Rapido News Volume 67 - ?2015 Rapido Trains Inc.
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| Dear Rapido Customer,
Introducing the LRC Shuttlecraft! In memory of the remarkable Leonard Nimoy (z"l), Rapido is excited to announce that a limited run of just 40 LRC Shuttlecraft DC/DCC-ready locomotives are being offered for bid in our online silent auction in support of the Canadian Lung Association's efforts to eliminate COPD, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Now you can bid on one of 40 exclusive, never-to-be-offered-again, HO scale LRC Shuttlecraft. Only one shuttlecraft allowed per person. Bids are accepted from anywhere in the world. This campaign is open to everyone. Starting bids are $199.95 for these once-in-a-lifetime units. Bid as high as you can because only the top 40 bidders will get their LRC Shuttlecraft!
Bidding ends midnight June 1st - all winning bids will be contacted by email and will have seven days to arrange payment. Shipping costs will be charged separately. 100% of all successful bids received will be donated to the Lung Association in memory of Leonard Nimoy. We're not just donating the "profits" but every penny. Please click here to place your bid. Live long and prosper.
RailCrew Remote Uncoupler and Switch Machine - New Video Since launching our new line of RailCrew layout accessories, we've been bombarded with requests for more information. To that end, I spent an evening with the inventor of RailCrew, Randy Schnarr, and we looked at the new Remote Uncoupler and Switch Machine in detail. The interview was recorded in my basement earlier this month, so you can see my triple-deck Kingston Sub/Plywood Pacific layout under construction. This is not your usual ?ber-silly Rapido video, but a fairly straightforward look at how these new machines work and what they do. Hopefully it answers most of your questions about the new products. We're very proud of them - Randy really is a very clever guy. Please click here or on the picture below to watch the video on YouTube.
Amtrak F40PH Order Deadline Here's a very quick reminder that the final order deadline for our next 100% American locomotive prototype is swiftly approaching. Please reserve your Amtrak F40PH Locomotives by May 15th, either with your dealer or directly from us. I am currently editing an Amtrak F40 video, which we will (hopefully) have online by the end of next week. It's taking a long time because of all the monster trucks and crushed cars. (Don't ask.) To ensure you don't miss it, please click here to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Thanks to Amtrak locomotive engineer Paul Burmeister for pointing out that our F40 is missing the cab side steps. With all the experts on our project (including people who worked on the real thing) and all of our publicity to date, Paul was the first person to notice that we are missing the steps. They were on our 2D drawings but were omitted from our 3D design. We're fixing that in time for production. Thanks, Paul! Click here to read about our ground-breaking HO scale Amtrak F40PH. THIS AIN'T NO "TRAIN SET" ENGINE!!!
British Rail APT-E Order Deadline I normally don't like to mix our British and North American newsletters, but we are producing a British train that has truly international significance, and the order deadline is coming up this week. The Advanced Passenger Train - Experimental, or APT-E, was a revolutionary train developed in the 1970s by British Rail's Research & Technical Centre in Derby, England. It was a gas-turbine-powered tilting train capable of speeds over 150MPH on conventional track. Like the LRC in Canada and the United States, the lessons learned in developing the APT-E have been applied in the development of today's high-speed trains around the world.
We are producing a OO-gauge model of the APT-E exclusively for LocomotionModels.com, the retail arm of the National Railway Museum in the UK. It is available as a DC silent model or a DC/DCC sound-equipped model, and will run on HO track using North American DC or DCC control systems. The model APT-E actually tilts around curves in DC and DCC! If you are ever in the UK, you can visit the real APT-E at Locomotion, the National Railway Museum at Shildon in northeast England. LocomotionModels.com will ship the APT-E worldwide, and it can only be purchased through them. The prices shown are in British pounds, but your credit card company will convert your purhcase into your local currency. Each model comes with a commemorative book. Please click here to order yours by April 30th - that's this Thursday! More information on the APT-E, including all of the product features, can be found here. We have three APT-E videos for you to watch on YouTube if you have some time to kill. Click on each image below to watch the associated video. The first is extremely silly; the second is slightly less silly (but it features nice shots of the train in action) and the final one is not silly at all but it demonstrates some of the model's sounds very clearly.
Delivery Updates We'd like to apologize to your wives for all of the deliveries of new product lately. It seems that Rapido has delivered about three years' worth of products in the last three months. Please stop sending us your mortgage papers. We've already got liens on 12 modellers' houses in exchange for LRC and FPA-4 locomotives. Having acquired enough of your property, we're now accepting as payment: vintage muscle cars (for Bill), fine wine collections (for Mike), a luxury yacht (for Janet) and a beautiful wife (for Dan). I could personally use a real London Routemaster double-decker bus, but I'll accept a fully-loaded London RT bus in a pinch.
In stores now:
Shipping in early June:
Rapido's New Passenger Car A lot of people have said that I am nuts. Unfortunately, my recent actions have done little to repudiate this notion. You may have seen the passenger car in my basement, but this time we've gone one step further. Rapido has purchased our first full-size passenger car not in a basement! It's a Pullman-Standard "E" series sleeping car, Edmundston. Click here or on the image below to watch a very short video of our new car on Facebook. You don't need to join Facebook to watch it and the little Facebook monsters won't invade your computer if you click on the link.
My first ride in an E sleeper was on board Edmundston to northern Quebec when I was a university student, almost exactly 20 years ago. And, lo and behold, Edmundston is our first passenger car purchase! It must have been fate... As the restoration progresses we will provide regular updates on our Facebook page, and we will create a web site for Edmundston in due course. We will begin to offer exclusive Rapido excursions in Edmundston as soon as the car is ready for service. Stay tuned for more information! As you can tell, I'm very excited about this, even though I know it's going to be a money pit. We're looking for VIA/CN bedroom seats for the car, as we only have two and we need eight. If you can help, please send me an email. If we can pull this off without completely losing our shirts, there may be more 1:1 scale VIA passenger cars in our future... That's it for Rapido News 67, one of our shortest newsletters ever! Bill and I are en route to China in just over a week. Before we go, we'll try and get out one more newsletter with a link to our Amtrak F40 video. I say that, thinking I will have time.... While overseas we will be putting regular updates on our Facebook page, provided we can scale the Great Firewall of China. Until then, take care and remember to bid high for your LRC shuttlecraft before the June 1st deadline! All the best, Jason Jason Shron President Rapido Trains Inc. ABOUT RAPIDO NEWS Rapido News is ?2015 Rapido Trains Inc. You have received this email because you signed up for the newsletter on our web page. Rapido Trains Inc. has never signed up anyone for our newsletters without written consent. To unsubscribe, follow the link below. Rapido Trains Inc. is a registered trademark. |
