Rapido Trains N Scale LRC Passenger Cars are here

[Nato]

         I just received my Rapido Trains LRC (Light Weight Rapid Comfortable) passenger cars . These are models' of very unique prototype cars, still in service in Canada. The cars along with matching locomotives (since retired) were built for corridor service, and cars have a tilting mechanism that lets the cars bank around curves at high speed. These are some of the finest passenger car models I have seen. The unique fully covered underbody, features all the access hatches and vents. The trucks look like the tilting mechanism trucks and having inboard bearings somewhat like Amfleet cars, the metal wheel sets are remarkably free rolling. The look of the unique car ends looks great, small stirrups that hang down from the ends tend to catch on my Peco code 80 switches. I have not had a chance to run these on the code 55 Wasatch N Scale layout which we will have set up next month. Do not lose the small plastic bag that comes with each car that has more grabs and stirrups for you to carefully attach. Cars come painted in either the original Via Rail Canadian scheme, or the newer Green scheme. There are coaches, and club cars. They couple really close, almost too close to go around very sharp curves, fully detailed interiors with window tinting. A magnetic wand for turning the battery operated lights on or off comes with each car. We will never get the sound equipped unique LRC locomotive which Rapido did in HO, but coming soon sound equipped F40 PH locomotives in the Canada Scheme to match the cars. Nate Goodman (Nato).

[Narlie]

Any thought of numbering them since they come un numbered? Certainly the numbers will be mighty small.
Have started to receive mine. Runs well even on my crappy track. May have to change at least 1 or 2 couplers to MT1016 as Rapido suggests.
Great look and great lighting system.
This car fills a big gap for modern Canadian passenger cars. There are also some Amtrak cars!

Dave B
Montreal

[dem34]

Any thought of numbering them since they come un numbered? Certainly the numbers will be mighty small.

Dave B
Montreal

Microscale makes a Via Passenger Car sheet with numbers in a few colors. I don't model Via so I don't know if they are appropriate for the LRCs.
But if they are its just going to be a case of being careful and patient with the application.

[craigolio1]

So I received three of them today. Mine don’t seem to roll very well. I know the inside bearing design is a tough one and I can see that Rapido has used small bearings on the axles. However when you give mine a good push they only roll about 4”. Pulling them with an Atlas B36-7 (not exactly a tank) and it slips noticeably and a lot on corners. My Kato P42 is much heavier. I hope it will pull better. But it’s out of commission right now.

Is it just mine that are sluggish?

Craig

[peteski]

So I received three of them today. Mine don’t seem to roll very well. I know the inside bearing design is a tough one and I can see that Rapido has used small bearings on the axles.

Interesting.  So they used ball bearings?  Those are poor conductors of electricity, so that will then preclude powering the  interior lighting with track power (I know they use batteries, but I much prefer track power).  Next possible issue I see is that even very small debris getting onsite the ball race will really degrade their rolling ability.

Next is the lubrication.  I wonder if yours roll poorly because they were lubricated with viscous lube?  That will really make the bearings sticky.  I know it seems counter-intuitive, but the ball bearings roll very well when dry, and lubrication kills that.  If anything, they should be lubed with some very free-flowing lubricant (like WD40).

[craigolio1]

Interesting.  So they used ball bearings?  Those are poor conductors of electricity, so that will then preclude powering the  interior lighting with track power (I know they use batteries, but I much prefer track power).  Next possible issue I see is that even very small debris getting onsite the ball race will really degrade their rolling ability.

Next is the lubrication.  I wonder if yours roll poorly because they were lubricated with viscous lube?  That will really make the bearings sticky.  I know it seems counter-intuitive, but the ball bearings roll very well when dry, and lubrication kills that.  If anything, they should be lubed with some very free-flowing lubricant (like WD40).

The lights in these are track powered. In addition to the bearings, there are pickups for power. I didn’t investigate what (if anything) the could be lubricated with.



Craig

[craigolio1]

Was chatting about this with @CNR5529 and he mentioned that the samples rolled quite well and that there could be some tuning of the bearing position required. Looking closer at the pic of the bottom I can see that not all of the bearings are in the same poison.  Maybe one is rubbing on the axle tube?

Craig

[peteski]

The lights in these are track powered. In addition to the bearings, there are pickups for power. I didn’t investigate what (if anything) the could be lubricated with.
Craig

But the power pickups in the trucks are contacting the bearings, not the wheels, correct?  If that is the case then I'm surprised that the bearings conduct electricity well. I remember Max Magliaro describing that the ball bearings he used on his scratch-built steam loco were very poor conductors of electricity.

[brill27mcb]

Maybe I missed it, but I don't see where anyone said they had ball bearings, just "small bearings."

Rich K.

[peteski]

Maybe I missed it, but I don't see where anyone said they had ball bearings, just "small bearings."

Rich K.

Looking at them in the truck photo (and their size), they sure look like ball bearings to me.

[Nato]

              I must add to my review , the lights are track powered, the wand just turns on and off a plunger type switch to turn the track power on and off. I only unboxed two of my cars and their wheels rolled freely, now unboxing the rest these do have the problems described here and in the post in N and Z forum. Nate Goodman (Nato).

[thomasjmdavis]

The lights in these are track powered. In addition to the bearings, there are pickups for power. I didn’t investigate what (if anything) the could be lubricated with.



Craig

The photo shows the same distortion of the frame in the lower right as another photo in the LRC wheel thread on the N&Z forum.  That photo also shows a lot more flash left on the truck frame.  I wonder if one bearing mount isn't .0005 too small, as the distortion is in the same place on the trucks in both photos. 

I was also asking the question over there on whether those are ball bearings- because as Peteski says, they certainly look like ball bearings from this angle.  I don't see how anyone can readily take the trucks apart to check, but if they did use ball bearings, then kudos to Rapido.  I was hoping Rapido would have one of their nice exploded CAD drawings on the product page that might answer some questions, but no such luck- and no mention of bearings, and I'm not in the mood to sort through hundreds of HO announcements and the word soup of the past 25 newsletters, hoping against hope that I might find something pertinent to the discussion.

[dangerboy81]

There is a bit if a discussion going on in the N scale forum too. They are ball bearings, and I read that possibly the axle tube is rubbing on the bearing. I need to look at mine qhen I get home for another look, but I think a problem could be the plastic frame rubbing on the backs of the wheels.