It’s absolutely true! I picked up a Rapido UP lighted coach at my LHS today, and now I have to get rid af all my other passenger cars!!! Well I won’t really get rid of them, but I just gotta’ get the rest of the train now! Mini review: Detail puts everything else I have to shame - including IHC, Athern, Roundhouse, Bachmann Spectrum, and Walthers! The lighting system is awesome - it is included, battery operated, nice flourescent color (colour for the Brits/Aussies/etc), and turns on & off with a wand (supplied, as well as batteries). They include extra long shank couplers for less than 24" radius, but mine runs fine coupled between a Walthers heavyweight diner & a Bachmann Spectrum heavyweight observation with the “short” couplers on 20" radius. They include end gates (installed) and marker lamps, and steam lines that can actually be connected. The only glitch I encountered was in re-installing the roof after putting the batteries into the light assembly. It came off OK, but dosn’t want to snap completely back into place. (If anyone out there has a hint how to snap it back on I would appreciate it). Now for the best part. IHC has their passenger cars on sale for 9.98, but to make them 1/2 way comparable, you’d have to add IHC better trucks for about 20.00, a lighting kit for 15.00, and an interior for 5.00 or 6.00, about $50. The Rapido car lists for $49.99, but my LHS, Model Railway Post Office here in NJ, discounts that to $39.95!![tup][tup][tup][bow]
Cool! I’m waiting for them to release the lighting kits separately. They are just what I need for my Athearn kits.
It is too bad the paint is so bad. I got excited about the North Coast Limited cars until I saw the paint. It is worse than the Kato business car was. There were only a few on the shelf of my LHS but the other road names that were there looked just as bad. One would think that they would have spent just a little time matching paint chips.
Are you referring to the paint application or the color? I have in excess of 300 Armour Yellow UP cars & locos, & I’ll bet there are about 30 or 40 variations of the color! Take a look at some prototype cars or photos, depending on the weathering the colors are all over the place! Also, in the days of rr passenger service, the local shops mixed their own paint! 2 parts this, 1 part that, and 3 parts something else! No trip to the paint store with their computer mixed colors! In the UPRR site, under Historical Photos, there is (or was) color chips for the various colors for rolling stock, buildings, etc. As far as the application, my 64 year old eyes think it’s pretty good.[:)]
The color. I didn’t get as far as looking at the application because the colors were so bad. I just put them back on the shelf.
There is a huge difference in the variations of color on freight cars and locomotives vs. passenger cars. Until the early 1960’s the railroads were very picky about what their passenger fleet looked like. It was THE image of the railroad. I’ve never seen any pictures of NP equipment that has faded to a yellow green. Even a prototype car I found sitting in a corn field in South Dakota hadn’t faded that bad. It had to have been sitting there for 20 years. The (Now I remember one of the other schemes) GN Empire Builder orange looked almost pastel. James Hill would have never have let a car in one of his trains look that bad. I don’t remember seeing a UP car, so perhaps those are better.
Hold the rotten tomatoes on the NP Loewy cars–Rapido’s website said they worked with the Northern Pacific Historical Society to match patch chips and realize that their cars might not match those released by other manufacturers.
I just wished they would release some US prototypes. It appears that all of the Rapido cars are Canadian prototypes. I let loose a little bit of a laugh when I saw that these cars are even going to have “Santa Fe” thrown on there and then looked at the cost. It doesn’t matter to me how great the detail is (the detail is awesome on the Rapido cars), they aren’t worth anything to me if the roads I model never owned such a car.
I do understand that there are the folks that aren’t concerned with prototypical accuracy, and these cars do seem to fill a void for those. I am also glad to see that folks modeling Canadian roads finally have some decent passenger equipment.
I don’t care what they say. I believe I have every published book on the NP. I even tried to purchase the real North Coast Limited dome car #310 in 1989, mostly because it was still in its original colors. These Rapido cars paint doesn’t match anything I’ve ever seen in photo or real life prototype.
Last night I did find one photo of GN cars that seemed to match what Rapido is offering. The photo was way overexposed giving the colors that pastel look. I think that is what is wrong with the NP paint too. It looks like an over exposed photo.
I agree. On my friends Milwaukee Road car it looks like the decals were put on by a poor modeler.
Im still keeping my heavyweights from walthers. I just finished those durn things.
Rapido is indeed the stuff of my dreams ever since I had a crappy smoothside Observation from IHC.
I dont know if the B&O ran those types of cars but frankly I DONT CARE. They will be a part of the railroad before too long.
Rapido = [bow]
I hope my response didn’t come off wrong. I can definately understand where you are coming from in regards to going from IHC to Rapido. They are much better cars, and as pointed out above, after you spend the money and time to improve an IHC car (and still not come close to the quality of the Rapido cars)…well, you may as well just purchase a nice car that is ready to run out of the box. They should look nice in the B&O paint (in my opinion nothing looks bad in the B&O paint).
Paint will vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. UP Armor Yellow from Scalecoat will be a different shade compared to UP Armor Yellow from Floquil, Accupaint and so on so on. I can bet you’re bottom dollar that the paint Chips from the NP Historical Society will be entirely different than from the model paint manufacturers. Kato uses paint from a Japanese paint company. I have some actual ATSF Paint cards and that ATSF Red is much brighter on the card than on the models by any manufacturer. The same will apply w/the paint used by Rapido. The largest factor in how well the paint looks is the light in which the model is viewed. I have looked at the Rapido models at one of my LHS’ and the paint looked to be more accurate than that used by Kato on the business car for the NP. NP’s Dark green will fade to a grey green and the light green will fade to a pastel green.
Ch
TexasZephyr,
Contact the owner of Rapido and share your concerns with him. From what my LHS’s owner told me, he’s a pretty down to earth guy, a model railroader, values input, and wants to do things the right way. It’s unlikely that he’ll become a millionaire in this venture.
However, since he’s basically a very small operation it may take him a bit of time to make any needed changes for future releases.
IMHO, the cars look beautiful. I’d like to get an undecorated car and paint it in the RF&P scheme.