Rapido Trains New Look Fishbowl Busses are Wonderful

[Nato]

         Even though I do not have a layout anymore I received four of the "New Look" Fishbowl busses from Rapido Trains. These are probably the best detailed and modeled transit busses I have ever seen modeled in any scale. I rode on some of these babies when they were newly introduced to Salt Lake City Lines in  1963-64 when I was in high school. Now back to the model. Each paint scheme I received was very nicely done also the wheels in a matching body color where appropriate. Separate rear view mirrors on a sprue are to be attached . The super detailed interior can hardly be viewed through the windows in this scale, Rapido thoughtfully includes an exploded diagram with part numbers and a separate  instruction sheet explaining how to remove the body not only to view the interior but to add figures so your bus does not look " Out Of Service". Now for the best feature, it is pre wired so the head and tail lights can be lighted. Th color coded wires Red and Black come out of the bottom of the bus bundled up and ready for your use. All in all these are  superb models. Get them while you can. Nate Goodman. (Nato). Salt Lake, Utah.   

[bbussey]

The Tomix “Old Look” bus is top notch as well, and the two models look good together.

[Nato]

      The "TOMYTECH" GMC TDH 4512 (Yellow)  as part of their "The World Bus Collection" is very nice. I have two in City Lines "Fruit Salad" green, orange, white scheme. These are designed so the body can be placed on a motorized chassis, and used with their roadway system, headlights light up, taillights come on when the bus stops. I did not opt for this conversion as mine were for layout display only.                Nate Goodman (Nato). Salt Lake, Utah.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

I just got mine and it really is the best bus ever made in N scale.

However, there are a few things to keep in mind.

1. The interior is not painted. This is a shame because they did such a nice job on the interiors and the paint on their MBTA Comet cars is great. This is just gray plastic and will need attention.

2. The bus is devoid of all markings. I'm pretty sure the reason behind this is MBTA's archaic lisencing agreements which are both complex and expensive. Luckily, Microscale has a decal set that will work with these. I wonder if busses from NY, Chicago and LA will be as fortunate. Those cities don't share livery between busses and trains.

The attention to detail on this model is really good - pin stripes and perfect paint throughout. The packaging even includes pockets in the blister packaging for when you glue the mirrors on... Something Atlas totally forgot when they made TOFCs with user-installed trailer hitches that wouldn't fit in the packaging.

Rapido: I held my promise for the MBTA Comet cars. I bought three trains and an additional two for spare parts. Do the RTS. I will buy a dozen. We need a RTS.

[Mark5]

Washington DC was the first to receive these buses (1959, DC Transit)

Many more were bought over the years, with the final batches joining the fleet in 1974. WMATA (Metrobus) operated the former DC Transit lines starting in 1973.

The "New Look" buses started being retired in the 1990s, with the last ones making it to 2000.

Rapido did DC Transit in HO, so maybe we'll see something in a future run.

Mark

[bbussey]

I just got mine and it really is the best bus ever made in N scale...

It's well done, but I like the Tomix "Old Look" bus better to be honest.  As I posted in the other thread, there are details missing on the Fishbowl that should be present, such as the aluminum window frames on the simulated roof skylight windows.  There are no markings at all on the New York MTA buses including coach numbers, and the Bat-Wings and roof hatch are not present.  No destination printing or decals.  The lack of MTA markings plausibly could be attributed to licensing issues (maybe), but there is no practical reason for the window frames, coach numbers and destination signs not to be included.
 
Can it be made into an outstanding model?  Yes, most of the members here have the skillset to upgrade the model.  But at the price point, it shouldn't be necessary, and for all those reasons I can't anoint it to the "best ever" pedestal.  If they had replicated the efforts taken with the HO model, it would be a different story.

[bbussey]

      The "TOMYTECH" GMC TDH 4512 (Yellow)  as part of their "The World Bus Collection" is very nice. I have two in City Lines "Fruit Salad" green, orange, white scheme. These are designed so the body can be placed on a motorized chassis, and used with their roadway system, headlights light up, taillights come on when the bus stops. I did not opt for this conversion as mine were for layout display only.                Nate Goodman (Nato). Salt Lake, Utah.

I figured out how to control the motorized chassis on a custom street and wanted to operate one behind New Haven Union Station and have it pull over at the bus stop on Union Avenue, but I ended up not having the room to do it unfortunately.

[ljudice]

This person says message him for n-scale bus decals:

https://www.shapeways.com/shops/schoolbusmodels

[tehachapifan]

Got my "Santa Monica" version today and, yes, it is an outstanding looking model!

Did anyone else catch that the box says HO scale on one side?

[peteski]

Got my "Santa Monica" version today and, yes, it is an outstanding looking model!

Did anyone else catch that the box says HO scale on one side?

BLI made same error on their N scale T1 loco box.