Rapido's GMD-1 development report

[Puddington]

Our upcoming GMD-1 (our first N scale locomotive) is well underway. I thought I'd give the local gentry a bit of an update....

Our latest sample has been reviewed and tested by two N scale "experts" (well; I and many consider them to be expert and they have notoriously high standards for operational and prototypical requirements) and the reviews were very positive. Some minor improvement suggestions were offered and graciously accepted and are being worked on at the factory as I type. Jason's in China right now so he's able to "be there" as they make these little adjustments.

The factory is starting to make shells and the paint shop has been ""having at them"...



All in all things are moving along well and we anticipate these hitting the shelves very early in 2015....

...and that's all from Muppet Labs......................

[tom mann]

Thanks for the update, Pud. 

Looks like someone ordered the fleet!

[Puddington]

We actually got good response to "fleet" orders... those crazy N scalers...........

[MVW]

Can't emphasize enough how nice it is to get production updates. Thank you, sir!

Jim

[reinhardtjh]

They all look very nice!  Thank goodness the Pennsy didn't have any.  I'd go broke.  lol

[lock4244]

Gee Pud, it's hard to tell which one of those is mine... really looking forward to these.

A word to the wise, since Pud went with a complete diecast chassis for these, they will, even in the A-1-A configuration, exceed the axle load limits of your light rail branch lines. They should pull well, but also roll lots of rails 

[CBQ Fan]

I thought we were going to get an update on the n scale sleeper and cafe car??

[peteski]

I thought we were going to get an update on the n scale sleeper and cafe car??

The thread title states "GMD-1 development report".... Are sleeper and cafe cars named GMD-1? 

[CBQ Fan]

The thread title states "GMD-1 development report".... Are sleeper and cafe cars named GMD-1? 

Ya like there is never thread drift at TRW!  I could have pulled an old thread that talked about it but then you would have bitched about resurrecting old topics. 

[Dave Schneider]

Ya like there is never thread drift at TRW!

The hood looks too wide! Not sure about that shade of black.
Back to normal here....better? 

Best wishes, Dave

[jdcolombo]

Can you reveal anything about the sound option?  Is the sound version on the same development track?  I ask only because my understanding is that the Atlas S-2 seems to have been held up by the development of the sound board.  And . . . What kind of speaker?  Located where?  If this is still confidential info, I understand!  Just naturally curious about whether my sound install experiments in other diesels have helped push the envelope at all.

John C.

[Puddington]

John: The ESU Lok sound decoder is pretty much set; the "speaker of choice" is currently in a box being shipped to Jason for the engineers to install and test; Jason will update me (and thus y'all..) sometime next week. The work you have done and shared so graciously on You Tube has been studied by our team so a lot of what we've tried to do is in part based on you're work (so if it fails, I'm blaming you.... no, don't thank me... )

CBQ Fan: I guess I don't know why you'd expect an update on those cars in this thread but here's the update; Jason reviewed the tooling changes and I believe made a further modification but the tooling should be done within a few days, if not now. The schedule has the cars being run in two batches, US roads and Canadian roads. The schedule at that factory is "very fluid" (you can determine what that means yourselves... ) but all things being equal the first batch should be here this fall..... with a few surprise additions to the run.... but I digress....

and then there's this.............



Now, what could that be...............? Hmmmmmmmmmmm..................

Preparing to get yelled at for "teasing" a new product by those who feel that there's no room for fun and games in a deadly serious hobby like N scale model railroading; I remain.....

Da Pud !

[peteski]

Now, what could that be...............? Hmmmmmmmmmmm..................

Preparing to get yelled at for "teasing" a new product by those who feel that there's no room for fun and games in a deadly serious hobby like N scale model railroading; I remain.....

Da Pud !

Wow, a typical (not atypical) for TRW dhread drift! 

Could that be a caboose?  It seems shorter than 40 feet.  BTW, is that aluminum or steel used for the molds?

[Leggy]

I wonder, Pud do you guys use soft or hard tooling?

[wcfn100]

Wow, a typical (not atypical) for TRW dhread drift! 

 It seems shorter than 40 feet.

Like say 37'?


Jason