Model Railroading > Rapido Budd Coaches

I received these cars this week and I'm very happy with them. They have nice detail and will work well with my early '70s Amtrak trains. The paint used to represent the bare metal of the prototype looks pretty good. It is a little heavy in some areas, but overall nicely done. The interiors look great too. Multiple numbers are available in each paint scheme. Good job Rapido!

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SCL car.

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Amtrak car.

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Hopefully Jason sees this...

What prototype are these cars based off of?

CSabresXr1 Wrote:
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> Hopefully Jason sees this...
>
> What prototype are these cars based off of?

Canadian Pacific's "Canadian." I do like that SCL car . . . it would look good behind a GG1.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/14 09:54 by wlankenau.

They are the Canadian Pacific's Budd Coach used in the Canadian. They are close to other prototypes and the paint does look nice. Thanks for sharing photos.

Sweet!!!

RailThunder Wrote:
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> They are the Canadian Pacific's Budd Coach used in
> the Canadian. They are close to other prototypes

And thats my problem with Rapido. They did a fine job at producing this car. Made for the Canadian and I bet damn accurate for that prototype, and then slapped on different paint jobs for the yanks. Ahh its close enough for them, and then charge over $100 bucks for it. They are fine cars, but for that money I would hope for better than close enough.

Yeah, those things look DAMN good.

- Jeff Carlson

Wow, those look really good!

Joel Brazy
Coatesville, PA

TomG Wrote:
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> RailThunder Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > They are the Canadian Pacific's Budd Coach used
> in
> > the Canadian. They are close to other
> prototypes
>
> And thats my problem with Rapido. They did a fine
> job at producing this car. Made for the Canadian
> and I bet damn accurate for that prototype, and
> then slapped on different paint jobs for the
> yanks. Ahh its close enough for them, and then
> charge over $100 bucks for it. They are fine cars,
> but for that money I would hope for better than
> close enough.

Hah! .... now you know what it feels like.

Rick

Yes Roo you are so right. But then you cant complain. Athearn has made a Genesis F unit thats exact for you Aussies, a Mt Newman Mining F7. hehehe



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/14 16:23 by TomG.

My special stash just shrunk. Will need one Santa Fe car for the business train.
Charlie
MP 53 on the BNSF Topeka Sub

How easy is it to access the car interiors? That SCL car would look great on a late 1970s Empire Service train, behind a bedraggled Penn Central E8, but I wnat to put some people in it.

TomG Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> RailThunder Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > They are the Canadian Pacific's Budd Coach used
> in
> > the Canadian. They are close to other
> prototypes
>
> And thats my problem with Rapido. They did a fine
> job at producing this car. Made for the Canadian
> and I bet damn accurate for that prototype, and
> then slapped on different paint jobs for the
> yanks. Ahh its close enough for them, and then
> charge over $100 bucks for it. They are fine cars,
> but for that money I would hope for better than
> close enough.

I model the SCL, Amtrak, and have a serious addction to anything passenger. For the SCL cars they are a decent stand in for the exC&O coaches that were on the roster and into the Amtrak era as well. The construction is engineered so the car body is one piece vs. a Walthers type design with an internal skeleton. I can relate to your point and it is a unique scenario replicating passenger cars as there were numerous order plans from Budd, Pullman Standard etc., with railroad specific requirements both exterior, interior and under the hood. As such passenger modeling also covers a wide spectrum from railroad detail specific to generic plane jane. I have no vested interest in any model manufacturer, but could relate to the expense involved in replicating each carriers variants. Sure, I can remember almost wanting to barf a long time ago when seeing an AHM duplex sleeper painted for UP and other roads as it was a Pennsy prototype. Every modeler has their line in the sand of what is exceptable to them and what they are trying to accomplish. From prototype fidelity to wanting the right feel of a passenger train. My personal line is it has to give the passenger train a unique feel with a sprinkle of diversity. In this case since modeling the Southeast every train was the same consist, but different builders and plans could be seen in different consists. If one were to look at a northbound and southbound Seaboard Coast Line or Amtrak Silver Meteor, Star, or Champion they would each have dramatically different consists from different builders in it. On the contrary I do have very firm lines on the locomotives and an FP45 painted in Amtrak is complete barf compared to a high quality model of the SDP40F.

This coach run from Rapido is different as they produced roadnames that were "cousins" to the CP coach and carefully did the paint and lettering per prototype. While they are "stand-ins" they are among the best I've seen yet and blend in nicely. Walthers has done the exact prototype Santa Fe, Seaboard, Atlantic Coast Line, Seaboard Coast Line, and Amtrak coaches. They also did the same thing with the Santa Fe 44 Seat Coach in doing it in SCL to replicate a C&O order and other roadnames as well so it's not just unique to Rapido with close enough. I will say I have put my Rapido Canadian through it's paces on the railroad and it tracks wonderfully with some minor tweaking (had a brake pipe that was haning a little low on one car). It also does wonderfully in reverse maneuvers through #6 and #8 turnouts and operation through superelevated curves. My Walthers cars do well too, but require more tweaking than the Rapidos. All of this said I would be interested in buying complete Rapido passenger car underframes and trucks to mount under Walthers passenger cars and some future brass car projects.

Last, but not least I'm not worried about this coach being a Canadian prototype. In retrospect our friends to the north are doing a great job of nailing Canadian prototypes and from the passenger perspecitive there aren't a ton more prototypes left to do in CP, CN, or VIA. I would urge Jason and crew to consider signature type cars in leu of the whole train concept like Walthers. How about a Baggage Lounge like on the Twin Cities Zephyr or square Dome Observation like used on the Denver Zephyr or Sun Lounge on the Seaboard etc. An exArmy Hospital car configured as a Baggage Dorm or Lounge in Amtrak Phase I, II, III?

RailThunder Wrote:

> Last, but not least I'm not worried about this
> coach being a Canadian prototype. In retrospect
> our friends to the north are doing a great job of
> nailing Canadian prototypes and from the passenger
> perspecitive there aren't a ton more prototypes
> left to do in CP, CN, or VIA. I would urge Jason
> and crew to consider signature type cars in leu of
> the whole train concept like Walthers. How about
> a Baggage Lounge like on the Twin Cities Zephyr or
> square Dome Observation like used on the Denver
> Zephyr or Sun Lounge on the Seaboard etc. An
> exArmy Hospital car configured as a Baggage Dorm
> or Lounge in Amtrak Phase I, II, III?

Thanks for the kind words and a great explanation of the logistics behind accurate passenger cars.

Simply put, unless you are modelling a handful of cars (such as pre-war Pullman sleepers), it is impossible to make a car that is accurate for more than a very small handful of paint schemes. Passenger cars were highly customized. If we wanted to do an accurate coach to our level of detail for every paint scheme, we're talking $60K investment per car. Many of these schemes will sell only 300 or 400 cars. That's a tooling cost of $150 per car, which brings the retail price up in the $400-$500 range. You might as well buy brass.

We have quite a few more passenger cars planned, and we are indeed looking south.

We have an all-new passenger project we're announcing either late this year or early next year which is going to suck up a lot of our resources. But it will make a lot of people happy. The R&D is almost done.

-Jason

Great work Jason but I wish we could get more heavyweight cars. But I suppose the market might be limited. But it would seem heavyweight front end cars would go as these were often on the front end of trains with the streamlined cars and often they would be interchanged among various roads. But for now, I'm reserved to kitbashing or hoping Walthers will come out with more.

wabash2800 Wrote:
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> Great work Jason but I wish we could get more
> heavyweight cars. But I suppose the market might
> be limited. But it would seem heavyweight front
> end cars would go as these were often on the front
> end of trains with the streamlined cars and often
> they would be interchanged among various roads.
> But for now, I'm reserved to kitbashing or hoping
> Walthers will come out with more.

We have some heavyweights planned. But our schedule is quite full for the next couple of years so it won't happen so quickly.

-Jason

Thanks.