Whoop! Rapido 8600s!

[OldEastRR]

Aaaaaand.... where are the batteries? The first car I looked at has Easy-Peasy light board, a wand -- but no batteries. Did I not get the memo?

Also a slight oddity -- once I get the top plastic cover off the car in the box , it won't fit back down again over the bottom insert when I try to close the box again. Not a problem but weird.

[peteski]

Aaaaaand.... where are the batteries? The first car I looked at has Easy-Peasy light board, a wand -- but no batteries. Did I not get the memo?

Also a slight oddity -- once I get the top plastic cover off the car in the box , it won't fit back down again over the bottom insert when I try to close the box again. Not a problem but weird.

So I ponder: Maybe the batteries are preinstalled (or maybe stored under the bottom half of the car cradle)?  As for the cover fit, maybe the car only fits in the cradle one way and you flipped it when placing it back in the cradle?  I won't' know until I get my cars.  But by that time you'll probably have your questions answered already.

[bbussey]

They are under the nest, in a Ziploc bag with the air hoses.

[OldEastRR]

Yep, there they are. The bag is wedged into the bottom cradle underneath, not floating loose in the box.
And: do these cars have positional couplers that can be moved outward to clear sharp curves? What's the minimum radius for them right out of the box?

[bbussey]

The answers to both of those questions probably are in the instructions sheet in the bottom of the box.

[Nato]

      I just received  my six cars today, one of which I ordered in Penn Central. Yes they are worth the wait. I hope we get parlors, and maybe the special run diner that the New Haven Technical and Historical Society helped out with in the HO versions of these cars.              Nate Goodman (Nato).   

[rapidotrains]

Yep, there they are. The bag is wedged into the bottom cradle underneath, not floating loose in the box.
And: do these cars have positional couplers that can be moved outward to clear sharp curves? What's the minimum radius for them right out of the box?

The minimum out of the box is 11". I don't recall if I tested them on 9.75" - though I know the Turbo can handle that.

They don't have the extra coupler position holes like the Osgood Bradleys because the structure gets in the way. If you have tight curves, I recommend replacing one of the 1015s in each car with a 1016. A lot of people do that for the HO cars. One long and one short.

-Jason

[OldEastRR]

  I hope we get parlors, and maybe the special run diner that the New Haven Technical and Historical Society helped out with in the HO versions of these cars.              Nate Goodman (Nato).   

No need. As Mr. Bussey has said at least twice you can easily convert these coaches into the #300-324 City name parlor-chair cars. I'm looking forward to seeing him post photos and construction tips about how to do so. I think he said he can even make the diner cars out of them.

[bbussey]

It's not snap-fit easy, but it is doable.  Regarding the parlor: you need two cars, at least one of them with skirts, which will be the donor car.  The windowband has to be etched, as the parlor windows are longer than the coach windows.  But the windowband is flat on these tubular bodies, so etching is the best option.  One of the vestibule doors gets replaced with skirted fluting from the donor car.  Technically the blind end should have flat sheets instead of sloped, and they can be fabricated from styrene.  The coach windowband can be removed with a milling machine, or by very carefully scoring repeatedly along the fluting edge with a sharp X-Acto blade.  The donor car would help convert at least two coaches into parlors.

I'm actually going to start with the parlor-baggage first, as there is almost no chance of seeing them in N and I need two.  I don't mind waiting a bit to see if Rapido pulls the trigger on N parlors and diners.  I will do what the real New Haven railroad did and use heavyweight parlors and diners until the stainless ones are available.  I scratchbuilt the two heavyweight deluxe diners specifically for this reason.

[Point353]

I'm actually going to start with the parlor-baggage first, as there is almost no chance of seeing them in N and I need two.  I don't mind waiting a bit to see if Rapido pulls the trigger on N parlors and diners.

Any plans to build an observation car?

[bbussey]

Any plans to build an observation car?

Probably not.  I don't see a viable way of forming the tail end due to the tubular nature of the sides.  Also, it's not mandatory to have them in 1956 because by then they no longer were exclusive to the Merchant's Limited and instead were used as mid-train lounge cars as needed.  Given that there were only two of them, it's conceivable that you could train-watch at NH Union Station for a day and not see one.  So I'm okay with not having one.

[OldEastRR]

I'm actually going to start with the parlor-baggage first, as there is almost no chance of seeing them in N and I need two.  I don't mind waiting a bit to see if Rapido pulls the trigger on N parlors and diners.  I will do what the real New Haven railroad did and use heavyweight parlors and diners until the stainless ones are available.  I scratchbuilt the two heavyweight deluxe diners specifically for this reason.

Wouldn't a parlor car be easier to make into a parlor-baggage?

[bbussey]

Wouldn't a parlor car be easier to make into a parlor-baggage?

Yes. But until it’s absolute that Rapido won’t tool and release a parlor, it makes little sense to kitbash parlors when there are alternative substitutions that are accurate from a prototypical standpoint.

[peteski]

I just received my MBTA cars. They do look nice!  The underbodies are very nicely detailed.  The interior still has the seat layout of the New Heaven cars, but I can live with that for now.   The other thing is that the rods on the sides of the diaphragms are not attached at the top end to the car sides. They are free floating and most of them stand proud of the car body surface.   I'm also wondering if they missed the thin yellow stripes at the edges of the purple window band?

However, the most disappointing thing to me is that Rapido chose to modify design of their wheelsets and made both wheels insulated from the axles.  I don't care for battery-operated interior lighting and want to convert it to track-powered lights.  With both wheels insulated, I'll have to replace them for other brand metal wheels (like FVM).  In the past (in Osgood Bradley cars) their wheelsets were of standard design where only one wheel was insulated.  Not sure what made them redesign those. The couplers are also odd. They are clones of MTL couplers, but slightly larger.

But appearance-vise these are very nice cars.

[OldEastRR]

Maybe Rapido figured with both wheels moveable it would make easy widening or narrowing the set to fit certain track types or makes.