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Jeremy and 1 other person on staff are N scalers, but escapes my mind who it is.
My feeling is there's a correlation between quality of past product and the success of future product. Once burned some will take a wait and see approach, check out the product after it's delivered to the LHS. I have to imagine one of the chief problems with the built to order model is the lack of trust, either with a new manufacturer or one with a history of missteps... especially when you're talking cars with a street price of $35-40.
Lock4244, that's the killer- Rapido makes the SP B50 in N, a car that I think ran from the 20's to the 60's.
My beef is with thinking that the SP waffle side boxcar or the aATSF mechanical reefer were better mass market ideas than the SP B50 boxcars.Yes the SP waffle boxes had a ton of schemes, but they are such an uncommon car that even if you model SP in Oregon in the 70's or 80's you probably only need a couple. ATSF was out of the reefer business by the 80's, so anyone from then on can only use them as sheds bought by farmers after they were retired.
Would the B70/71/75 boxcar Rapido does in HO have been a better choice for N scale (more common car)? Not an SP guy so not sure what would've been a more common car.
I think you meant HO and not N.Three different variations, seven different paint schemes (eight if you count both overnight schemes) with a $55 price tag. Free standing ladders and grab irons. Some minor inaccuracies were done (B-50-16 should have the bolster 6" closer to the ends and both the 15 and 16 should have 32 boards instead of the modeled 21 boards), but in N scale, these two things are practically unnoticeable and I would gladly buy a dozen (especially the original overnight scheme)...but Rapido is sad that they can't sell N scale freight cars so they won't ever make this in N.Somebody needs to send this thread to Rapido...
Well, back in the day. They used to post here.But I think we scared them off, probably have our forum on the ignore list.
The SP boxcar they made was also used by Amtrak. So Rapido being Rapido, the car being SP or similar to other models conceivably may not have mattered as much as accurate Amtrak trains.
Which road are you speaking of, SP or Amtrak ? If it's the SP car, we still have 6 on the shelf where I work. Sadly, they aren't listed on the website And yeah, we still have at least a dozen of the tank cars
Speaking of "better choices", it's always better to release models of prototypes that haven't been made previously and relatively recently (as within the past 25 years), especially if the earlier models were quality models and still hold up today. It makes no sense to release a B-70-xx when the FVM model remains viable and is now under the Scale Trains stable of rolling stock.The centerbeam flatcar, even with its flaws, was a relatively good choice because the Red Caboose model is out of circulation and the Rapido model is an improvement over the Red Caboose model.It is true that the "sweet spot" of eras currently is the 1980s/1990s. But the Transition Era rolling stock still has an audience. Yes, the 40 year olds have disposable income to spend on the hobby with their children. But the 50-70 year olds that are established in the hobby also have disposable income and arguably more disposable income to invest in the hobby, so the earlier eras still have appeal. Otherwise the major manufacturers wouldn't still be releasing new models of prototypes from the earlier eras, such as the last two new models released by Micro-Trains — the PS2 covered hopper and the 65' mill gondola.