Model Railroading > Rapido announces GE 44-tonner in HO scale

From their latest Newsletter (#163), sent today:

https://myemail.constantcontact.com/Rapido-News-163---44-tons-of-Newsletter--Plus-Order-Deadlines-and-much-more-.html?soid=1101318906379&aid=4t2aIcKUrOo

New Announcements!

• NEW! HO Scale GE 44-Tonner Locomotive

General Announcements - Order Deadline Change

• HO Scale Dash 8-40CM - Moved to May 15th, 2023
• B&O USRA Single-Sheathed Boxcar Body Replacement

In-Stock Items!

• HO Scale 3800 Cylindrical Hoppers
• HO Scale Caprice and Impala Vehicles

February Order Deadlines - February 15th, 2023

• HO Scale NSC 73' Centerbeam Car
• HO Scale Union Pacific 40' ACR Boxcars
• HO Scale GN 12-Panel 40' Boxcar
• N Scale NSC 73' Centerbeam Car
• N Scale CN/ONR Short and Long Barrel Ore Hopper

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/23 14:41 by PasadenaSub.

Yeah 44 tonner looks great with die cast, sound and keep alive which is important  for a little critter like this. I just need them to do the Santa Fe #462.

Encouraging to see pre-production samples at the time of announcement. Maybe we’ll actually see this in a reasonable time frame. Meanwhile we’ve seen absolutely nothing on an engine announced over a year ago.

Posted from iPhone

Luckily, I didn't see any road names that I wanted. And then, there is the issue of when they will actually be delivered. I canceled my Rapido Northeastern-style caboose and opted for an old Proto model instead. Still waiting for Fruehauf van trailers....they say February now.

TJY

That you include the capacitor with the sound decoder is reason enough to consider one of these
to add to the Texas & Gulf fleet of industrial switchers.

I think I'll go for one for my freelance Eel River Traction Co. It ought to pull better than my Bachmann one and have better details. But it's about $300 with DCC and sound...

And I will add cowcatchers on both ends like I did here:

click here: How to Block Load? (trainorders.com)

Victor Baird



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/23 18:39 by wabash2800.

icancmp193 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Luckily, I didn't see any road names that I
> wanted. And then, there is the issue of when they
> will actually be delivered. I canceled my Rapido
> Northeastern-style caboose and opted for an old
> Proto model instead. Still waiting for Fruehauf
> van trailers....they say February now.
>
> TJY

I'm sorry you canceled your caboose order. The Fruehaufs are in a container en route. You can search it yourself: TCKU4509851

When it comes to deliveries, we're doing our best. We delivered more products in 2022 than in any previous year, including two of our biggest projects, the PAs and E8s. And then we heard from a lot of our retail customers that they can't handle so much product in such a short time. 

Our goal is to continue a steady stream of deliveries, but we can't deliver everything at once. Meanwhile, we can't stop announcing products or eventually the factories will have nothing to make. There is always a months-long delay between announcement and start of production. Sometimes that delay is longer, if we have an engineering challenge (RS-11/RS-18) or the orders suck (Slumbercoach). 

The cabooses are in production now. I hope that when you see them in your local hobby shop, you will want to pick one up.

-Jason

PS The RS units are in production now and the Slumbercoach production will start in a couple of weeks. 

Small engine, big price. I'm sure it will be a good runner and a welcomed quality engine. I would probably jump on one but the first run has no road names that interest me. I was hoping for a Sacramento Northern, Tidewater Southern or Quincy Railroad, all of which wore the same silver and orange paint. The Quincy RR would be my favorite and an instant sale. Shame WP had an issue with the copy cat colors and they painted the orange blue. Bleck!  Maybe on the next run.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/23 19:38 by TomG.

Thanks, Jason.  Appreciate your response.  Alas, as you well know, you can't please everyone.

Lee Hower - Sacramento

icancmp193 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Luckily, I didn't see any road names that I
> wanted. And then, there is the issue of when they
> will actually be delivered. I canceled my Rapido
> Northeastern-style caboose and opted for an old
> Proto model instead. Still waiting for Fruehauf
> van trailers....they say February now.
>
> TJY

Blah blah blah

rapidotrains Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> icancmp193 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Luckily, I didn't see any road names that I
> > wanted. And then, there is the issue of when
> they
> > will actually be delivered. I canceled my
> Rapido
> > Northeastern-style caboose and opted for an old
> > Proto model instead. Still waiting for Fruehauf
> > van trailers....they say February now.
> >
> > TJY
>
> I'm sorry you canceled your caboose order. The
> Fruehaufs are in a container en route. You can
> search it yourself: TCKU4509851
>
> When it comes to deliveries, we're doing our best.
> We delivered more products in 2022 than in any
> previous year, including two of our biggest
> projects, the PAs and E8s. And then we heard from
> a lot of our retail customers that they can't
> handle so much product in such a short time. 
>
> Our goal is to continue a steady stream of
> deliveries, but we can't deliver everything at
> once. Meanwhile, we can't stop announcing products
> or eventually the factories will have nothing to
> make. There is always a months-long delay between
> announcement and start of production. Sometimes
> that delay is longer, if we have an engineering
> challenge (RS-11/RS-18) or the orders suck
> (Slumbercoach). 
>
> The cabooses are in production now. I hope that
> when you see them in your local hobby shop, you
> will want to pick one up.
>
> -Jason
>
> PS The RS units are in production now and the
> Slumbercoach production will start in a couple of
> weeks. 

And how about the Canadien 4-6-0s of years ago, are they "on the water" too?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/23 20:26 by RRBMail.

mcfflyer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thanks, Jason.  Appreciate your response.  Alas,
> as you well know, you can't please everyone.
>
> Lee Hower - Sacramento

Damned if you do. Damned if you don't.

MWPerkins

Posted from Android



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/23 20:56 by EMD2024.

rapidotrains Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> icancmp193 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Luckily, I didn't see any road names that I
> > wanted. And then, there is the issue of when
> they
> > will actually be delivered. I canceled my
> Rapido
> > Northeastern-style caboose and opted for an old
> > Proto model instead. Still waiting for Fruehauf
> > van trailers....they say February now.
> >
> > TJY
>
> I'm sorry you canceled your caboose order. The
> Fruehaufs are in a container en route. You can
> search it yourself: TCKU4509851
>
> When it comes to deliveries, we're doing our best.
> We delivered more products in 2022 than in any
> previous year, including two of our biggest
> projects, the PAs and E8s. And then we heard from
> a lot of our retail customers that they can't
> handle so much product in such a short time. 
>
> Our goal is to continue a steady stream of
> deliveries, but we can't deliver everything at
> once. Meanwhile, we can't stop announcing products
> or eventually the factories will have nothing to
> make. There is always a months-long delay between
> announcement and start of production. Sometimes
> that delay is longer, if we have an engineering
> challenge (RS-11/RS-18) or the orders suck
> (Slumbercoach). 
>
> The cabooses are in production now. I hope that
> when you see them in your local hobby shop, you
> will want to pick one up.
>
> -Jason
>
> PS The RS units are in production now and the
> Slumbercoach production will start in a couple of
> weeks. 

What about the H1a H1b Hudsons? That’s what I’ve been excited about. Announced over a year ago and not a single update or pre-production photo (Unless I missed it). I can accept production delays when there are clear signs of progress, but some announcements just seem to fall into a black hole.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/23 21:21 by bmoore765.

Oh, boy! I've been hoping for a state of the art 44-tonner for years. Be nice if they made the generic red unit in Pinsly red, so we could just decal them and go. IIRC, Tru-Color TCP079 Vermillion is the Pinsly color.

Also wondering if Rapido plans on doing the earlier order of CP RS18's with equipment boxes behind the cab.

bmoore765 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> What about the H1a H1b Hudsons? That’s what
> I’ve been excited about. Announced over a year
> ago and not a single update or pre-production
> photo (Unless I missed it). I can accept
> production delays when there are clear signs of
> progress, but some announcements just seem to fall
> into a black hole.

There's usually a good reason. 

Two things happened with the Hudson.

1. The final tooling price came back from the factory much, much higher than they originally told us.

2. The orders were good but not great. At that higher tooling price, we were concerned the project would not make any money.

We decided to park it for a few months to see if the orders would pick up. Thankfully, a customer stepped up and placed a large order for these, so we started tooling just before Chinese New Year. Had that customer not stepped up, we would have left it parked for a few more months. Sometimes we have to move the more profitable projects ahead of the less profitable projects. If we do too many narrow-margin projects in a year, we can't cover our overhead costs. 

We recently closed the order books on three N scale freight cars. To say the orders have been disappointing would be an understatement. Of the three cars, we're only going to start production on one of them. The sales of the other two are not high enough to cover the tooling costs, which we've already paid as we launched these models with samples. We'll make them eventually, as we don't want to lose that tooling investment. But it does not make sense to make them now. We'll send out an email next month encouraging N scalers to step up or these could be delayed for a very long time.

The car we are producing - N Flexi Flo
The cars we can't yet produce - N RR56 Reefer, N Procor 5820

For someone who really wants the RR56s for their ATSF fleet, they will be upset, and their perception will be that Rapido never delivers. But there is no way we can make those yet. If, after we do a lot more promotion, we find that the demand for this car just isn't that great and never will be, then we will try and fit in production alongside something very profitable so we don't feel the loss. It could be six months from now. It could be longer. That's what we're doing now with the HO Slumbercoach. It's going to lose money, but we've done all we can to promote it and we have to accept that it is simply not a product that everyone wants.

Sometimes we hit a home run. Sometimes we strike out.

For those who feel we should always launch with samples and not drawings, our recent experience has shown that this is not always the best option. If we want to stay in business, we can't always take that risk.

There you have it from the horse's mouth. 

-Jason
 

Hopefully a second run will include Salzburg and Pinsley short line paint schemes. A lot of variety in lettering but basically the same paint for lots of different short lines. Put out an unlettered Version of each and I’ll bite for at least two 

Jason - Thanks for that honest and transparent feedback. I'm happy to hear that the Hudson is back on track. That's one pre-order I was considering cancelling, but I'll give it some more time. Perhaps a monthly or quarterly product update for all projects would be helpful to either garner more orders for at risk projects or maintain pre-orders for items moving closer to fruition.  My gauge is that the lead times (for most model manufaturers) have hit a point where a lot of modelers are taking their chances at finding models upon release rather committing to something years in advance. I've set a new goal for myself to only pre-order items I reasonably expect to see within 12 months.



 

I think one of biggest assets oh Jason and Rapido is their commitment to inform customers of product status. Yes there are those that think info is hard to come by, but hardly any other company does as much. Moloco will chime in occasionally but will be thigh lipped about delivery status.

Problem with us modelers is if Jason told us everything about a product from thought conception to delivery date on a weekly report, we would be upset that we didn't get daily report. You wont hear anything out of Athearn unless there is a major screwup and they finally feel they need to do damage control. Others will use this sight as an announcement platform ( which is still fine with me ) but no feedback, and others wont tell you anything at all. You cant blame Jason for not teling all, competitors read also.

I really appreciate the fine folks at Rapido for keeping us in the loop. Modelers thinking about modelers. I only wish they were WP modelers instead of Canadian modelers.
 

TomG Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Moloco will chime in occasionally but
> will be thigh lipped about delivery status.

I pester Nick and sometimes I get a little into. But he has a "we will serve no wine before it's time" policy. So he is tasting it and they come when meeting his high standards!

> I only wish they were WP modelers
> instead of Canadian modelers.
>  

Me too. I'd like to see a common WP boxcar with a wide plug door offered.

Posted from Android

An HOn3 version would be veeeery nice !