Model Railroading > Early Black Friday, Rapido NS C36-7 review

My .02 cents on Rapido's NS C36-7.

Overall, really nice engine, runs good, ESU Lok5 is great. (ScaleTrain SD9Ms arrived the same day, so maybe an unfair comparison, and they are fantastic).

The NS ditchlights were in the wrong place and moved. The lettering and side heralds are a little too fat/thick for me, but I probably won't repaint the whole thing. New cab numbers for sure this winter.  I wish it had see thru grills on the side or at least a slighly color difference as others have mentioned.

A couple of not so noticable "improvements" other than ditchlights. New Cal Scale horn. Added EOT bracket. Additional warning labels all over to match photos I took of 8542. Drilled out the casting holes in the sideframes to enlarge them. Painted the exhaust stack silver and then weathered it. A couple of oil spills on the walkway. Reprogrammed the F1 function so running LHF, the bell doesn't trigger the ditchlights flashing. I need to also turn down the cab gauge LED brightness.

Old Atlas C36-7 conversion from 25-30 years ago, 8535, trailing for comparison.

Photo 1, new ditch light location
Photo 2, ready for service
Photo 3, nose to nose with ~30 year old Atlas conversion

Cooper
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/28/25 11:37 by SOU3921.

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The pair look great together. Been a very long time since I've seen some semi-modern long-hood diesel action on the Model RR board. Thanks for the views!

~ Mr. MRL

Were they delivered with ditchlights or were they added sometime after.

Posted from Android

Great pics and review of those nice units.  They look quite brutish with the extra box atop the hood behind the cab.

Rich

That is a true "drop step" wonder how prototypical that is?

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

funnelfan Wrote:
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> That is a true "drop step" wonder how prototypical
> that is?

Good call Ted. I never noticed it before on the prototypes, but sure enough after doing a search sure enough thats correct. Pretty cool.

Drop step is correct to match EMD deck height, or after second thought, it appears to be slightly deeper than it should.  8541 in 1:1 scale for comparison and another photo of a later Dash8-40C beside an SD40-2, you can see the deck heights are quite different.

Ditchlights were added in the mid 90s per the FRA rule.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/28/25 20:55 by SOU3921.

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Thanks for the ditchlight info.

Posted from Android

Excellent looking model and layout; the 36-7s and the 39-8s that followed sure were brutish.