| Dear Rapido Customer,
I'm writing this from onboard Amtrak #68, the southbound Adirondack, after having just spent the last couple of days with Jason and Dan in Montreal and Quebec City. The primary purpose of the trip was to record the sounds of the LRC locomotive preserved at the Exporail museum in Montreal, and the staff and crews there went out of their way to help make our visit a success. We also managed to get some research done for upcoming projects which Jason will no doubt fill you in on in a later edition of his Telegraph.
The Hartford NMRA show is now past us, and we have all mostly recovered. The response to the new Rapido products, in particular the Osgood Bradley coaches, was tremendous. Speaking personally, Vin and his crew did a top notch job of putting on the convention, and should now enjoy their well-earned retirement!
As Jason mentioned in his Telegraph 19, my layout was on both the convention and the Layout Design Special Interest Group (LDSIG) tours. Jason and Dan were both kept hard at work ushering nearly 100 folks in and out of my rather cramped layout and entertaining those who had to wait! I appreciate both of their efforts.
In this Timetable:
- Upcoming Order Deadlines
- New Arrivals
- What's Coming Next
- Project Updates
- Revised Reservation Policy
New Order Deadlines:
We have a couple of reservation deadlines approaching.
The LRC was an experimental diesel-powered train designed by Bombardier in the 1970s. It operated on Amtrak 1980-1982 but was much more successful for VIA. After many delays, this project is now going full steam ahead. The coaches and club cars are arriving this winter, and the LRC Locomotive will follow later in 2010. Jason or I will announce the order deadline for the locomotive at a later date. Click here for more information about this train. It's one of Jason's favorites, but it's a bit too Star Trek Shuttlecraft for me. Scotty, beam me up!
Please note that the Buffet Parlor and 38-Seat Club Galley order deadlines have been moved to October 15th. That's because the tooling is ready for the 6-6-4 but there are still some changes to be made to the other two cars.
New Product Deliveries:
The first of the HO scale "Oh, So Steamy!" Steam Generators have arrived, and are selling fast. Most of the American product numbers are already sold out at Rapido. The cars that have arrived include CN (wet noodle), VIA-CN, and Undecorated.
Also on their way out the door in HO scale are T&P and CofGa Dayniter cars. We recently shipped Southern and MOPAC (Jenks Blue) Dayniters as well. As with all Rapido Super Continental Line passenger cars, these include our "Easy-Peasy" battery-powered interior lighting.
In N scale, we've just received B&O, CNR (finally!) and EL Lightweight Coaches and Duplex Sleepers.
Coming Next:
The next group of Steam Gennies just left the factory last week. These include CN (1954 scheme), New York Central, and VIA. They are due to arrive in about five weeks.
Along with these, we'll be receiving our N scale Accessories: "Easy-Peasy" Passenger Car Lighting, 41-N-11 Inside Swinghanger Trucks, and 41-BNO-11 Outside Swinghanger Trucks. Replacement batteries (part #102000) are always available from your local dealer.
Project Updates:
HO Scale Osgood Bradley Coaches:
Our factory is finishing up the tooling updates and revisions to the Osgood Bradley cars. Most changes are relatively minor (we missed some rivets on the ends - yes we ARE rivet counters). We are on track for delivery of the cars this winter, and we are aiming to have the first cars in stores before the Springfield show.
Revised Reservation Policy: (Dealers take note!)
We have a couple of changes to mention in both our order policy and order deadlines. We set our order deadlines based on the most recent schedules from our factory. However (as Jason stated in a note to our distributors), this obviously cannot take into account things like typhoons stopping production for a week or last-minute changes to the tools, etc. As a result, some projects have been delayed past the anticipated arrival date. An example is our FP9A, which needs a new nose. We obviously could not anticipate this, and the original August 1st order deadline has been pushed back.
Rapido will still set our order deadlines based on when we expect a model to be in production. In most cases this will be the only deadline. However, if there is a production delay we will let you know through the Dealers section of our web site, and we will contact distributors just before we start production in order to allow them to increase their numbers. Once we reach the Drop Dead point where we have started making the product, we will post a Reservations Closed announcement on the Dealers page.
We have had a few dealers comment that some distributors have shown an item to be sold out long before it has gone into production based on their already having more reservations than units ordered. This new policy will give distributors a chance to increase their order based on actual reservations rather than advance speculation, and will hopefully help to minimize this problem.
Well, that's it for now. If you'll excuse me, the views of Lake Champlain beckon! See you next month!
Travel by Train!
Bill
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