Rapido N Scale Budd RDC

[Ed Kapuscinski]

The ungodly quantities of RDC's that Kato produced skewed the perception.  They sold well, just left extras.  And those were discounted for years and affected a second run.  But if Kato had Rapido quantity expectations, that story would be different too. 

And made better road name choices.

[Sokramiketes]

And made better road name choices.

Charlie always shared that some good roadnames were saved for the second round.  But even those wouldn't have sold UNGODLY quantities. 

Did I mention production numbers were silly back then?

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Charlie always shared that some good roadnames were saved for the second round.  But even those wouldn't have sold UNGODLY quantities. 

Did I mention production numbers were silly back then?

Oh I remember. I was working at Kleins back then. I saw the emails with the clearance offers for all sorts of stuff (we were basically THE Life-Like Factory Outlet Store, after all).

I remember unloading literal truck loads of their old Blue Box P2K engines.

This entire area in the warehouse used to be full of them.

[dcr1793]

Received our Reading RDCs. One DCC and one DC for non-sound conversion later. Test running the DCC unit and very impressed. Smooth operation and no tracking or power issues whatsoever. Kudos to the Rapido team on this project! While these are out of our main modeling era, my dad took many trips on these exact cars out of Quakertown on Reading's Bethlehem Branch, so we both thought it as fitting to have a pair.

[BCR 570]

I have started working on my Rapido RDC-1.  Last week Philippe Whyte helped me with programming the road number, changing the bell and horn, and dialing the volume down a bit.  Today, under the tutelage of Gary Hinshaw, I assembled two pairs of N-Possible couplers for the RDCs.  Following Andrew's suggestion, I used the soon-to-be released loco boxes with thick lids and short draft gear.  This yields a major improvement over the supplied Micro-Trains couplers which look huge on this model.  The supplied couplers slide out, the new ones slide in and I used the Rapido screws to secure them:










I have begun planning my project to detail the car for the British Columbia Railway circa late 1970s.  I hope to use Union Stations Products Budd fluting to install the missing fluting across the doors and on the front end, and Ngineering stainless steel tubing for the stack extensions.  The Rapido parts bag contains parts for the portable Mars light on the door and the Sinclair radio antenna, and Miniatures By Eric offered parts for the Pathfinder lights on the roof and the K5H horns:




Now I have to figure out how to remove the shell as I need to drill holes through the roof and dont want to hit the electronics underneath.


Tim

[spookshow]

Now I have to figure out how to remove the shell as I need to drill holes through the roof and dont want to hit the electronics underneath.

To remove the shell you must first unscrew and remove the couplers. Once those are out of the way you need to spread the sides of the shell away from the chassis. This will free up the six clips (three per side) that hold the shell to the chassis. Once the clips are freed up, the shell should lift up and off.

-Mark]

[jagged ben]

As I said earlier in this thread (I think), about seven toothpicks were pretty handy for spreading the shell to relase the clips.

[OldEastRR]

Did people actually move from one RDC to the next on the prototype while the train was running??

[dandopinski]

Yes

[dem34]

Did people actually move from one RDC to the next on the prototype while the train was running??

Quiet a few services in the 50s-70s even had that as a major part of standard OPs.
You have stuff like the PRSL where it would leave the terminal with a full train of 5 Budds but as it passed each branch one would split off and head down before rejoining for the return trip.

[Lackawannae8]

I bought one with DCC/sound and one DC version.  Looks like the built-in keep-alive circuit is also functional (for lights only) running in DC (no decoder - just the dummy Next18 plug).   The keep-alive uses 2 1F 2.7V caps in series (for total of 0.5F 5.4V) and a DC/DC converter for the keep-alive function. Somewhat similar to ESU small Power Packs and ZIMO STACO units.  It is an interesting design.

From what I read on the Interwebs, Rapido has been using similar circuit in their H0 models for some time.  This is the first time it showed up in an N scale model.

Did you ever figure out a solution to tie in the factory KA with ESU decoder?

[peteski]

Did you ever figure out a solution to tie in the factory KA with ESU decoder?

Not yet. I have to trace the circuit and see if the KA connects to one of the Next 18 AUX pins (likely a logic level one). The rapido's circuit board is rather complex. With all the projects I have piled up this one has not yet moved up to the top.