Model Railroading > Rapido's visit to LA and Chicago

Hi all,

Greetings from on board the Southwest Chief! 

Jordan has been busy touring all over California, and I joined him on Sunday for a couple of stops. We're now on the way to Chicago, where we'll be doing a meet & greet (with Rapido Jeff) at Des Plaines Hobbies on Thursday between 7 and 9 p.m. In the event that our train is extremely late, Jeff will be going solo - so please be easy on him!

We've had an amazing time. Everyone has been extremely enthusiastic and friendly. Thanks expecially to Vic Yoder for chauffeuring us all around the state. He's an honourary Rapido dude now (honourary with a "u" of course - I kept asking Jordan why they misspelled "Centre" so much when we were on the D line today).

Here are a few photos. I particularly like "the Rapido local" at La Mesa...  If anyone was at one of our events and took some photos, please share!

Best regards,

Jason
 

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BTW, our P42s are 15 and 201. They've really had the **** kicked out of them... They are mechanically sound but the bodies could use some TLC!

-Jason
 

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Thanks for the post.  Have a great time on board.  Travel safely and on time.  Send more photos from the trip if possible.

Stopped in Albuquerque and were met by local model railroaders Joel Wendt and Mike Du Mond. 

So we brought them onboard and had an impromptu mini train show in our sleeping car!

-Jason
 

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Almost famous!  Enjoyed meeting you guys (again). Keep those nice models coming. Looks like you might meet #3 at Fox where you will have a short wait.

Joel

The part of the P42 that is beat up is the fibreglas nose piece. It's meant to be easy to replace because they do get beat up.

A whistle stop tour, what a great idea Jason!

Here's a screenshot of your train arriving into Galesburg at 4:25pm today, over 4 hours late.  Looks like you might have to go with Plan B for Des Plaines Hobbies.

Safe travels and hope you enjoyed your time here in California!

Rich

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Cool shot with Jordan, the model, and the prototype.

Nathan

Posted from iPhone

We got off at Naperville around 6:35 and ordered an extra-large Uber to take us and all our stuff to Des Plaines Hobbies. Most... Expensive... Uber... Ever... 

We arrived at 7:25 and Jeff already had a big crowd. I then spoke for about half an hour but, truly, almost everyone just wanted to talk Metra and CTA with Jeff. He totally could have done that visit on his own! 😁 Thanks to everyone who came out. We were about 60 people altogether.

I'm really glad we were able to make it. We were stuck in Wichita for over four hours because a tornado had blown through Kansas before we got there. The conductor told us they had no idea when the line would be open. We were looking at alternative options, like doing a meet & greet in Kansas City and flying home from there.

Had we been going through Kansas a few hours earlier we could have ended up like the photo below!

Now our Air Canada flight home has been cancelled, and we're rebooked on a United flight. If that gets cancelled, I'm spending Shabbos in Chicago!

-Jason
 

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rapidotrains Wrote:
 We were stuck in Wichita for over four hours because a
 tornado had blown through Kansas before we got
 there.

I think you were stuck in Topeka. If you were in Wichita the train would have been well off course or on an exciting detour. I hope you make it home!

Joel