Rapido Baggage cars are finally available

[Nato]

            Just when I thought I was excited enough by the release of the Prairie Shadows Alco FPA-4 diesels another order confirmation flies out to me on the Net that my BLW order for Rapido Baggage cars is shipping. Some of you may remember these are the cars that almost did not make it for an initial lack of orders. Several roads were canceled. These come in a variety of flavors, with or with out car end doors and with or without modern six wheel trucks as per prototype. I' am sure glad they didn't cancel Burlington in the Shadow Line paint scheme. Only down side to all this for me is that I will be out of town for five days to attend the Astro Con 2017 convention in Casper, Wyoming and to view the total Solar Eclipse  on the 21st. This means that both my baggage cars and my Prairie Shadows diesels' will be held at my local Post Office until I return. Nate Goodman (Nato). Salt Lake Utah. 

[thomasjmdavis]

I have one on the way as well- the 6 wheel version.  If  I can scrounge enough bucks for a second before they are gone, will get one with end doors as well.

I had a brief email conversation about these, and the 6 wheel trucks, with Mike M during the design phase.  I never met him in person, but really enjoyed that conversation.

[CBQ Fan]

I will be glad to receive my order of these baggage cars and close out one of these last two pre-order chapters. It will be my final pre-order from Rapido.  I am not saying I will never buy their products, just no more pre-orders.  I feel the same way about Intermountain due to their huge delays with the F units.  I have a handful of F's on order.  Both companies make great products but I am not a fan of how they market N scale products.  The Q cars do look sharp and I look forward to adding them to my roster among others.  If I can get my F7's by year end I will be in good shape!  One order is from September 2015 & the other is September 2014.

[mrp]

I have a couple of NYC on the way.
Does anyone know what was loaded via the end doors?

Michael Pennie

[Maletrain]

I see that they have these made cars in B&O paint, but, as far as I know, B&O never had any streamlined baggage cars.  It seems strange that they would cancel some paint schemes but not a Foobie.  Is it that some people will just buy anything in B&O paint?

[bman]

Is it that some people will just buy anything in B&O paint?

I think this is true for most, if not all, road names. 

[thomasjmdavis]

I see that they have these made cars in B&O paint, but, as far as I know, B&O never had any streamlined baggage cars.  It seems strange that they would cancel some paint schemes but not a Foobie.  Is it that some people will just buy anything in B&O paint?

Well, if they were going with conventional wisdom, they would paint everything for ATSF.  To this day, Con-Cor continues to paint foobie cars in foobie ATSF paint schemes, and they must sell them because they keep making more- so somebody is buying that stuff.  B&O had a very handsome paint scheme, and the cars painted in it look great, even when they are not accurate to prototype.

It does seem to be part of the Rapido marketing plan for most of their passenger cars (other than the Osgood Bradley cars).  The baggage car is a CN prototype, and so it is a "foobie" for most of the roads it is offered for, although many of those roads had something more or less similar. For most roads, if you measure the door spacing and look at roof and underbody details, it is "close, but...."  Of course, this is also true for many other manufacturers, and it does seem that, in general, modelers are less prototype conscious for their passenger cars than for freight cars or locomotives.  And many folks want to have a passenger train of matching cars, which is seldom prototypically accurate, but appeals to a lot of modelers.  So I think Rapido offered these in most of the roads for which they had previously painted coaches and/or sleepers.  They were disappointed that they did not get more reservations for several roads, but given that there have been a number of new head end cars released by MT and others in the years since these were first announced, and these were priced at the top end of the spectrum, it is perhaps not all that surprising that reservations for some roads did not make the cut.

That said, I have always been impressed by the quality and detail of the Rapido cars, and expect to be quite pleased when mine arrives later this week.

[bbussey]

Mine arrived today. Sweet! 

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[Ike the BN Freak]

I will be glad to receive my order of these baggage cars and close out one of these last two pre-order chapters. It will be my final pre-order from Rapido.  I am not saying I will never buy their products, just no more pre-orders.  I feel the same way about Intermountain due to their huge delays with the F units.  I have a handful of F's on order.  Both companies make great products but I am not a fan of how they market N scale products.  The Q cars do look sharp and I look forward to adding them to my roster among others.  If I can get my F7's by year end I will be in good shape!  One order is from September 2015 & the other is September 2014.

However if you don't do the preorders, your order could be the one that made the decision on whether they make that run or not.  I agree sometimes the preorder process takes forever, however if I really want something, I'll preorder it.

[CBQ Fan]

However if you don't do the preorders, your order could be the one that made the decision on whether they make that run or not.  I agree sometimes the preorder process takes forever, however if I really want something, I'll preorder it.

Fair point, but I really have a hard time supporting companies that don't do their homework on marketing. Listing a large group of roadnames to see how many orders you can get and if you can support making a production run doesn't work for me.  It may work for others and that is fine.  I am not hear to bash anyone so I hope it isn't taken that way.  Rapido is good about telling us if they need more orders or how,close or how far away they are. That might make me place an order to get over the hump.

[robert3985]

            Just when I thought I was excited enough by the release of the Prairie Shadows Alco FPA-4 diesels another order confirmation flies out to me on the Net that my BLW order for Rapido Baggage cars is shipping. Some of you may remember these are the cars that almost did not make it for an initial lack of orders. Several roads were canceled. These come in a variety of flavors, with or with out car end doors and with or without modern six wheel trucks as per prototype. I' am sure glad they didn't cancel Burlington in the Shadow Line paint scheme. Only down side to all this for me is that I will be out of town for five days to attend the Astro Con 2017 convention in Casper, Wyoming and to view the total Solar Eclipse  on the 21st. This means that both my baggage cars and my Prairie Shadows diesels' will be held at my local Post Office until I return. Nate Goodman (Nato). Salt Lake Utah. 

@Nato

Nate, I don't think they'll get too lonely down at the local PO...    

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[Ike the BN Freak]

Fair point, but I really have a hard time supporting companies that don't do their homework on marketing. Listing a large group of roadnames to see how many orders you can get and if you can support making a production run doesn't work for me.  It may work for others and that is fine.  I am not hear to bash anyone so I hope it isn't taken that way.  Rapido is good about telling us if they need more orders or how,close or how far away they are. That might make me place an order to get over the hump.

Didn't take it as a bash, but I agree. I wonder how many IM orders have been canceled because the preorders were just short by a few, say if 2 or 3 modelers had placed orders the run would have happen. Where Rapido will tell us which could be the reason I go screw it, I'll order one, so its made.

[CBQ Fan]

My order arrived today.  Very nice product.  They actually seem better quality than some of my original cars. 

[Angus Shops]

I didn't order any (don't fit my CPR theme) but the baggage car in the Mike McGratton train is a prerelease version of the car generously provided by Rapido. It is a beautiful car; I was impressed by the rivet detail on the roof of the car and the underbody detail. I think Rapido has made improvements in their product in each subsequent release, no doubt based on what they learned from the previous product. Ironically I was asked to paint the car into "CPR Classic" for the Mike McGratton train...
I'm one of the lucky few that still has access to a real bricks and mortar hobby shop (Central Hobbies in Vancouver) and I expect they'll have a few cars as shelf stock. I'll probably pick up a NP version if they have one on the shelf; I'm a sucker for the two tone green scheme...
Geoff

[rapidotrains]

Well, if they were going with conventional wisdom, they would paint everything for ATSF.  To this day, Con-Cor continues to paint foobie cars in foobie ATSF paint schemes, and they must sell them because they keep making more- so somebody is buying that stuff.  B&O had a very handsome paint scheme, and the cars painted in it look great, even when they are not accurate to prototype.

It does seem to be part of the Rapido marketing plan for most of their passenger cars (other than the Osgood Bradley cars).  The baggage car is a CN prototype, and so it is a "foobie" for most of the roads it is offered for, although many of those roads had something more or less similar. For most roads, if you measure the door spacing and look at roof and underbody details, it is "close, but...."  Of course, this is also true for many other manufacturers, and it does seem that, in general, modelers are less prototype conscious for their passenger cars than for freight cars or locomotives.  And many folks want to have a passenger train of matching cars, which is seldom prototypically accurate, but appeals to a lot of modelers.  So I think Rapido offered these in most of the roads for which they had previously painted coaches and/or sleepers.  They were disappointed that they did not get more reservations for several roads, but given that there have been a number of new head end cars released by MT and others in the years since these were first announced, and these were priced at the top end of the spectrum, it is perhaps not all that surprising that reservations for some roads did not make the cut.

That said, I have always been impressed by the quality and detail of the Rapido cars, and expect to be quite pleased when mine arrives later this week.

Thank you for the kind words and the very accurate assessment.

The truth is that for passenger cars, there was so much customization that - with the exception of a few common prototypes - every road's cars were different. It's fine for a freight car, where a "custom" car may have had 1200 made. But for passenger cars, it would often be a few dozen or even six or even two.

So it just isn't possible to be accurate to every prototype in passenger cars. Otherwise we could only make about four different roadnames.

As for Osgood Bradleys, we're looking at announcing a run of "Os Good Enough Bradleys." 

I'm actually being serious - they are very close to cars owned by CN and D&H and others, and we could probably do a couple of the deluxe versions such as SP sunset scheme, even though the window arrangement is a bit different.

-Jason