Rapido FA units

[princessclyne69]

Here’s a quick look at the Rapido FA units, with some shots showing them mixed with F units for color comparison. They have been faithful to the differences between early and late units, with early ones having a number plate on the nose and later ones having the number stenciled across the front of the unit. The aluminum windshield frames are there, as are the eyebrow grab irons and the ladder grabs on the edges of the top of the nose. The headlight shows the twin sealed beam effect. All in all, really excellent appearance. In the package is a lengthwise exhaust stack panel, plus a diaphragm which I haven’t installed yet.

Running quality is superb. They start at a lower voltage than even the Athearn Geeps, and run well together, if not perfectly, well enough with Athearn F units and Geeps. (Mine are DC).

RG7[attachment=0:3jixiboc]P1140946.JPG[/attachment:3jixiboc] [attachment=1:3jixiboc]P1140942.JPG[/attachment:3jixiboc] [attachment=2:3jixiboc]P1140940.JPG[/attachment:3jixiboc]

[benjamintickell53]

What about that black pilot? Other than that, they look like a really nice model.

BP

[peggyrothschild]

No matter how much the Missouri Pacific Historical Society (Nate, Ed Hawkins and several others) helped Rapido with this, vetted their drawings, sent color photos of the prototype their factory in China still got it wrong. I sprayed mine with Tru-Color Eagle blue and it’s a little lighter than the model’s carbody. The guys at Rapido are to tell me what a good match is after they do some testing and I’ll post it here.

[princessclyne69]

Nothing like a little help from people with good color vision….

I was mostly watching the units from the top, and of course I picked a cut to photograph them in. So this didn’t exactly jump out at me.

I did take a look at the art that Rapido posted, and (to use a Texas phrase) that black pilot is there in the art, bigger than Dallas. Well, the front air hose fell off one of mine while I was taking it out of the box, so I have some work to do anyway.

RG7

[peggyrothschild]

Rapido said the artwork sent to their China factory had two side views one with a blue pilot the other black. Generally, they said when there’s a question the factory will get back to them asking for clarification but in this case they didn’t and we have the error. Bill Schneider who we all worked with thinks they used Tru-Color Eagle Blue as the color they copied but when I sprayed it the pilot was a little lighter. I’d used this bottle in painting two Sunshine Eagle Merchandise cars so a fresh bottle may prove to be a closer match. At least masking off the pilot on a FA is easier than an EMD F unit since the anti climber on the Alco’s were also blue.

[benjamintickell53]

Here is an enlarged view of the pilot from Ron’s photo. Black pilot stands out, but should be an easy fix for anyone except people like me whose painting efforts look like they applied the paint with a toothbrush. One reason I leave modeling to the experts.

Bill Pollard

[attachment=0:3194cvmn]Rapide-FA-w.jpg[/attachment:3194cvmn]

[bargetanika]

I’m leaving mine alone.

[Author]

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