By Preston Trusler/Photos As Noted
Originally published May 16, 2007.

Memories. They are the fuel of our hobby. We usually begin in model railroading by attempting to collect what we see everyday, but then something happens. The present yields to the past, time slips away; suddenly what was once familiar is seldom seen, if at all. Next, we embark on a quest to restore the past in miniature. If we don’t have the skills or the time to create exactly what we want, we are relegated to the mercy of the almighty manufacturer. For years, HO passenger car styles and road names came in an extremely limited selection. Most of the time, either a road name was not available, or the correct prototype was available, but in an alien road name. In the 1990’s, we experienced a virtual explosion of nearly every conceivable road name suddenly becoming available, but still on only one type of car. Even then, there were and still are discrepancies and arguments over correct paint and fonts. As we turn the page of another decade, the standards of our hobby have improved yet again; this time, taking an unexpected, exciting, and dramatic stride.

In 2003, new manufacturer Rapido Trains Inc., of Toronto Ontario, Canada joined the ranks of model railroad manufacturers. In recent months, Rapido Trains has answered the demand for something never before produced in the model railroading community: truly accurate passenger cars as built by the Canadian Car & Foundry (CC&F), following plans from the Pullman Company.

Before I saw these cars in front of me, I was skeptical after reading boastful advertising of “Museum Quality,” and “There Has NEVER Been A More Detailed Ready-To-Run Plastic Passenger Car.” Like most, I cannot swing purchasing a fleet of brass. With a long list of features like onboard LED lighting, a fully detailed underbody, fully detailed interiors, factory applied grab-irons and uncoupling levers, working diaphragms, marker lamps and more, this offering sounded too good to be true. Nonetheless, I try to be an optimist. As an enthusiast of both North American and European model railway equipment, I have been anxiously awaiting the same kind of quality in North American plastic model trains as we have come to expect from Austria’s premier manufacturer, ROCO. I am happy to report that in placing affordable Canadian Prototype cars on the market that Rapido is the first manufacturer who comes close to these expectations.

Rapido’s new passenger cars are part of “The Super Continental Line,” as they are patterned after a 1953 Canadian National Railways order to re-equip their Montreal/Toronto/Vancouver varnish. This single order for 359 lightweight cars was, and remains, the largest single order for passenger cars ever placed in Canada. Official roll-out for cars was April 24th, 1955 when CN’s Super Continental went head-to-head with the Canadian Pacific’s Budd stainless steel Domeliner Canadian for the transcon passenger market. Despite their Canadian heritage, similar passenger cars were purchased and used by numerous other railroads throughout North America, and continue to run the rails around us in different forms to this very day. In the coming months, Rapido will introduce more types of cars, which were ordered by many U. S. Railways, as well.

Rapido’s first car is a lightweight, smooth-side coach originally of a Canadian National design. It features panoramic windows, and a full interior with three restrooms and seats with winged headrests. These cars were used throughout North America and are available in a variety of schemes and numbers.

The next Rapido offering is an E-Series 4-8-4 Sleeper built to Pullman plan #4124, the prototype was used both on CN and Great Northern. This car comes with partial skirting or fixed steps, where appropriate. The sleeping compartments are open, roomettes or double bedrooms. 4-8-4 denotes 4 Bedrooms–8 Duplex Roomettes–4 Sections.

When the cars arrived and I opened the boxes, I was impressed before removing the coach from its packing. Upon first visual inspection, I had the impression I was looking at an expensive, custom painted brass model. The grab irons were already mounted in place, the lettering was sharp, and the details stood out. When you open the roof to load the batteries for the lighting system (batteries included!) you are in for more than you ever bargained for. The quality of the Sleeper interior, with its window shades, painted curtains, and furniture actually took my breath away. The armrests on the chairs are see-through and the seating is painted separately! The only things missing from the interior are running water and figures.

A comprehensive booklet accompanies each car, outlining the heritage of your purchase with full, easy instructions illustrating how to manage the lighting system. There are schematics detailing each separate part already applied at the factory. There is also a limited warranty, which is voided if you use batteries other than the manufacturers for the lighting system.

For a change, I was delighted to have my expectations of a new product surpassed, and that was only on the visual aspect. In my memory, the paint was correct. The lettering was crisp and also correctly larger than competitor’s offerings. Grab irons, vents, smallest details are already installed. This saves the novice modeler a lot of time and frustration. The vestibule is undoubtedly the most highly detailed in any stock model I’ve ever seen sold with car numbers and even the car name on the inside door.

By this point in time, you may have already read product reviews of these two cars in other sources. You may already know that Rapido “Super Continental Line” cars will function on 18” radius curves, but like all full-length passenger cars, they will look even better on wider radius curves. Yes, they put metal wheels on, so of course they roll well. Yes, the car is weighted and comes with McHenry couplers, but there is so much more to this model than the stock questions the hobby magazines ask. With too many questions left unanswered, I went straight to the source for our readers.

The first burning question I had was about the window shades, a prevalent detail as seen in Figure 1, which is most likely, the first one you will notice. At first glance, the cars resemble a European train, with half-windows, as we know them. Closer examination reveals that there are window shades in the windows! All trains had them until service declined and railroads and ceased maintaining passenger equipment. Through time and use, window shades were broken by passengers, and eventually removed by the railroads. Rapido Trains Inc. has returned them in STYLE and with a three-dimensional appearance. Anyone modeling the heyday of railroading will appreciate the critical detail of window shades, which previously have been neglected by manufacturers. When asked, Jason Shron, owner of Rapido Trains Inc. explained why every Rapido passenger car not only has window shades, but has them uniformly drawn half way down all the windows. “At major terminals, the shades on most passenger trains were set to half height. This was certainly true in Canada, and I have heard that it was done on most U.S. roads as well.” From his observations of photographs and speaking with onboard crews, most passengers left the shades at half height unless the sun was on that side of the train. Shron continued, “Having them at the height set in the terminal makes the cars accurate for the terminal, the coach yard, travel on a cloudy day, and the side of the train away from the sun. This was the better option than having them at the same ‘random’ heights.”

Now, most people want variety, but there are always compromises to be made. Jason Shron said that, it was a tough choice to make all the window shades the same height, and this was due to production considerations. If the window shades were not uniform, one would have every third shade up and the fourth down on every car, a pattern doomed to repetition. Indeed, as Shron pointed out, “Having the shades at the same random heights… It wouldn’t look very realistic.”

Rapido Trains has also painstakingly attended to correct type styles and paint shades. In Figure 4, we compare various attempts at renditions of Canadian National gray and black. The Rapido car is on the left, with the cars of two other manufacturers’ to its right. The black window stripe is executed properly on the Rapido car, not confined to the window height. Fans will argue about the color of 1961 Canadian National cars, but the size of the CN Noodle logo on the Rapido Trains cars are correct. The tint of gray is non-weathered – fresh out of the shop.

Jason Shron indicated that paints and fonts for “The Super Continental Line” cars have not been determined without great pains, and his take on the subject is not only unexpected, but also logical. “Our Illinois Central orange was WRONG. We’re fixing that. Paint is the trickiest issue for a model railroad manufacturer. I have to preface this by saying that there is no right or wrong color. There are just different shades of ‘sort of.’” For instance, CN Black looks different in Ontario than in British Columbia because of the type of dust that settles on the trains in transit. VIA used several different shades of blue on their cars, and when you add fading, there is NO true VIA blue.

In researching colors, Shron was told by an actual L&N painting crew that “L&N Blue” was whatever blue the paint supplier down the street had at the time! In an element of the hobby that is difficult to please everyone, Jason Shron was forced to make compromises, but not without deliberation. “If the railroad historical society gives us a paint chip or PANTONE chip of a color, then that is the best.” PANTONE is an international standard for color matching used throughout the printing industry. “We received paint chips or Pantones for most of the paint schemes. I also buy samples of cars from other manufacturers, and if the general consensus among fans and modelers is positive, then I will send the shell to my factory in China and tell them to match it.”

The early production stage of Rapido’s “The Super Continental Line” cars is not just a common shell with a paint scheme, but a manufacturing science of case-by-case consideration. Some paint schemes must be done on different colours of resin. Shron tells us that yellow is an extremely difficult colour to get right. Because of this, C&NW, Union Pacific and Milwaukee 1955 bodies are injected in yellow plastic, to achieve the correct shade.

Rapido offers the first correct NP paint scheme in plastic.

In another case, Shron relates that, if you are a Northern Pacific fan, your pre-existing fleet colors will not match up with a Rapido car. Why? Because Rapido Trains is the ONLY passenger car manufacturer to obtain authentic paint chips from the Northern Pacific Railway Historical Association. If you’re looking to re-equip your Main Streeter, look for a corrected NP monad coming out in the spring of 2007.

Rapido’s light-activating wand with weighted roof and self-contained lighting system.

Beyond the high level of detail to the interior and vestibules, a totally unique feature is the lighting system. It is a self-contained panel mounted in the roof of each car, powered by two macro-disc cells supplied with each model. This system ends the days of power packs being drained by strings of cars with lights, separate DCC decoders per car are not required, and best of all, no more flickering lights!

The light switch is located beneath the AC vents at one end of the car, which is activated with “The Rapido Lighter,” a simple magnet on the end of a wand measuring 8”. Each car comes with a wand which helps with long reaches and the light switch beneath the roof is sensitive to about .5” distance from the magnet.

The lighting itself is the most uniform effect I have ever seen. After years of watching flickering lights in scale passenger cars, it is simply amazing to see steady light, which is neither dim nor blinding. Another first, the light remains at a consistent intensity and uniformity the entire length of the car. Roof removal and battery installation are faster than the time it takes to read the instructions.

However, replacing the roof was another matter. The roof resisted reinstallation, and I found the safest way to replace it was to line up the connecting slots and pins, place the car on it’s “back”, roof side down on a table, and gently press while subtly rocking the car back and forth. The roof is replaced, and there is no light leakage through any seams. Jason Shron warns of flash preventing roof reassembly, but the two models I purchased have no flash on any surfaces.

The diaphragms are functional, and a perk to this series is a removable gate included for each end. There are also attachable non-functional marker lamps; so that any car can be that last car on the train.

Rapido’s execution of E-Series 4-8-4 undercarriage detail is phenomenal.

Jason Shron says, his personal favorite part of the Rapido Super Continental Line” cars is, the extensive undercarriage detail, as seen in Figure 9. I have to say, it is the most intricate I have ever seen beneath any scale passenger car. But, I must caution you, younger modelers, or anybody with the nickname “Butterfingers”, the undercarriage is loaded with a lot of fine and fragile detailing that must be treated delicately.

The paint on the smooth-side coach was flawless. On my E-Series 4-8-4 sleeper, the silver window framing is not uniform; the paint job is a bit grainy and the black subcoat is visible on about 50% through the silver window trim. For me, no problem, for anyone else, Rapido has been readily making exchanges to keep the customer base positive. What more can you ask for? Rapido Trains Inc. has been responsive to customer feedback, and plans to be around for a long time to come.

At an MSRP of approximately $59.95, the price is nothing to sneeze at. I obtained my models from a mail-order house in Indiana for about $40. Like everyone else, I am on a budget, yet, I couldn’t be more pleased with these models. For additional realism, there are up to ten different car numbers per car type. This is unprecedented in the plastic passenger car industry. Keep in mind that I purchased these cars from a hobby distributor online. They were not special samples provided by Rapido Trains for examination. This line is unparalleled; and at the price for what you get, it is an outstanding value. I plan on adding several more of these cars to rebuild my 1960’s Canadian National Ocean Limited in a way I never imagined possible, while being totally within my challenged budget. For collectors of any of the available roads, these cars will be a welcome addition to any pike where detail is appreciated.

There is always something wrong with everything, and I can always find a sow’s ear in a silk anything. Not this time. In my opinion, you really are purchasing the closest thing to a museum quality model ever produced in plastic. The model is loaded with fine details beyond your expectations, and the only drawback is that they are fragile and you must handle these passenger cars with the utmost of care. I would not recommend allowing anyone under the age of 16 to handle these cars. For a change (and you won’t hear this from me very often), I am not disappointed! The next two offerings from Rapido in “The Super Continental Line” are a Snack Bar/Lounge and a 10-5 Bay-Series Sleeper coming Spring 2007. Side by side, I’m sure these cars will be more than satisfying to your memory, and your eyes. If you are too young to have witnessed these cars first-hand, get ready to see the closest thing in scale to the real thing I have ever seen!

Preston Trusler is a Canadian-American whose heritage has fueled his lifelong passion as a model railroader and railfan on both sides of the border. With HO model trains as his primary hobby, Trusler has also worked in broadcast news for thirty years. In addition to dreaming about retirement, he is presently working with his son on their fifth layout. A frequent contributor to our forums, this is his first RAILROAD.NET byline. Thanks also to Laura Donohue and Stephen Wray.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Rapido Trains Incorporated
140 Applewood Crescent , Unit A
Concord , Ontario
L4K 4E2 Canada

HO SCALE 4-8-4 LIGHTWEIGHT SLEEPER
$59.95 MSRP  

ROADNAMES AVAILABLE:

Amtrak Phase 1 or 3
Baltimore & Ohio
British Columbia Railway
Burlington Northern (Executive)
Canadian National 1954 (Maple Leaf)
Canadian National 1961 (Noodle)
Canadian Pacific Railway
Chicago & North Western
Erie Railroad two-tone green
Erie-Lackawanna
Great Northern ( Orange)
Illinois Central ( Panama Orange)
Kansas City Southern (Southern Belle)
Louisville & Nashville
Milwaukee Road
Milwaukee Road (1955)
Missouri Pacific
New York Central two-tone grey
Norfolk & Western
Northern Pacific
Ontario Northland (traditional)
Ontario Northland (modern)
Pullman Standard
Pennsylvania Railroad
Rocky Mountaineer
Santa Fe 2-tone grey
Southern Pacific
Union Pacific
VIA Rail Canada
Undecorated