It's finally here! Now we can relax.

Ha, if only!

It has been all hands and paws to the pump at Rapido Trains UK over the last month, and we've had every Tom, Dick and Corwin in the office to help us put The Titfield Thunderbolt Deluxe Train Packs into as many customers' hands as possible. All the while getting stuck into the planning and designs for the upcoming (and rather exciting) Winter Announcement.

What do you think we have up our sleeves? What are you hoping for?

It's not just Titfield Thunderbolt that has made progress this month, with numerous engineering prototypes turning up within days of Titfield arriving, we’ve been keen to get you some content of not only what's here, but also some of the lovely things to come - plus one new announcement!

Right, before we get drafted in for packing parcels full of Thunderbolt Deluxe sets, here's a quick look at what has been going on during October at Rapido.

LNWR D88 Covered Van (OO Gauge)

In 1908 the LNWR introduced a new covered goods van – the Diagram 88. This design became the LNWR standard van design from their introduction right up until the grouping with over 6000 examples constructed.

The van’s lineage can be traced back to earlier diagrams and was in essence an updated version of the D87 vans that preceded it. In 1904 the Goods Conference decreed that new covered vans should be built to certain dimensions, including a length of 21’ over buffers, an 8ft width, a wheelbase of 9’9” and an ability to carry 8 tons. The D88 vans incorporated all these features but were uprated to carry 10 tons. This was an improvement over the 19’ long 9’ wheelbase vans that formed D87.

Like previous LNWR vans, the D88 incorporated a set of 5ft wide horizontally-planked cupboard doors with a fall door below making access into platforms and goods loading facilities easier. Under LMS ownership, the doors were often replaced by vertically-planked alternatives.

The Rapido Trains UK D88 van has been designed using a combination of archival materials, works drawings, and an onsite survey at Chatham. We would like to thank everyone at The Historic Dockyard Chatham for giving us access to their D88 wagon.

We have already received the engineering prototypes from our factory and are extremely pleased with the progress made so far. Actually, progress has been so good that we can announce order books will be closing on Monday 4^th March.

You can place your pre-order now. Each wagon has an RRP of £32.95 and can be ordered direct from us or from any Official Retailer.

Rapido Trains UK’s smallest 00 scale loco to date, and probably one of the smallest ready-to-run locos ever made in the scale is well on the way.

For such a small engine it certainly had a fair number of variants over the years, and we have done our utmost to bring as many of these to life in all their diminutive glory. An eclectic selection of tooling variations are in the works, and while we were unloading Thunderbolt sets, a mystery parcel was slid under the door by the postman. We were immensely busy, but this box halted us in our tracks. Eleven gorgeous engineering prototypes of the upcoming LNER Y7 (NER H) were lovingly unwrapped and gleefully played with tested by our staff.

And once the word got around that they were here our designers seemed to turn up in the office faster than you can say ‘pet project’!

Whilst there are some small corrections to be sorted we are delighted with not only how they look - but also how they run - so we thought we would show you a short teaser video.

We are currently putting them through their paces and checking them over to make sure they are as awesome and accurate as we know they can be. Keep an eye out for further updates in our monthly newsletters, and if you fancy pre-ordering this tiny tank engine, you can do so direct from us or through any of our Official Retailers.

Don't forget to place your order before Monday 12th February.

Despite the 25t ‘LOWMAC’ Machine Wagon project only being announced recently, we have already made enough headway that an early production sample has arrived for review, and it looks awesome.

We have been flat-out dealing with LOWMAC orders. So, if you fancy adding this big MAC to your collection you can pre-order directly from our website or from your Official Retailer of choice. Don't forget to place your order before Monday 15th January.

We were so pleased with the response we got from the 3D-printed samples that we took to TINGS last month and were happy with the designs at our end, so we moved them forward to the next stage of their development. Within weeks we received a couple of early production samples for review, and we think they look superb. Of course, this is our initial assessment, and we will conduct a more in-depth review before they move forward further, but we are confident things are on track (literally as ‘not derailing around setrack points’ was part of the design brief). The final versions will also be in a variety of liveries and feature black couplings, so they are in line with most existing N gauge rolling stock.

Feast your eyes on them! We think you’ll agree that the chassis detail is spectacular, and truly raises the bar on N scale detail and quality.

We are currently aiming to close the order book for these three-wagon packs on Monday 15th January. They will be the perfect set to complement our upcoming Class 44 too, so make sure you don’t miss out.

You can pre-order your N Gauge OAA triple packs directly through our website here, or via any of our Official Retailers.

We do have a handful of each livery available to purchase directly from our website, and many of our Official Retailers will be stocking them too, so if you are after adding these to your collection get in there before they are gone.

It's straight out of the museum and into your hands, well, via the postal service or your favourite retailer of course. Many of you have been eagerly awaiting this pack and we are pleased to say that over the last few weeks, we have been sending out as many of the Deluxe Train Packs as we can. We’ve already received loads of positive messages from very happy customers who have received theirs, so if yours is yet to arrive, sit tight, we will get it to you as quickly as we can.

Make sure you send in pictures of your Thunderbolt sets or share them on our social channels; we would love to see them on as many layouts as possible.

Pearce and Crump’s meddling interference has meant the Standard DCC-Ready Titfield Thunderbolt Train Packs are a little further down the line. Fear not, they are also on their way and will be dispatched as soon as possible.

Last month we showed off some final production samples of probably the most colourful products we’ve ever added to our range, the Not-Quite-Minks, Wisbech and Upwell Train Packs, and Bogie Tram Cars. We are pleased to say that the Not-Quite-Minks and Tram cars are now in a container on their way to the UK, and once they have passed our QC process, we are hoping to have them out to you at some point in the next month or so. Which makes them a rather nice gift as we head into the festive period. So not only will pre-grouping and W & U fans be happy, but Mr. Valentine will be able to enjoy a festive tipple from the comfort of the brand-new Titfield Thunderbolt Buffet car.

The remaining W & U Train Packs will also be shipped in due course, but as they aren’t loaded and ready to go at the point this newsletter hits your inbox we can’t make promises on delivery timeframes we may not be able to keep. Keep an eye on our social channels for further news on this one.

Another colourful update in last month's newsletter was the Leyland Fleetline Buses. We showed off an array of brightly painted samples that we were reviewing, and we are pleased to say all of them have been approved for use. Since this update, the factory has made an impressive amount of progress. The individual parts have been injection moulded, and the painting and tampo printing of each of the liveries has begun. Keep an eye on future newsletters for further updates.

Western Region fans will be happy to hear that progress has moved along quickly on the V14 and V16 Mink A vans, Y4 Banana vans, and the O11, and O15 5-plank open wagons. They are in a similar state as the Fleetlines mentioned above, with all of the colours having being approved, parts having been moulded, and the painting and tampo printing having started. It looks like it won't be long before you can peel a parcel full of Banana vans and more.

While we are on the subject of Western wagons, we have also received a few more samples for us to look over. A few months ago, we received the engineering prototypes of the RCH 1907 Private Owner wagons and had a crack at applying some liveries to them ourselves, just to give you an idea of what they will look like. However as part of the production process we are often sent a selection of spare bodies of any product they factory have to hand, painted in our specified base colours for signing off. As soon as they have been signed off by our project team production will start - which will be the case by the time this newsletter reaches you.

Over the last few months, we have updated you on the ongoing progress of the LB&SCR E1. We had to make several amendments to the overall design to ensure it was accurate, and this redesign has subsequently knocked on to the internal components. As such, the speaker didn’t quite fit any more. Thankfully we have some of the best people in the business on the case.

The folks at ESU are kindly helping us with the final stages of the design, this is to ensure their speaker and Soundbox fit nicely before we sign it off to go to tooling. With such significant progress being made on this project and a reliable hand guiding us on the final stage of development we are confident we will have further updates for you shortly.

Progress has been good(s) since we last updated you on the Highland Railway ‘Jones Goods’, and we have plenty to engage more than one of your senses. This month we have had a proper overhaul of the sights and sounds of the Jones Goods. Early base colour samples of the boilers and cabs turned up for our review, and they look glorious. We think you'll agree that no matter what livery you choose, it's going to stand out on your layout.

Looks aren’t everything! Creating immersive sound for our DCC-fitted models is equally as important to us. Over the last few months, we have been working to improve the Jones Goods sound file, making subtle tweaks to ensure you have the most realistic and fun experience when unleashing this incredible Scottish workhorse on your layout.

As many of you are aware the Jones Goods was a film star, so you would think sound files should be readily available. Unfortunately, this simply isn’t the case. Due to the age and subsequent quality of the footage available, it wasn’t a simple task. Thankfully by using this footage as a reference and the wonders of modern digital editing, we have been able to create a varied and interesting sound file that pays a respectful tribute to this highly anticipated loco.

It's show season and we are heading (unsurprisingly) to Warley in a big way!

So come and see us on stand A35 at the Warley National Model Railway Exhibition on Saturday 25^th and Sunday 26^th of November. Held annually in Hall 5 of the Birmingham NEC Warley is the UK’s biggest model railway exhibition, and it's fair to say we have plenty to talk about. With people overjoyed with the recently arrived Titfield Thunderbolts, some gorgeous painted samples of upcoming models for us to show off, and hopefully a few people who are interested in the upcoming Winter announcement, we are certain Warley is going to be as busy as ever.

And fingers crossed there isn’t another National Rail strike on the Saturday of the show (the irony wasn’t lost on us)!

So, in true Rapido style, let's tackle this difficult one head-on.

Even though the weather has finally set in for the Autumn it's fair to say that October hasn’t been a breeze at Rapido. Sometimes you can plan, review, and conduct plenty of QC checks on your products, and frustratingly stuff still slips through the net. And we would be lying if we said that the release of the 15XX was as seamless as we had planned.

Unfortunately, some customers have reported issues with their 15XX models not being up to the high standards we strive to maintain with all new products, and for that, we are sincerely sorry.

These problems were not present in the development prototypes, the sign-off sample models, or the QC samples we examined from the main shipment, and we were absolutely gutted when we got these reports.

This is a product that has been eagerly awaited by our customers and we were really looking forward to this putting a smile on everyone's face, and unfortunately, we haven’t achieved this, despite it having all the ingredients of being a spectacular model. If you have received one that has had issues, we can assure you that we are as heartbroken about this as you are.

The million-dollar question is simple. What are we going to do about it?

Currently, we are doing our best to review and repair any of your models that have been sent in via our warranty repair form as quickly as we can. But, due to a backlog of existing warranty repairs and the fact that we work on a first come, first serve basis, it is taking a little longer to get through them than we would like. We would like to thank everyone who has sent their models in and ask them to sit tight until we can cast our eye over your pride and joy, as with everything we do here we would rather we do things properly than rush and incur more issues. We will be tackling every customer's return in the order we received and will be in contact with each of you in due course.

As a team we are working tirelessly to resolve this, we have even been drafted in one of our Canadian friends from Rapido Trains Inc. to give us a hand with it (thanks Dave). We will get as many models resolved and back in your hands as efficiently as possible.

When things like this happen, we obviously get a lot of genuine returns - but sadly we also get a lot of others that have been caught up in the (often) online hype from certain pages and reviewers. These get sent back as ‘poor runners’ etc and we check them out only to find there are no issues, but the customer (or retailer) just wanted them checked and serviced. Whilst we want to give our customers the best customer service possible, it does slow down dealing with issues for other people. So, if you are happy with your model, please don’t send it back to us or complete a warranty form.

Looking more positively at our upcoming products, we are taking these decoration/assembly issues up with our supplier. This is only one of four factories that we use and is the first and only time both Rapido Trains Inc. and Rapido Trains UK have encountered issues from this factory. We are unhappy about this. This is a negative outlier when it comes to our quality, so other than the time it is taking for us to resolve this, it will not impact future releases or any other items that are already in production. However, we will conduct a full review of policies and procedures to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

Okay, I think that covers everything, now let's get back to getting those Thunderbolts in the post and dusting those cabinets in time for Warley.

Keep guessing the exciting Winter announcements, and best wishes,