To all of our American readers, we wish you a happy Fourth of July!

Canadian people, we wish you a happy Canada Day! (Ed: That's Dominion Day.) No, it's not been Dominion Day since 1982. Please stop. (Ed: OK, but it's Dominion Day.)

Whether you enjoyed a nice cook-out, hanging in the pool or just plain relaxing, we hope that the holiday was a safe one for your family, from our family at Rapido, to yours.

In early October, we will be hosting our US Dealer and Public Open Houses at the fabulous Illinois Railway Museum, located in Union, Illinois.

We look forward to seeing everyone at the IRM in October!

One of the most overlooked, yet common loads carried by North American railroads is finished wood products. This is where we are proud to introduce the HO Scale NSC 73' Centerbeam Car! Over 20,000 examples of this car were produced by National Steel Car, between 1987 through the mid 2000s, with some car variations along the way.

Before we dig into these venerable cars, let's check out the new video! Click here or the photo below to watch!

Now let's take a look at the 3D renders! Scroll down to see them!

The NSC 73' Centerbeam Cars had a major production change around the year 2002, which we have broken down into two groups: Early (pre-2002) and Mid (2002-2006). We will be producing both early and mid phases! This means lots of variations and details! Who could have known one style of car could be very detail-intense?

Whenever you see a general merchandise freight pass by you, there's a high probability that you will see at least four or more centerbeams mixed in. But have you taken notice of the roadnames/ownership of those cars? Centerbeams are unique in that they are owned by large class I railroads, leasing companies and smaller short lines. The wood industry is very lucrative and our HO Scale 73' NSC Centerbeam is no stranger to a wide variety of roadnames!

The HO Scale NSC 73' Centerbeam will be loaded with details, but don't take our word for it, check out all of the features below:

Now, as we mentioned before, many roads owned these cars. Check out the first run offerings below!

The NSC Centerbeam catalog is a great place from which to start your order from! It has all of the item number and roadnumber info you'll need to begin your order. Check it out below, by clicking the photo which will open in PDF format.

Ready to order that HO Scale 73' NSC Centerbeam? Remember, you'll need MANY to fill out a nice general freight consist! In the meantime, we'll be working hard to get samples of this car to show off, so keep checking our Facebook or a future newsletter to see when they arrive!

Yes, you heard right N Scalers. We didn't forget about you - the NSC 73' Centerbeam is coming out in N Scale, as well! Rejoice! It's your day as we bring you an exciting, all-new modern freight car, with many varieties!

The N Scale NSC 73' Centerbeam will feature all sorts of details! Check them out here:

Ready to see those paint schemes? Here they are, grouped together below Scroll down to check them out!

Who likes catalogs? The N Scale NSC Centerbeam catalog will answer all of your questions about item and road numbers. Click the photo below to open up the PDF.

Ready to order MANY N Scale 73' NSC Centerbeams? You can never have too many! Once we have samples to show, we'll announce that order deadline for this project, so keep checking our Facebook or a future newsletter to see when they arrive! These are well into tooling, so we expect samples before too long.

JASON: Hi everyone. It's Jason. The top dog. The big cheese.

I'm giving you an update on our new HO Scale Slumbercoach. We had the order deadline a couple of months ago and the orders were unbelievably terrible. I think we sold more "Jordan's lunch leftovers from last Tuesday" box sets than Slumbercoaches.

So we're not making them yet. Instead, we realized that we have to do a little more marketing of these models in order for them to sell. Sometimes models sell themselves, but clearly that is not the case with this Budd-Built Beauty.

One thing we heard from a couple of people is "I already have one." If we listened to that excuse, most of today's model train manufacturers might as well close up shop. Yes, almost everything has been done before. But you can't compare an inexpensive model made 20 years ago with today's state-of-the-art model trains.

Or can you? OK, I will. Here are some comparisons between our Slumbercoach and the Slumbercoach model some people "already have."

Here's Our Slumbercoach interior, in a pre-production model, without any paint. The production model will be in FULL COLOR!

And here's the interior of The Slumbercoach They Already Have. This is a production model. As in, they left the factory that way. 

Here's Our Slumbercoach underbody detail. The stuff underneath a passenger car is very important to me. Just like you would expect a high-end model of a Jaguar E-Type V12 to have a beautifully-detailed SOHC V-12 engine under the bonnet, a model of a passenger car needs all the hardware modeled correctly. Without all that "stuff," a passenger car would just be a go kart on rails. Representing it is important.

And here's The Slumbercoach They Already Have underbody detail. It has some blobs. And a screw. At least it's shiny.

Here's Our Slumbercoach truck detail. This 41-NDO-11 truck is the nicest outside-swing hanger truck we've ever made. It even has the disc brake rotors. Sure, you can't see them when the car is on the track, but it doesn't cost much to include them. So we did.

And here's The Slumbercoach They Already Have truck detail. There really are a lot of screws there.

Please ask your dealer for the Rapido Slumbercoach or click on the link to order yours direct. I'll leave you with our latest Slumbercoach magazine ad. You can click on it to download the PDF. Customers of a certain age will recognize the theme...

BILL: We’ve just received nearly complete samples of our Northeastern Caboose, and we know that we’re WAY past due for an update, so here you go.

First, some history. There will be a test next week…

Originally designed by the Reading Company in the early 1920s, the Northeastern Caboose was one of the first mass-produced all-steel construction cabooses. The Reading built 285 cars, spread through several classes. The earliest cars had solid underframes, but most later cars were equipped with Duryea cushion underframes. (Our models are based on the Duryea underframe cars).

The Reading cars were so successful that quickly other roads in the Northeast bought copies as well. These included the Central Railroad of New Jersey, Lehigh & New England, Lehigh Valley, Pittsburgh & West Virginia and the Western Maryland. The Reading built some of these cars while others were built in the various railroad’s shops. With production spread out between so many locations and roads, variations were bound to be made to the original design. Different groups of cars had variations in running boards, steps, grabs, ladders, end railings, windows (or lack thereof) and trucks.

Most of these cabooses soldiered on into Conrail and Chessie and saw service right up until the end of caboose operations on those roads. Many were sold second-hand to other railroads - Class 1 and short lines alike. Because of their long life span and late service, many of these cabooses have gone on to be preserved either in museums, personal collections or even as part of hotels!

Now, about those models…

As I mentioned before, the NE Caboose is based on the Duryea cushion underframe cars. (We’ve received many e-mails asking why we did not include the cars with the round end windows in this run. The answer is simple – those cars had solid underframes!)

Our model offers different body variations including Reading, CNJ (with one fewer side window), LV (with rain gutters), and WM with end walls that have one, two or no end windows. There are different roof details as well and cars will come equipped with solid diamond-tread, or Alan Wood running boards as appropriate. Step variations include two or three tread versions. Underbodies will include correct equipment boxes, and Taylor, Andrews or Birdsboro trucks will be installed. End railings and ladders will be correct, along with top- or bottom-actuated coupler cut bars in a couple of different styles. Finally, etched details will be installed on cars that received screens and/or wind deflectors, and modernized window glazing is installed on those cars where it is appropriate.

Wow – I’m tired just listing that all out. Oh, I forgot to mention the different interiors as well. With factory-installed lighting of course. Sorry.

Oh, and the marker lights and stacks. I’m sure that there’s more…

We’re taking final orders now for the HO Scale Northeastern caboose, with the order deadline yet to be announced. Make sure to get your reservations in! We'll be ready for production as soon as we complete just a few more tooling tweaks. Please reserve yours today! Over to you, Bobby...

BOBBY: Thanks, Bill and Jason! Lots of new items have just arrived and many more are on the way into the warehouse. Let's have a look at our experience scanning the H16-44, some tooling updates, and arrival updates.

On June 25th, Dan Darnell and myself, Jordan, traveled to southern Alberta to conduct a full 3D scan of the last remaining Fairbanks-Morse/CLC H16-44 locomotive in Canada, Canadian Pacific 8554! While the design for our much-anticipated HO scale model is mostly complete, we wanted to ensure that some details such as the curvature and shape of the nose and roof were correct. We also made additional measurements of the underframe, to refine those details as well!

Dan and I endured a multiple hour delay to start things off at Toronto Pearson International Airport. Once on-site, things got spicier. We incurred a 2-day delay thanks to a particular Airline in Canada which lost the scanning equipment! Despite the delays, we were fortunate that the days were stunningly beautiful and just the right conditions for railfanning the scan to proceed.

With all the measurements recorded by the scanner and tons of detail photos, we can now complete the H16-44 design! This means we can move toward the long-awaited tooling phase of the project. Stay tuned in the coming months for an update!

For CP 8554 along with the 2 C-liner B units coupled behind, the future is still uncertain, but it’s hoped they will finally find a more permanent home in the not-too-distant future.

Back to you, Bobby!

We launch new products almost every month. Have you ever wanted to learn more about the prototype? You're in luck! Recently, with the help of our own Craig Walker, we have created and revamped many of the 'Master Classes' about our models. In fact, we are proud to offer four new classes:

But that's not all! We have others on our website, too! Click here to go over to the Rapido Master Class webpage. In addition to what is already listed, we will be adding more!

LOTS of new items are arriving, both at your dealer or to our warehouse soon! What could they be? Let's find out:

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Get your 52'6" Mill Gondolas before they sell out! In stores NOW!

The HO Bilevels are shipping soon! Don't miss out on them!

Check out the star! The HO Bilevels won't last long in stores!

Classic GO Bilevels!

Here come the N Scale F40PH-2Ds!

Have a look at some of the latest photos from our factories!

Excited for the first sample of the HO Scale Sodium Chloride Hopper? We are!

Ready for the rest of the E8 Locomotives?

Can't for the E8B Locomotives, too!

Check out the HO Scale Procor 5820 Hoppers!

Our RR-56 Reefers are in the printing room!

USRA Single Sheathed Boxcars are getting final touches. These ship in a few days.

USRA Single Sheathed Boxcars all boxed up, ready to go!

A bunch of HO Scale Budd Manor Sleepers, after printing.

Everything looks great on these HO Scale Budd Manor Sleepers.

The N Scale AutoFlood III Hoppers will be here before you know it!

In early June, we held our annual Canadian Dealer Open House in our warehouse. Except this was the first time since 2019! It was an exciting week for Rapido, as many of our US workers also were on hand for the festivities during the week. Let's go to Jordan for a quick recap of the events during that week.

JORDAN: OK! Here we go...

On Sunday evening, most of the out-of-town workers filed into Jason's to enjoy a nice dinner and discussion. We even had David Popp and Ben Lake from MODEL RAILROADER attending. A nice evening out with everyone and it set up for an exciting Monday.

On Monday, we put ourselves at risk with Jason driving the Rapido Bus to visit our 1:1 rail equipment for some tours. Something we haven't been able to do for a few years now.

Afterwards, we arrived back at Rapido HQ to get ready for the Dealer Open House and new product launch. Jason and I split off from the rest so we could host the Rapido Live! around 4PM. After that, we kicked off the show, which included dinner, great discussion and an all-around good time.

Tuesday was another action-packed day with a few meetings in the morning then a team building event and dinner in the evening. Once again, the Rapido Bus took us everywhere! Our first stop was go-karting as seen above. After, we all enjoyed a nice dinner out. Another full day in the books!

On Wednesday we had a full day of planning meetings. Although long, it was a productive day! In fact we have a ton of new projects in the works just from this meeting alone... After the meetings ended, we went for a relaxing evening in Jason's backyard. A nice way to wind down a busy, but productive week!

Thursday saw the departure of the visiting employees and life returning back to normal at Rapido HQ. Nonetheless, it was a great time and here's to the next open house at the Illinois Railway Museum in October! See you then!

BOBBY: Thanks, Jordan!

This closes out July's newsletter. August will be here before you know it, so stay tuned for even more news coming down the pike!

Until then,

Bobby