An interesting look at being the "little guy"

[Puddington]

Jason Shron, owner of Rapido Trains is a communicator. I, for one, appreciate people who communicate the good; the bad and even the ugly, rather than try and hide or "spin" stuff. In their recent "Telegraph", jason posted a really good piece on what it's like to be a new, and small model railway company - I thought I'd share it with the gang....

The (un)reality of order deadlines and delivery dates

Those of you who have been with us for a while have no doubt noticed that our order deadlines and delivery dates are, shall we say, "fluid." Here's why.

I determine our initial order deadlines when we announce a project. Chances are, at that time the tooling is not yet finished and all we have is an early sample (if that!). I do my best to estimate how long it will take to finish the changes and when we will have production time available in the factory.

In most cases, my estimate is about as accurate as Back To The Future's predictions of life in 2015. As we are unlikely to develop hover skateboards or replace emails with fax machines in the next six years, that gives you an idea of how wrong I usually am. But I'm getting better... honestly. We are actually delivering our first run of cabooses in fall of 2009, as promised. Well, half of them at any rate.

Projects can be delayed by unexpected tooling problems, function issues with the circuit boards, and a myriad of other hiccups. Sometimes we find a mistake in our research right at the last minute, as we did with the steam generators.

You have to understand just how small a company we are. We have three full-time employees in North America, and our factory in China is just three rooms and an office. That's it. If we're busy making cabooses, we don't have the capacity to finish up some of the other projects that are in progress. It's always a tough choice deciding what will be in production at any time and what will have to wait. This is determined by things like how high our sales are for a given item, if an item is new and hot or a 3rd run of a paint scheme, if a paint scheme is particularly difficult and time consuming, etc.



This is the biggest of our three rooms.
We have a very casual atmosphere in our factory.
 
 

We're often grouped in the same category as big guys like Athearn, Atlas and Walthers. I am truly flattered when I read or hear that, because we are really, really small by comparison.

One more factor that has led us to keep pushing back our order deadlines is that I've found that a lot of people in the far reaches of the USA and Canada order our products weeks or months after the original announced deadline. It's tough to get the word out to everyone. Now, if we haven't yet started production because of my awful estimating abilities, we can still take the orders. But if we have started production, forget it. We've turned away late orders for hundreds of cabooses.

The practical implications of all of this are that we will take orders for a product until we have to order materials. About two weeks before that time, we will send out a reminder to our distributors (USA) and dealers (Canada). Once we order materials, that's it. The production numbers are set in stone. If you haven't ordered by then, you won't get the models.

I hope this gives you an idea of what's involved, and why your Chicago & North Western N scale coach or your HO scale BN Exec car hasn't yet arrived. All I can ask is that you bear with us and be patient. We've come a long way in the last three years, but we're still the little guy of the model railroad manufacturing world.

I think his case is well made; and "yes", I like Jason and could be called a shill for him; but not because I'm on the payroll (I'm not) or he's a fellow Canadian, it's because I believe in his way of doing business and think we need to have more Jason's in our hobby..... just my two cents worth...

and; btw; if the Conrail gang wants to drool over a caboose (no idea if it's prototypical or not) check out the Rapido HO Conrail van.......the marker lights work... cool...................

[bobcat]

I just watched this youtube video of Jason and the extent he will go to. You've got to appreciate his enthusiasm for sure.

[Puddington]

I just watched this youtube video of Jason and the extent he will go to. You've got to appreciate his enthusiasm for sure.

Yea, I posted that in the crew lounge too.... Jason's a unique guy for sure..... must be that six months a year we freeze our **$##$@@!! off up here in "Taxada"................

[lock4244]

We can only hope that Jason, Dan and the rest of the Rapido team enjoy much success and start diving deeper into N scale. This is especially true if you are Canadian or model Cdn RR's. I for one hope that those wonderful vans make it to N some day and that a Pte. St. Charles would follow, and the LRC, and the Turbo (no need for one, but I bet I'd wind up with one CN and one Via).

One heck of an enthusiastic company producing some really great models!

[wm3798]

The work room at the factory looks pretty tidy... not the oppressive sweat shops you read about...

But I have to wonder, how many coupler springs are there on that floor?  They've got to be there somewhere!

Lee

[Philip H]

All I want for Christmas is a Nscale LRC!  No really!

[cv_acr]

I for one hope that those wonderful vans make it to N some day and that a Pte. St. Charles would follow,

To me the fact that pretty much the only paint scheme that hasn't been done on the cabooses so far is CN seems to be rather telling...

Definately looking forward to a few CN Pt. St. Charles vans in Algoma Central lettering. (They had 6 that were built new for them by CN in the mid 1970s. Before that they only had wood vans.)