Model Railroading > Rapido WP RDC....returned to China?

The arrival of the latest run of Rapido RDCs has sparked a few threads on this board.  A friend of mine is expecting one of the Western Pacific models, he hadn't heard anything about it yet.  I did a little bit of looking on the internet this morning, and at least one vendor is reporting Rapido returned the entire WP run to China due to paint defects.  I haven't seen this confirmed anywhere else, but I do see Walthers has an expected arrival date of the Zephyrettes as around the end of May.  

Can anyone comment on this one way or another, or know what the issue was? 

Thanks!

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

JDLX Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The arrival of the latest run of Rapido RDCs has
> sparked a few threads on this board.  A friend of
> mine is expecting one of the Western Pacific
> models, he hadn't heard anything about it yet.  I
> did a little bit of looking on the internet this
> morning, and at least one vendor is reporting
> Rapido returned the entire WP run to China due to
> paint defects.  I haven't seen this confirmed
> anywhere else, but I do see Walthers has an
> expected arrival date of the Zephyrettes as around
> the end of May.  
>
> Can anyone comment on this one way or another, or
> know what the issue was? 
>
> Thanks!
>
> Jeff Moore
> Elko, NV

Your friend should have gotten an e-mail from Rapido saying that the WP wings had been left off the rear of the WP RDC-2's by the factory and they were going to fly them back to China to fix it and then fly them back. If he was getting his model through a dealer the e-mail would have been sent to the dealer.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/10/19 13:15 by PHall.

Thankyou for the info.I have  the WP ones on order ,and was wondering why my pusher had not mentioned them, given that the other schemes have been available.
Regards,DK .

Hats off to Rapido to return them for correction...   It would be interesting to hear how the decision process goes on doing that for the WP RDCs versus the DC Transit buses...  Probably has a lot to do with completing something not done on a $300+ item versus totally having to redo something on a $60 item.  Anyway, those WP RDC customers won't be left in the take it or leave it situation some buyers find themselves in with other manufacturers.

Thank you for the replies!  We appreciate it! 

Apparently there are at least a few retail shops who are not spreading the message they're getting about these cars.  And it also sounds like they are worth the wait.  

Thanks again!

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV 

Hi Jeff. Any status of the McCloud SD38 production? 

Athearn delivered their second run of McCloud River SD38s painted in the original scheme in July 2018, and they appear to have sold out at Athearn pretty quickly.  I put up a page on my website showing the new run side by side with the original run:

http://www.mccloudriverrailroad.com/McCloudModels/AthearnSecondRunMRSD38s.htm

There have been no further announcements as of yet of any more MR or MCR SD38s.  I do note that the delivery date for their MR cabooses has been pushed back to August of this year. 

Hope this helps....

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

Got an email, back to china, then they will come back to us. Fixed.  I thank Rapido because as was mentioned not all suppliers are as honorable! I'm a first time Rapido customer, and this sort of attention is how you earn repeat business. 

wpdude Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Got an email, back to china, then they will come
> back to us. Fixed.  I thank Rapido because as was
> mentioned not all suppliers are as honorable! I'm
> a first time Rapido customer, and this sort of
> attention is how you earn repeat business. 

Happy to be of service! I was in China when these were being made. I thought it odd that they only had the wings at one end, so I checked our artwork. Sure enough, the artwork only had them at one end. So I approved them. It was my last day at the factory and I was on my way to the airport. I was not being dilligent enough.

I *should* have checked our proto photos at the time. I would have seen immediately that our artwork was wrong. D'oh! When they arrived, our behinds were saved by Jordan. He opened the shipment and immediately knew they were wrong. He emailed everyone at Rapido and said "BIG PROBLEM!!!!"

My first response was "They are correct! I checked at the factory!" I then checked the proto photos and I followed up two minutes later with an "OH NO! THEY ARE WRONG!" email.

This was a serious enough issue that, had we shipped them out, we would have told everyone to ship them back. It would have cost a mint and been a logistical nightmare. So our own Jordan Smith really saved the day. This is why it is so valuable that almost everyone at Rapido is a modeller and railfan. A non-train guy would not have spotted the problem.

I think the models are currently sitting at Shenzhen Airport waiting for customs release, or they are still sitting at YYZ. They left our warehouse on Monday. Either way, the factory should have them within a week or so. We were delayed a few weeks by all the shipments coming through the door.

It should only take a month to fix, and we'll send them back with our second Royal Hudson shipment or our Tempo shipment this spring.

-Jason