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Post by mdvle on Sept 24, 2021 16:18:46 GMT -8
They must sense a huge, untapped model train market in brain-dead 14 year old girls and gender-confused early 20 somethings.
US audience for TikTok - 80 million monthly users, 60% female 40% male. 60% are 16-24 with 26% being 25-44.
60% of TikTok users are Gen Zers, next year there will be 74 million Gen Zers - making it the largest generation.
And more importantly, far more engagement typically with TikTok followers - Jennifer Lopez posted video to both TikTok and Twitter. Twitter gave her only 2 million views from her 45 million followers, TikTok got 71 million views from 5 million followers.
The question isn't should we be mocking Rapido for joining TikTok, the question should be what aren't more model train manufacturers on TikTok catching the eyeballs of potential customers (both now and in the future as they grow older).
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Rapido Q&A
Sept 25, 2021 3:33:48 GMT -8
via mobile
Post by rounder on Sept 25, 2021 3:33:48 GMT -8
Hot take……I’m not a member of Tiktok, and barring an onset of severe brain damage I most likely never will be; however I’ve seen enough clips from that site spill over into other media (Reddit, just as one example) to get a decent grasp on it I think. I can’t think of a single example that doesn’t fall under degeneracy or mild retardation or furthering the far left agenda, or some combination thereof.
Having said that, as a general rule teenage girls don’t spend money on model trains, Lionel learned this the hard way in the 60s; and model railroading is, even at its most basic, a fairly technical pursuit. You’re not going to get very far without being able to solder and diagnose mechanical problems. Most of the males I’ve seen in Tiktok videos honestly look incapable of triggering the hood latches on their cars.
So yeah, maybe I’ve finally crossed over into old fart territory and I don’t get it. (I turned 40 this year….the horror)…..It will be interesting to see how it develops. Something tells me this is probably a Jordan or Janet idea and not a Jason idea.
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Post by schroed2 on Sept 25, 2021 4:58:46 GMT -8
So yeah, maybe I’ve finally crossed over into old fart territory and I don’t get it. (I turned 40 this year….the horror)… I do not think that your problem has anything to do with your age...FWIW, I turned 50 this year
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Post by mdvle on Sept 25, 2021 6:41:12 GMT -8
Having said that, as a general rule teenage girls don’t spend money on model trains, Lionel learned this the hard way in the 60s; and model railroading is, even at its most basic, a fairly technical pursuit. You’re not going to get very far without being able to solder and diagnose mechanical problems. Most of the males I’ve seen in Tiktok videos honestly look incapable of triggering the hood latches on their cars. So yeah, maybe I’ve finally crossed over into old fart territory and I don’t get it. (I turned 40 this year….the horror)…..It will be interesting to see how it develops. Something tells me this is probably a Jordan or Janet idea and not a Jason idea.
I suspect there are similarities to your arguments about TikTok that the older generation made first about online forums, and then about Facebook, while moaning that real model railroaders spent their Saturdays handing out at their local hobby shop.
It seems every generation has a new online community, and that community ages with that generation. There are for example indications that teenagers today aren't using Facebook as much as teenagers even 5 years ago did - and part of that will be that they have found and popularized TikTok. And successful companies need to be aware of these shifts and move to where there customers/potential future customers are if they want to remain successful in the long term.
As for who came up with the idea, not a guess - but it is possible it came about as TikTok became a story in the Canadian election that just ended when one of the party leaders went viral on TikTok.
(as a 50+ year old I don't have a TikTok account - but then again TikTok isn't aimed at my or your demographic).
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Post by gevohogger on Sept 27, 2021 7:22:47 GMT -8
A pity Rapido seems to be neglecting their Myspace page like they've been doing....
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Post by mdvle on Sept 28, 2021 5:48:22 GMT -8
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Post by mdvle on Sept 28, 2021 13:23:55 GMT -8
Rapido just posted a tease to Twitter for future potential products - it's CP's business train from this past weekend with the following in the second Tweet:
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Post by mdvle on Sept 30, 2021 13:34:29 GMT -8
Will just note, per today's email, ScaleTrains has also joined TikTok.
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Post by gevohogger on Oct 1, 2021 5:15:06 GMT -8
They must sense a huge, untapped model train market in brain-dead 14 year old girls and gender-confused early 20 somethings. You said that right. A waste of time in it's purest form. Seems to me that Rapido's time might have been better served posting here on this forum rather than trying to catch one or two new modellers out of those 80 million TicToc users. Although looking at it another way, with 80 million users there's always the random chance one or another of them might click on Rapido's posts by pure random dumb luck.
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Post by jonklein611 on Oct 1, 2021 5:52:26 GMT -8
You said that right. A waste of time in it's purest form. Seems to me that Rapido's time might have been better served posting here on this forum rather than trying to catch one or two new modellers out of those 80 million TicToc users. Although looking at it another way, with 80 million users there's always the random chance one or another of them might click on Rapido's posts by pure random dumb luck. Well Rapido used to post on here quite a bit. Nice discussions with Jason, Bill and some others. They all got run off with pitchforks and torches from various issues in threads. Also, TikTok has over 1 billion users, there's bound to be some existing or future model railroaders out there. It's no different than other manufacturers posting on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, etc. If it reaches clients and gets sales, companies are going to run with it.
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Post by gevohogger on Oct 1, 2021 6:46:46 GMT -8
Seems to me that Rapido's time might have been better served posting here on this forum rather than trying to catch one or two new modellers out of those 80 million TicToc users. Although looking at it another way, with 80 million users there's always the random chance one or another of them might click on Rapido's posts by pure random dumb luck. Well Rapido used to post on here quite a bit. Nice discussions with Jason, Bill and some others. They all got run off with pitchforks and torches from various issues in threads. It didn't have to be that way. Their debacles and their unwillingness to account for them were their own doing.
I suppose we could have gone the whole Model Railroader route and reviewed each new release as 100% perfect but what is the point of that?
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Post by 690 on Oct 1, 2021 8:29:55 GMT -8
As I recall, a lot of the complaints made on this forum were rather aggressive. Perhaps had they been handled more diplomatically you’d still see a more active Rapido presence on this forum.
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Post by riogrande on Oct 1, 2021 8:33:48 GMT -8
As I recall, a lot of the complaints made on this forum were rather aggressive. Perhaps had they been handled more diplomatically you’d still see a more active Rapido presence on this forum. Toxic and many pages of it. I don't expect we'll see Rapido here for a good while. They do post over at TrainOrders still.
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Post by edwardsutorik on Oct 1, 2021 11:43:15 GMT -8
My recollection is that it was one person who went over the top concerning the B36-7. I'm not a B36-7 kinda guy, so I didn't follow it closely.
Rapido chose to handle that by abandoning the forum.
Ed
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Post by jonklein611 on Oct 1, 2021 12:26:06 GMT -8
It didn't have to be that way. Their debacles and their unwillingness to account for them were their own doing. I suppose we could have gone the whole Model Railroader route and reviewed each new release as 100% perfect but what is the point of that? No it didn't have to be that way. There could have been appropriate, civil, and respectful discussions around the issues at hand. I believe a majority of this forum provides feedback in that manner, and Rapido has owned up to various issues, mistakes, etc. in their models. They've also provided justification as to why certain design / molding decisions were made. They've also listened to feedback and completely retooled other models based on that feedback. I do also believe that Rapido could have done a much better job at communicating what was changing in the tooling and for what reasons prior to closing the ordering books. My best guess is there were some details / communications that were missed due to the changeover in project managers mid design. Something was bound to fall through the cracks and it burned the Seaboard / CSK base. At the end of the day it's a business and it needs to make money to survive. If something isn't profitable to do, it won't get done. In this industry we end up with a fair amount of compromises, foobies, and other "close enough" products. People are also free to vote with their wallet on what "close enough" is for them and there is no "correct" answer for everyone. I've made the argument before that no model is a 100% perfect representation of the prototype, regardless of who produced it. Rapido's UK Division's latest newsletter also touched on the same subject:
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Post by fr8kar on Oct 1, 2021 12:41:13 GMT -8
It didn't have to be that way. Their debacles and their unwillingness to account for them were their own doing. I suppose we could have gone the whole Model Railroader route and reviewed each new release as 100% perfect but what is the point of that? No it didn't have to be that way. There could have been appropriate, civil, and respectful discussions around the issues at hand. That did happen in that thread. I think everyone who read that thread saw there was a lot of dead horse beating going on, but to just toss the baby out with the bathwater because of one person's comments is silly. The variation that was ignored was present on a majority of the prototypes. They scanned one of those prototypes. It got changed to match the others. That would have been good to know from the start. That's all.
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Post by jonklein611 on Oct 1, 2021 13:45:15 GMT -8
Seems to be a consistent pattern of releases from Rapido that do not quite live up to the hype promised at announcement time. The SW1200 is a prime example. Whatever happened to the track system that was supposed to put everybody else’s to shame? There was a big ad campaign about 10-12 years ago, followed by long delays, and it just quietly went away. SW1200 they bit off more than they could chew at once (and have admitted it). It's influenced their more recent releases (6-8 paint schemes, multiple releases over time, etc.) The track system (Bendy Track), they got bamboozled by a company in China. The track was a clone of another company's track and the price quadrupled from what they were originally quoted. Jason mentioned the details on this forum: i like how your expanding out into other things!!! Whatever happened to the flex track you guys were working on? Easy peasy lighting? The track was a nightmare. Our factory at the time told us they had track and sent us an amazing sample. We gave them an immediate order and launched the product. We even crushed one of the samples under a real train! Then the stuff arrived and it was garbage. They hadn't really made the track. They had taken someone else's track sample and sent it to us. We sent it all back and demanded they retool it. They did, and the resulting track looked good but the rail was not the profile we specified and the spikes were too small. We stopped working with that factory as we can't work with dishonest people. So Bendy Track died with that relationship. I'm using Peco 83 and Shinohara 70 on my layout. I wish Peco did code 70 as their track is phenomenal. As for Easy-Peasy, they will be back in stock later this year. -Jason atlasrescueforum.proboards.com/thread/4801/latest-rapido-news-out-productsFrom Rapido News 58: Not everything's been a winner from them. Their budget series are no more, Icons of Steam got dialed back due to lack of demand, and some projects never came to fruition (Remember their C liner?).
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Post by edwardsutorik on Oct 1, 2021 14:24:18 GMT -8
SW1200: "bit off more than they could chew at once"
I've heard that so often it oughta go on the Rapido tombstone (God forbid). Perhaps they should have kept chewing a bit longer, so as to be able to get it down (as my Mom told me some years ago).
That is a LOUSY excuse, except if it explains why it took so long to get something right.
Ed
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Oct 1, 2021 19:41:54 GMT -8
SW1200: "bit off more than they could chew at once" I've heard that so often it oughta go on the Rapido tombstone (God forbid). Perhaps they should have kept chewing a bit longer, so as to be able to get it down (as my Mom told me some years ago). That is a LOUSY excuse, except if it explains why it took so long to get something right. Ed Their Amtrak phase III F40's have 9" stripes instead of 8" stripes. The stripes are about .28mm too thick, and they're getting new shells made before the ship. Whatever the excuse, as long as they get it right when they're here. They'll be late once, but they'd be wrong forever.
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Post by edwardsutorik on Oct 2, 2021 5:41:36 GMT -8
SW1200: "bit off more than they could chew at once" I've heard that so often it oughta go on the Rapido tombstone (God forbid). Perhaps they should have kept chewing a bit longer, so as to be able to get it down (as my Mom told me some years ago). That is a LOUSY excuse, except if it explains why it took so long to get something right. Ed Their Amtrak phase III F40's have 9" stripes instead of 8" stripes. The stripes are about .28mm too thick, and they're getting new shells made before the ship. Whatever the excuse, as long as they get it right when they're here. They'll be late once, but they'd be wrong forever. That's about .01" in American, and that's per line. So the 3-stripes are 1/32" too wide. As someone who's removed .01" of white stripe out of the middle of an Amtrak decal, I can see that being a problem. Those are the ones I want! So these aren't included in the "Available Now" statement on the Rapido website? I, too, can wait. I've still got LOTS of work to do on my Superliners. Ed
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Post by delta767332er on Oct 2, 2021 8:00:50 GMT -8
I chuckle when someone (namely Rapido in their video in this case) attempts to minimize an error by stating its size in HO Scale (“1/87th of an inch”, or in thousandths of an inch) in an effort to a.) exclaim the lengths they’re willing to go to be accurate, or more often, b.) ridicule prototype modelers derogatorily as “rivet counters” because they dare complain about such infinitesimally small inaccuracies.
In reality, we don’t see 1” Amtrak stripe errors because they’re 1/87” too big, we see them because they’re 12.5% oversized! Small measurements in HO scale can and do make a difference because of relativity. I promise I’d never complain about a locomotive or freight car being one inch too short. Stripes? SD40-2 cab windows? Stencil lettering? Significant error. Attempting to minimize a size error by stating its HO scale equivalency should always be a blaring red flag to the prototype modeler to run away. Either from a quibbling manufacturer, or a toy train collector hoarding the market, not allowing us to have nice things.
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Post by gevohogger on Oct 2, 2021 12:50:15 GMT -8
I'm trying to remember where the B36-7 issue went off the rails. Were we ever specifically promised SBD/CSX stepwells, or just pilots and snowplows only?
Rapido's website offers little information: "The Rapido HO B36-7 features: 3D scanned from an ex-CSX B36-7 for 100% accurate shape and dimensions....A crazy level of road-specific detail options, with different pilots, anticlimbers, plows, fuel tanks, air dryers, antennas, bell location, wind deflectors, headlight locations, air-conditioning units, beacons, different bodies, multiple nose and rear end styles, three versions of drop step, and so on."
Everything but stepwells.
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Post by jonklein611 on Oct 2, 2021 12:55:16 GMT -8
I'm trying to remember where the B36-7 issue went off the rails. Were we ever specifically promised SBD/CSX stepwells, or just pilots and snowplows only? Rapido's website offers little information: "The Rapido HO B36-7 features: 3D scanned from an ex-CSX B36-7 for 100% accurate shape and dimensions....A crazy level of road-specific detail options, with different pilots, anticlimbers, plows, fuel tanks, air dryers, antennas, bell location, wind deflectors, headlight locations, air-conditioning units, beacons, different bodies, multiple nose and rear end styles, three versions of drop step, and so on."Everything but stepwells. And that's what blew it up. Cliff notes: They scanned a ex seaboard / CSX unit. Seaboard / CSX folks thought it would be 100% accurate for their model including stepwells Rapido made a decision to mold only one version of the stepwells (non Seaboard / CSX) and did a very poor job of communicating the change and their logic for it. Also during the project the original PM left and someone else (with much less B36-7 experience) stepped in which may have caused some of the communication issues.
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Post by edwardsutorik on Oct 2, 2021 13:23:25 GMT -8
I suspect Rapido did a pretty good job of explaining and communicating. I expect it was along the lines of "it would'a cost more and it's such a little thing". I suspect some did not consider that a good enough reason.
That's a lot of suspecting, of course.
You might also expect some upcoming grumpiness about have MU hoses on the pilots of the FA-1's, but no MU electrical receptacles. How's THAT gonna work? "Our sanders work, but nothing else!!!! This sucks!!!"
Ed
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Post by jonklein611 on Oct 2, 2021 13:33:35 GMT -8
I suspect Rapido did a pretty good job of explaining and communicating. I expect it was along the lines of "it would'a cost more and it's such a little thing". I suspect some did not consider that a good enough reason. That's a lot of suspecting, of course. You might also expect some upcoming grumpiness about have MU hoses on the pilots of the FA-1's, but no MU electrical receptacles. How's THAT gonna work? "Our sanders work, but nothing else!!!! This sucks!!!" Ed Part of the rub is they didn't communicate it before the order books closed, or make it clear that those models were not 100% accurate. I believe they didn't show a CSX / Seaboard unit in pre-production sampling. Lots of assumptions on both sides, etc, etc.
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Tom
Full Member
Posts: 229
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Post by Tom on Oct 3, 2021 9:09:37 GMT -8
Basic takeaway bullet-point from this seems to be, it is easy to dismiss concerns about a mediocre execution of a long-awaited model as “toxic”, “over the top”, etc. and maybe write a 500-word essay trying to excuse/justify it, until it is a model that YOU are interested in. Haven't posted here in a while, but some here seem to have shared sentiments, so I feel the need to vent a bit. The situation did get nasty with the B36 and it didn't have to. It's a two way street, and there will be compromises on these models - there has to be. Let's face it- there's no "perfect" model. This leads to the irritation that I have. While I have no interest in a B36-7, I can tell you that nose is a glaring error and we will never hear about it. It's a very well detailed model, not "perfect," but well detailed and a nice execution.
I was a bit irritated by the "unboxing" F40 video where the stripe issue was almost made into a joke. The overlooked, an non-stated elephant in the room on that mistake was that this exact paint job/pad print, was successfully completed on two F40 runs prior to this. These are identical stripes, paint and units with the same lines. From a production perspective, this would seem to show an inconsistency or lack of standardized repository. The larger the item that has become common place for this company is the artwork not matching the product. Most of these items could be avoided if they produced production samples. Those cost money and take a bit of time, but can save you money and ire in the future (as in the case of this "stripe" issue). This would have been able to be corrected BEFORE it was run and produced. For some odd reason, Rapido has clearly never done production samples.
I received my MBTA production F40 yesterday. It contains one tooling mistake that can't be corrected without major surgery and this is present on all of the NJT/MBTA (phase III) models (photo below). Yes, sure, it's "trivial" in the eyes of some (what isn't?), but this is on drawings and there are photos of this everywhere. It's a simple thing that could have been corrected and wasn't. Additionally, the wrong exhaust silencer hatch was placed on the model (a part that is shared by others on this run) and the ghetto grills for the unit were never done. Rather, included are ones from the phase I units in the parts bag (yes, the artwork on the site shows correct ones).
For the amount of money one spends on these models, this is just frustrating. The artwork shows one thing, we're told "pre-production, there will be revisions" then when things arrive, the artwork, which was correct, gets revised to something that isn't' correct (again, there's a chance to correct these things with production samples).
There are plenty of oddities and dimension issues on the phase I F40, and some of us hoped they would be corrected this time around. The photos shown of production models, displays that they were not.
Here's something that I don't think some may see at certain companies:
We (as a community) know you're people and people aren't perfect. We make mistakes. But does anyone know of another manufacturer that preaches perfection? No. Degrees of accuracy, yes.
For me, I'd rather dimensional accuracy and some detail, so I'd go for 50% less of the underside details for the sake of getting larger items correct and possibly saving a few $$ in the process.
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Post by riogrande on Oct 3, 2021 9:36:47 GMT -8
it is easy to dismiss concerns about a mediocre execution of a long-awaited model as “toxic”, “over the top”, etc. No. I read through a number of those discussions and they did reach a point of shrill and definitely toxic. It wasn't that valid points were made, it went far far far beyond that to just raw hatred and vile bitterness. Sure, I get-it. When you are interested in a particular model, it matters much more. But again, a number discussions in the past year or two pretty much guarantee Rapido will not be back to this forum for a very long time. There is constructive criticism and there is justified criticism but some of what happened was like an adult temper tantrum that went on and on and on.
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Post by edwardsutorik on Oct 3, 2021 10:01:34 GMT -8
The artwork for the just announced GN and NH FA-1's shows MU hoses on the front, but no MU receptacle. Happened on the FA-2's, too.
That's not even criticism, just a statement of fact.
Meanwhile, I tried a search for the B36-7 "discussion", and I'm not turning it up. Anyone have a link? I'd like to read what was actually said, rather than it being recalled.
Ed
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Post by gevohogger on Oct 3, 2021 10:24:51 GMT -8
Meanwhile, I tried a search for the B36-7 "discussion", and I'm not turning it up. Anyone have a link? I'd like to read what was actually said, rather than it being recalled. I'm starting to think it wasn't as toxic as some like to recall it as. I do clearly remember a "meme" someone made that was hilarious. "Santa Fe pays the bills around here!"
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Post by nsc39d8 on Oct 3, 2021 12:00:31 GMT -8
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