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Musings on Rapido


rapidotrains
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An interesting newsletter, which also contained this rather startling gem:

 

"... We are phasing out unnumbered locomotives as very few people order them..."

 

I guess if the massive North American HO market won't support unnumbered locos, there's no hope for the UK 00 market.

 

Paul

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I guess if the massive North American HO market won't support unnumbered locos, there's no hope for the UK 00 market.

The overall market is of course much bigger. Per road / individual preferences for prototype, even with the recent mega mergers, I think that difference is much less.

 

There are more choices modelling the GWR in the say the 1920s / 1930s than say modelling the Southern Pacific in the 1920s / 1930s.

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Aw not a 207 route, I wanted a route 59. Why do these manufacturers do it?

 

Stewart

What we need is un-numbered models.

 

Oh......

 

Cheers

Mick

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  • 2 weeks later...

Another US newsletter has arrived.

For fans of Rapido (Trains?) product announcement videos (there must be some) what is probably the nuttiest Rapido video is now available. Besides the obvious "Back to the Future" references, please look for references to Dr. Who and Star Trek.  (Star Trek Beyond opens in three weeks, but I'm sure Jason knows that.)

 

I'd really like to know where that flux capacitor came from and presume those are indeed Cybermen decals on the rear windshield - more high detail next time please!

 

As an aside, one presumes that Routemasters are difficult to find in Canada.
 
I'd like to wish Jason and everyone at RapidoTransandbuses a happy 'Staying On The Rails No Matter What' long weekend, and thank him for the "Tootle" reference.

Edited by Ozexpatriate
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The overall market is of course much bigger. Per road / individual preferences for prototype, even with the recent mega mergers, I think that difference is much less.

 

There are more choices modelling the GWR in the say the 1920s / 1930s than say modelling the Southern Pacific in the 1920s / 1930s.

Much of Jason's production is Canadian outline/livery and that's not a huge market at all. I've tended to order un-numbered locomotives so that I can number them as specific locomotives that I've seen or travelled with, or ones that are distinctive to Vancouver Island, but I guess I'm unusual in that respect. (CJL)

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There are more choices modelling the GWR in the say the 1920s / 1930s than say modelling the Southern Pacific in the 1920s / 1930s.

But in the late 1940's and early 1950's Southern Pacific had a great variety of interest. Black Widows, Tiger Stripes, Daylights diesel and steam and all that wondrous oil fueled steam.... 

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Much of Jason's production is Canadian outline/livery and that's not a huge market at all. I've tended to order un-numbered locomotives so that I can number them as specific locomotives that I've seen or travelled with, or ones that are distinctive to Vancouver Island, but I guess I'm unusual in that respect. (CJL)

 

I'm modelling Canadian roads in HO (comes with being Canadian), and appreciate what Jason and his team are doing for us, despite the small market. I suppose if he wanted to have cash to roll in a raft of UP stuff would do the trick.

 

Incidentally, having missed The Canadian when it first came out, I finally got one. Paid a bit over the odds, but it's mine. And moving to a house with space for an HO layout is making things much better.

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But in the late 1940's and early 1950's Southern Pacific had a great variety of interest. Black Widows, Tiger Stripes, Daylights diesel and steam and all that wondrous oil fueled steam.... 

For some perverse reason I decided I liked "SOUTHERN PACIFIC LINES" rather than the post-war "SOUTHERN PACIFIC".  (I think it might have had something to do with avoiding diesels.)

 

The new BLI Consolidation is really nice.

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I like to remember Canada as having the same population as London. (It did when I was in school; it still may depending on what's included in London.)

So Canadian models should have a similar market to something that's exclusive to London. (Tube trains?  "Can't buy that -- it's Jubilee line and I'm modelling Central.")

 

I expect that Rapido will be able to continue supplying models by scanning, which sounds easier than finding old drawings.

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In my schooldays, Canada was still in the 20,000,000 range.  And our teachers were just getting used to sing "God save the King" instead of "the Queen".

 

It looks as if most of London's population has drifted to Canada.

 

and now back to our original whingeing...

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

==========Quote============


Slightly tangential, I saw the comments from Bob Zenk posted by Rapido on Facebook. It would be great if they could be reposted on RMWeb.

Cheers
David

=====End Quote=====

 

The good news is that they are planning to open a second factory with a project well under way. The bad news is that production times are taking a lot longer than expected.

 

For the APT-E they expected one month which became 3 months. I am not sure from where production is calculated. I imagine anything from when they buy from outside (motors, wires, PCBs etc) is sourced first. Now production could mean, from setting the machines up to the final boxed items for shipping. Or it could mean from when the first plastic is injected into a mould to boxed up, or it could mean just the actual assembly to boxed up.

 

Anyway, if it took 3 times longer than expected to actually do production, then that cost is multiplied by 3. If we say production was anticipated as half the final cost, well that cost just went 3 times which means we should have been paying twice as much for our APT-Es! Lesser percentages will still equate to eventual price increases I'm afraid. So future announcements of any multiple unit may be a lot more expensive (the Stirling single is probably based on a revised estimate).

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I don't really see how taking three times longer to do the production would triple cost as cost is not a function of production time, although clearly the production time will influence the cost. Quite aside from the contractual arrangement which may mean that a production delay could be cost neutral or potentially beneficial to the purchaser a big part of the cost is design, development, distribution etc and stuff like raw materials.

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I don't really see how taking three times longer to do the production would triple cost as cost is not a function of production time, although clearly the production time will influence the cost.

 

Unless I'm misundertanding your comment there seems to be a glaring contradiction in, "I don't really see how taking three times longer to do the production would triple cost... although clearly the production time will influence the cost."

 

My line of thinking is that if, for the sake of argument, you have to pay your production line staff for thirty hours work as opposed to ten hours work then there is your obvious threefold increase in production costs?

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Unless I'm misundertanding your comment there seems to be a glaring contradiction in, "I don't really see how taking three times longer to do the production would triple cost... although clearly the production time will influence the cost."

 

My line of thinking is that if, for the sake of argument, you have to pay your production line staff for thirty hours work as opposed to ten hours work then there is your obvious threefold increase in production costs?

No contradiction at all, it is the fundamental difference between a determining factor and an influencing factor. To argue that to make production three times long will triple the cost indicates that time is the determinant, when it isn't. As an influencing factor it will affect price but so will a huge number of other variables.

Are we talking time here or man hours? If you argue that tripling time to produce will triple cost then this indicates that the argument is about man hours (no offence intended to the ladies who make models for us in China) but man hours and calendar time are completely separate and distinct. If something requires 10 man hours to manufacture then whether those ten hours are applied in the course of one day, two days or three months (with the material sat on a shelf for most of it) is not going to determine the cost of labour unless the factory is so woefully inefficient that a person does a few hours work and then just sits idle for most of the time. Labour in itself is only one cost, and more significantly so is the actual manufacture cost. Once the tooling is fully amortised and development costs written off then the cost of the manufacture of many products becomes a relatively minor part of the equation relative to inventory control, distribution, marketing etc.

The cost of a process is complex and I'm guessing that at the moment currency fluctuations are causing more headaches than just about anything else. One of the problems with most of the arguments over model pricing (and btw, I am not in denial of price inflation or ignorant of the reasons for price increases) is that a very complex set of conditions has often been reduced to a simplistic linear relationship between Chinese staff costs and model prices ignoring the efficiency of development, manufacture and production, currency risks, the required margins of each player in the chain etc.

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