchase quantity was two, then there are 193 delivery schemes that can be done.

And then there's the repaints. And the later owners.

YIKES!!! Ye olde bottomless pit.


Ed

[JohnJ]

Aug 8, 2024 19:34:55 GMT -8 edwardsutorik said:

There were 386 44-tonners built.

If the average purchase quantity was two, then there are 193 delivery schemes that can be done.

And then there's the repaints. And the later owners.

YIKES!!! Ye olde bottomless pit.


Ed

This article lists owners, which I assume to be just the original owners. Plenty of variety for sure. www.american-rails.com/44t.html

[lvrr325]

I can drop a hint to my sales guy, not sure if it will do much good but can't hurt

[lvrr325]

My salesman called to thank me for doing a pre-order so I asked where these were and they are at the distributor, but not in the system yet, Rapido shipped cases with mixed part numbers and they're sorting them for their inventory.

So I would expect by the end of the week retailers will have them and be shipping them out.

[ambluco]

Thanks for the update.

[cpr4200]

I've seen some B&M's on ebay, so they're out in the wild. Haven't heard anything from Trainworld about my Hoboken Shore preorder yet.

[lvrr325]

UPS decided to sit on mine for a day for no apparent reason, they are here in town but won't be delivered until Friday. I already sold the Arcade & Attica one. And they sold right out within a day. I think a Hoboken Shore was left.

I splurged last minute and grabbed a yellow unlettered one, nobody had any on eBay. But if that one doesn't sell I wouldn't be too upset.

[crblue]

Aug 28, 2024 6:24:19 GMT -8 cpr4200 said:

I've seen some B&M's on ebay, so they're out in the wild. Haven't heard anything from Trainworld about my Hoboken Shore preorder yet.

they just charged my card for a PRR one.

[cpr4200]

I just got TWO notifications from TW. Pretty sure I only ordered one engine.

[jonklein611]

Aug 30, 2024 7:55:26 GMT -8 cpr4200 said:

I just got TWO notifications from TW. Pretty sure I only ordered one engine.

They have been having that bug in their system. I get double emails for all my stuff from them, not sure why. Only charged once, so it's all good.

[lvrr325]

UPS finally showed up 5:30 today, no apparent reason why they delayed the delivery one day. Except they boned me twice. First because I already sold two things in the box and they should have gone out today, will go out tomorrow instead, second because the distributor made a mistake and mixed up the part numbers for the red and yellow unlettered, so my yellow one showed up red. Okay but yellow are sold out, I think one was left yesterday. So I am SOL unless I buy a sound one instead, there's one of those, but I can't even talk to anyone there until Tuesday with the holiday.

So I'm going out later and have a drink. Or three.

[cpr4200]

Looks like they've hit everywhere. Lombard has the best prices in the U.S., $240. Toy Train Heaven has undecs, $260. Otter Valley has them for $297 CDN, which comes out to $219 US. OVR also has undecs.

[crblue]

I got mine today. Pennsy. According to the manual, some railroads' have lighted numberboards. The PRR ones don't, and that's a bummer because I'm a sucker for lights.

Detail is superb. The headlight is not too bright, which I think perfectly captures the PRR's use of headlights in the 1940's. The horn is a bit too low compared to the engine, IMO, but easily fixed. The top speed is 37 scale MPH. The real thing had a top speed of 35mph, so while it's realistic I want to fix the CVs so it starts moving before speed step 20. Hopefully I can get it to go a little faster too.

It feels heavy for such a small engine, and the sound is perfectly acceptable for its small size. Top speed aside, there's not much to dislike about this model.

[fiend540]

I kind of regret not getting an Arcade and Attica unit

[crblue]

I set CV5 to 255, and the max speed jumped up to 58 scale MPH. Setting CV2 at 10 provided a slightly better starting speed. The decoder wasn't respecting my CV6 (vMid), so I set CV 29 to 14 (simple speed curve) and I think it's behaving a bit more like the rest of my fleet, but the batteries in my UWT unexpectedly died, so that's the end of that for the evening!

[cpr4200]

My HBS 701 came from TrainWorld today. Wow. Just wow. The ultimate 44-tonner, IMO. Better than brass. A couple of undecs are on the way to be painted for Claremont & Concord. Will have to set up a test track.

The only negative I can see so far is the nose stripes don't look quite wide enough. They're not too prominent in the photos I've seen, so I hit mine with some dark gray Tamiya panel line accent color. Will also give the shutters some grayish grime to tone down the color. Should look fine. I don't remember if the road name on the sill was white or yellow. Hard to tell in photos on line.

Another thing is that some of the "guts" can be seen through the vents on top of the hood. If I take it apart I might glue a layer of black nylon mesh inside the shell to mask that stuff.

Looking forward to Gotham's draft gear/coupler pockets.

[lackawanna1223]

Hoping for a road name in the second run that I could use. The plain red in the first run is tempting me for a shortline.

[ambluco]

M&NJ second scheme? Me too.

I own a total of 17 of these things in all phases. Two decorated, the rest waiting custom decals (and a few commercially available sets).

Sept 9, 2024 11:49:34 GMT -8 lackawanna1223 said:

Hoping for a road name in the second run that I could use. The plain red in the first run is tempting me for a shortline.

[lackawanna1223]

Sept 9, 2024 12:53:20 GMT -8 ambluco said:

M&NJ second scheme? Me too.

I own a total of 17 of these things in all phases. Two decorated, the rest waiting custom decals (and a few commercially available sets).

Sept 9, 2024 11:49:34 GMT -8 lackawanna1223 said:

Hoping for a road name in the second run that I could use. The plain red in the first run is tempting me for a shortline.

I’d love a black and white or red and gray M&NJ but I suspect that’s not gonna happen this side of rolling my own. A Lackawanna is more likely.

[cpr4200]

Well, I got skunked on finding an undec Phase IV. Otter Valley showed them on their site, so I ordered one. "Sorry, we made an error when entering the products and don't have any." So I ordered a Pennsy to strip. I also hit Hogtrainz, whose site indicated they were in stock. "Sorry, you missed the last one by two hours." Then I ordered a DC one from Toy Train Heaven. Today I received a refund -- out of stock. Showed on the website! They still show an undec DCC Phase IV, but their price is a little high. Lombard didn't get any undecs. Guess I'll end up stripping the Pennsy engine.

Update: TTH still showed DCC Phase IV undecs today, so I ordered one. Promptly got a refund, "out of stock." Usually when something is out of stock at TTH instead of "add to cart" the entry says "read more." I'd hope that these online stores would update to accurately show what's actually in stock. Guess they don't.

[lvrr325]

I never was able to get undecs either, if my distributor got them they only got to preorder and no extra. Unlettered painted yes, in fact the last three are on the way to me right now. I think I posted before, no yellow ones.

[marknycfan]

My LIRR showed up yesterday, it'll be a few weeks before I can program and run it.