Finally, after several years of waiting (I reserved them long time ago), my B&M cars have materialized. Here are my comments and observations.
This is my first ever purchase of Rapido N scale passenger equipment, and only the second ever purchase of any of Rapido's N scale rolling stock. The first one was their meat reefer, which was rather disappointing. That was not unexpected - I knew ahead of time how I would feel about that model (after it was extensively described here), but I still wanted to get one so I can personally compare it to wood reefers from other manufacturers.
These cars come in a nice jewel box and are well protected from shipping damage. Additionally, there is a cardboard sleeve slipped over the jewel box. The car itself sits in a 2-piece cradle and the car is also wrapped in a thin clear polyethylene sheet. Several manufacturers use this type of packaging. Also in the package are two button cells to power the interior Easy-Peasy lights and a magnetic wand to turn the lights on or off.
Lifting the bottom car cradle reveals a small bag with couple of small parts, instruction sheet with info about the Easy-Peasy lighting system, exploded diagram of the car, and an advertisement for other Rapido cars. The parts in that bag are steam connectors to be installed on the car's ends. The instructions ans parts diagram can ve viewed online at
http://rapidotrains.com/n-osgood-bradley-coaches-support/
Here's the car - I bought 5 of them.
Unlike the meat reefer, this car is impressive! Very well done! It was well-worth the long wait for this first-ever N scale model of this unique car.
Getting into more details, here is the comparison of the rivet details on this car compared to a Micro-Trains heavyweight car. Why? Because to me the MT car is the go-to reference model featuring very subtle rivet engraving, which even though a bit oversize, it has the "right" look to it. The rivets are also pronounced just enough not disappear under the coat of paint, but yet they do not look like giant bumps often modeled by other manufacturers. Rapido car's rivet and panel details are still quite subtle and (even if quite a bit more pronounced than MT ones) they still look ok to me. This delicate engraving is a major departure from the Rapido's meat reefers which had unrealistically wide and deeply engraved gaps between the boards. This photo also shows that the paint layer is much thicker on the Rapido car than on the MT car, and the engraving on the Rapido car is not quite as sharp or crisp as on the MT car. Of course, this is all only visible under magnification, but that is what I do when evaluating a new model.
Closeup of the windows. They are well done. The "aluminum" frames and the center dividers are molded raised on the clear window "glass", then the silver and black areas are printed with paint (no hot foil stamping like some manufacturers use). What is odd is that the small window on either end has a silver-printed frame, but the molding is not raised. I'm not sure why those were done that way, but it is not something noticeable during normal viewing. Same goes for the corrugations on the restroom windows - the pattern is molded on the outside of the "glass" while the white paint is done on the inside. Again, not really noticeable under normal viewing conditions. Another detail which impressed me was the engraving on the step's risers.
Looking at the diaphragm in the photos above shows 2 fairly large holes in its side. Those are needed to retain a very fine photoetched gate across the diaphragm opening. While not realistic, I think that those holes are a small price to pay for including that gate. Those holes could easily be filled and touched up with paint if someone wants to bother.
Those 2 photos above also show the handrails at the doors. They are add-on painted metal parts and while they look a bit thick, they aren't bad for an N scale mass-produced item.
One small detail that bothers me is the way the windows in the doors were molded. All the windows are designed to be flush with the car's outside surface. That is commendable. But that also resulted in a very visible border around the window in the doors. It has an appearance of looking at a bottom of a bottle. The other windows also have that border but it is neatly hidden by the silver frames. This is something that other manufacturers have solved. Many Kato or other (usually German) manufactures make models which have flush-mounted windows without that visible border showing. This photo shows a comparison of a flush-mounted door window on a Kato Orient Express car and this Rapido car. Kato car doesn't have that large clear border.
Speaking of windows, where some manufacturers use snap-in window inserts, Rapido's inserts are glued in (at the ends). This photo shows that. This might make repainting the car more difficult (of someone wants to tackle that).
The ends of the car are very well done. Notice the diaphragm supports, and that fine photoetched gate across the diaphragm opening. That looks great! The grab irons at the bottom of the car end are molded-on, a departure from the separate ones at the doors. But to me that looks fine. Also visible (but a bit blurry) is the uncoupling lever on the left side of the car's end.
The underframe is very nicely detailed. Lots of molded-in lines, and several added-on details like air tanks and drains. Very impressive.
This photo shows the factory-installed steam line rising off the floor near the coupler. To that piece you can glue the steam coupling parts which came in a little bag in the bottom of the jewel box.
The trucks are well done, including the full perimeter frame. The wheels are also very nice with low profile flanges. The wheel faces are not quite as nice as on the FVM wheels, but the wheel faces are mostly hidden behind the sideframes anyway. The axle ends are 1mm diameter while the axle between the wheels is 1.5mm in diameter. The wheels are gauged properly!
Compared to a random passenger Kato truck I had handy, the Rapido trucks aren't as crisply molded (especially the coil springs). But one of the things Rapido trucks have going for them is that they are painted (where Kato are bare shiny plastic). I also suspect that the fairly thick paint is obscuring some of the crispiness of the molded part. If the Rapido truck was unpainted it would probably be closer in quality to Kato. Oc course the Rapido wheels are much finer than Kato wheels.
Here is a clever piece of engineering: The truck kingpin is keyed! So the only way to install the truck is with the brake cylinders facing the correct direction. That is cool!
Moving onto the interior, it is also cleverly engineered. The outside end walls are painted maroon and have door detail molded on them. That's what is visible through the opening in the diaphragm. The door "glass" is glued in from the inside of the wall and it is also functions as the retainer for the lighting circuit board. Since the circuit board is held by the interior (which is then snapped into the under frame), modifying it to use track power will be quite easy. The interior color is not quite right in that photo - viewed in-person it is quite a bit darker brown color.
The restroom details are nicely done, but that is something which will never be seen. However, those areas are perfect hiding place for anti-flicker capacitors. I also noticed the very thick layer of paint. But I guess that is not a real problem since nobody will be be looking at it that closely.
For several reasons I do not like battery-powered illumination in my N scale cars. For me, track power is the only way to go. But several years ago I did buy one Easy-Peasy lighting unit, just to see how it was made. Back then the feature touted was that it had a correct color depicting the fluorescent lights in many passenger cars. The lighting unit had 2two flat 5mm LEDs on each end shining into a clear plastic diffuser. Sort of like most other contemporary lighting units from other manufacturers, even going back to the early days of N scale. I was not impressed. As far as the color of the light goes, it was produced by white LEDs with a fairly strong green tint. I have never seen any fluorescent lights that color. Maybe the real cars had greenish light shades over the tubes, or maybe that was the color showing through green-tinted windows of many passenger cars from the '50s? I don't know, but it didn't look very realistic to me.
Well, it looks like Rapido has revamped their Easy-Peasy lights. The current one uses 5 tiny (SMD 0603 size) LEDs. They are fairly bright and have a pleasant warmish-white color. Much improved from the original units. Looks like I'll be keeping the circuit board, but eliminate the battery power. Once I draw up a schematic and a parts list I'll post that info in another thread. My design will also feature the anti-flicker circuit.
Here is a closeup of the electronics on the light board. Most of this stuff will be discarded on the track-powered version.
This is what the lighting looks like. Like Bryan Bussey mentioned, the light is fairly evenly distributed, and not too bright.
EDIT: Since Bryan B. mentioned it: kudos to Rapido for using Micro-Trains couplers and for providing 2 mounting locations for it (close-coupled or extended for tight curves).
Overall, in my opinion this car is not quite of Kato-like quality (things like the thickness of paint, mold design, and the overall parts engineering), but I am very happy with my purchase and I would not hesitate to recommend these models to others. Yes, this car has lots of extra fiddly-bits added on, it is not a Kato. I'm a big fan of Kato and Micro-Trains models and not afraid to say it. And if me comparing this or other models to Kato or MT annoys anybody, I'm sorry, but that is what I like to do.
