The Super Continental Line brings new meaning to the term "museum quality." Rapido Trains Inc. offers these cars decorated for a variety of popular paint schemes, with partial skirts or fixed steps as appropriate. HO scale.

In the early 1950s, Canadian National Railways placed one of the largest passenger car orders in railroad history. These cars were used on such famous trains as the Super Continental, the Ocean, the Panorama and our namesake, the Rapido. They continued on mainline and branchlilne service with CN and VIA until the late 1990s, and in fact some are still running on VIA trains in northern Manitoba and one has been resurrected as VIA's exclusive Glen Fraser lounge car!

Today, CN's cars can be found on tourist railways all over North America and even on Canadian Pacific passenger trains. They are without doubt the most successful smoothside passenger cars ever built and over the next few years Rapido Trains Inc. will be producing museum-quality models of many of them.

OUR PASSENGER CAR FEATURES:

HO scale ready-to-run, injection-molded plastic models
Fully decorated in many different paint schemes
Detailed underbody with separate steam, air and electrical lines
Factory-applied grab irons and uncoupling levers
Fully detailed interior cast in appropriate colors
Battery-powered LED lighting operated by magnetic wand (included)
Separate, removable marker lamps and end gates
McHenry Couplers and operating diaphragms with support bars
18" minimum radius (24" or greater recommended)
Multiple car names/numbers available for each railroad and type of car
In 1976, VIA-CN (as it was then called) began repainting CN's passenger car fleet in the new corporate colors of blue and yellow. While it was a priority to repaint the fleet within a short period of time, some cars didn't get painted until the 1980s. Being the unsung workhorses of the fleet, many of the Steam Gennies were the last to be repainted.

As the 1981 budget cuts loomed, VIA decided to remove the CN logo from as-yet-unpainted Steam Gennies and just leave them in CN paint. By 1985, several Steam Gennies were mothballed at Spadina Yard in both paint schemes. Reduced services meant that they weren't needed.

In 1986, the Steam Gennies were given a new lease on life. VIA received the first of its new F40PH-2D locomotives, which did not contain steam generators. The Steam Gennies were hurriedly taken out of storage and sent to the shops for a cleanup and a new coat of VIA paint. They were all put back into service and lasted system-wide until 1992, and in Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec until 1996.