I received my cars 2 days ago. I'm both very happy, and somewhat disappointed.
I'm very happy that these models were produced, but disappointed in execution of some of their features.
First the trucks. They feature an unusual design (not a bad thing in itself). They snap onto the kingpin. Notice on the lower left bearing that the contact strip is not located properly. While it still contacts the brass I'm going to fix it. This is not the only car with that misalignment - other cars I bought also have the same problem.
Top view of the truck with one wheelset removed. The electric contacts are a sandwich of a thinner piece (which contacts the bearings) and thicker part (which goes up into the contact strips in the floor. Interesting how Rapido chose to have the contacts close to the center of the truck, where Kato and some other manufactures have the contacts closer to the outside of the cars. I do like the open see-through design of the frame.
The wheelset/bearing assembly simply snaps in and out of the truck frame.
The details of the wheelset. The stepped half-axle design assures that the wheels do not get tight in gauge. The end part of the axle is 1mm in diameter, the thicker part (which rides in the bearing) is and oddball 1.28mm (1.3mm ?) in diameter. The bearing is just standard "friction" bearing machined from brass. I'm actually glad they did not use tiny ball bearings - I predicts lots of problems with those once some debris get inside.
The fit between the axle and the bearing is very loose. Here you see how much empty space exists between the axle and the hole in the bearing.
While I haven't done any testing, the trucks are in fact quite free-rolling. But (and a big "but") is that the bearings are dry - no lubrication whatsoever. Any lubricant added there would negatively affect the rolling quality. Is it ok to run a metal-on-metal bearings unlubricated? Only time will tell.
Next, the wheels. Here is a photo comparing Rapido (bottom) and Kato Amfleet wheelset. This is one of the disappointments. Kato has upgraded their wheels to be narrower and have lower flanges. This brand new model has a thread that is quite wide, and the flanges that are high and also quite "fat" or thick. Very surprising that a new model has wheels which look like that, especially considering that Rapido's Osgood Bradley cars have much better looking wheels.
Also, with the oddball 1.28mm diameter axle, retrofitting better looking wheels would be difficult.
Another comparison of Kato and Rapido wheels. This shows the difference in flange depth. I'm also not too impressed with the wheel face profile. It is ok, but it could be better. But I'm also not a fan of the Kato's wheel face. The best inside-bearing truck wheels were IMO Bachmann Amfleets (the most recent release).
The other disappointment is the paint. As soon as I took the car out of the box I noticed that the very bright silver paint was shimmering like it had lots of sparkles in it. I first thought that this was due to very fine crazing of the model's surface (as if they used paint that is too "hot" for plastic), but after giving it a closer look, it might just be the rough texture of the paint itself (large metallic particles?). Either way, the surface is not smooth.
Paint on the real Comet cars is a dull silver color. Sure, you can say that I can spray some Dullcote over the silver. Well, with masking involved it is a pain, and I should not have to do this to a brand new $50 model!
The fancy light features I feel are also not very well done. There is a 220uF cap on the circuit board, but it doesn't really offer any keep-alive for the lights. If one turned on the EOT lights in the car or turns off the interior lights, even short interruption will reset the circuit to the default setting.
Also, the couplers are copy of MTL couplers with stiffer spring.
