Well, I received a few hours ago the newest Telegraph Newsletter from Rapido Trains and the only Info is a huge one!
They are going to do the Canadian Pacific’s The Canadian and unfortunately I can’t post the Telegraph here (or I don’t know how).
It will be a 10-Car Set with two matching FP9’s and a F9B Dummy. Locos are with DCC/Sound and the Cars and Locos will have all the roadspecific details!!
It will come in several different paint schemes and now you ask “what will I have to pay?”: For the 10 Cars /2 Locos / 1Coupon for the Dummy B Unit price is $1499.95
It is Limited to 2000 Sets and scheduled delivery is planned for early 2010.
It does sound very promising and something I can’t pass up - at least 1 Train I have to buy.[:D]
For the 1500 dollars, make it a powered B unit special for a ABA consist. They have until at least 2010 according to the mailing. They did stress that only 2000 sets will be made. And mentioned two other tidbits. One is the Hobby Shop not say what price it will be until Distributors tell them what it will be and the other item was the Rapido taking a shot at the B&O Fans who must have a very difficult time finding B&O Coaches.
If they had trouble making sure the Turbo Train was able to pull the maximum consist availible… 9 cars… they need to really consider making that B unit a powered one. Those 10 cars are going to be heavy.
It’s a nice set I think. But priced way out of my range. I prefer to buy the Pax cars one by one because it takes time between releases for these items.
I’m going to put an order in for one as well. I agree the B unit should be powered, Jason are you listening? For the extra cost involved it would be well worth it.
I would not be interested because I have a few diesels and model mostly steam…sorry. But, if my voice can be of any help to those hoping the B-unit will be powered, please…it makes so much more sense for those who would love to have this set, but who may not be able to make it function worth a darn on their smallish layout with its necessarily steep grades. Even if you were obliged to add another, say, $30-40 to the cost of the set, Jason, the extra power would increase its potential (and potency) so much more that you are likely to sell more.
Mabye, if it doesn’t throw a huge wrench into things for you (I know next to nothing about the business…apologies for my presumption), you could offer a few powered B-units for those willing to pay for/needing them? Offering potential customers something that they even suspect may be marginal leaves them disappointed and you without the sale. Announce that both units will have the oomph after all and you’ll do very nicely indeed. [:D]
Yippee !!! The train I have been waiting for. I will be getting one for sure. I just hope the wait isn’t like my Sunset models Canadian Pacific Selkirk that I’ve been waiting for. Who knows when I’ll get that. Rapido says 2010 does that really mean 2012??? Dear Rapido. Please power the “B” unit. I’ll need it to pull the train through my 25’ Rogers Pass.
The Canadian is a great train. A piece of Canadian history. My hats off to Rapido Trains for being first to the market. Market leaders drive innovation. The question begs itself why such a small run? 2000 sets, the price point could have came down on the tooling per unit if more sets are produced. Hopefully by 2010, the current economic climate has changed but based on the OECD results, the forescasted projections by Statscan it might be more grimmer in 2010. Is there gonna be an option to buy just the passenger cars? I model post FP9 era.
Rapido is making the F units I hope that they go and buy a Stewart chassis to reverse-engineer it. Why reinvent the wheel? They have commented on other forums that they feel that Intermountain’s FP9s are just FP7s in disguise…whatever.
Things to consider before ordering.
They have yet to produce a Diesel powered locomotive. They have the LRC and the Turbo, both of which are questionable in terms of performance.
They are going to be using the MRC decoder.
The cars are going to require huge curves. Think 28 as a minimum. Rapido cars have Diaphrams that touch and are stiff.
Current Rapido passenger cars need work to get them to run reliably (bowed underbody, wrong coupler height, underweight, tight trucks, tight diaphrams, flash on the diaphrams), one can assume the same issues or new issues will creep up again.
It is a wonderful addition to the Canadian collector’s layouts. If past performance is taken into consideration, 2010 is very optimistic.
The cars will not be offered seperately. I wish they offered the Park car seperately. Many, many modelers would be happy with just that.
Personally, I have assembled an extended Canadian by using Walthers cars as Cores and Athabasca brass sides. It is not as accurate as what Rapido is bringing out in a few years, but it is reliable, beautiful and mine for much, much less then 1500 dollars.