Rapido Launch "Evolution" Range of 48 Foot Generic Bogie Coaches

[DJ Dangerous]

https://rapidotrains.co.uk/evolution-coaches/

https://railsofsheffield.com/blogs/news/rapido-announce-evolution-bogie-coaches-in-oo

 

Evolution Coaches

Rapido Trains UK is evolving pre-grouping passenger stock in an exciting new way! We are proud to announce that we will be adding a diverse collection of pre-grouping carriages to our OO Gauge range, with the new 48ft Evolution bogie coaches.

With numerous locos and a boatload of era-appropriate wagons under our belt, the pre-grouping era has become a quintessentially ‘Rapido’ thing, so we thought it was about time we produced some more suitable coaches.

Although some have already been seen in ready-to-run versions, it seemed unlikely that all of the well-known pre-1923 companies would receive a wide selection of accurate bogie coaching prototypes in OO gauge. 

We thought we would fill this void with a selection of generic 48ft bogie coaches, each detailed with an array of key features that modellers associate with their railway of choice. We have dubbed this exciting new coach project ‘Evolution’. So what tooling does this entail?

Composite (Top Left) (Four 1st Class and three 3rd Class compartments) Third (Top Right) (Eight 3rd Class compartments) Brake Third (Bottom Right) (Five 3rd Class compartments plus Luggage and Guards compartments)

The coach roofs were one of the most notable features of the era, so we have included elliptical, arc and clerestory designs in the tooling and made the roofs easily removable so that you can fit figures into your coaches. Each roof style will also include fittings for either gas or electric lighting.

We have added some rather nice interior detailing too, including luggage racks, picture frames on compartment dividers and a fully-detailed Guard’s Van/Luggage Compartment. There are also a multitude of separately-fitted parts to bring the coaches to life, including door and grab handles and passenger emergency alarm ‘butterflies’ on one end. 

All Evolution coaches will include fitted internal working lighting controlled by our magnetic magic wand, making it much easier to see these lovely details.

To complete the appearance of different gas and electric lighting fittings, the relevant models will feature separately-fitted parts for battery and regulator boxes, a dynamo, roof-mounted gas lamps, plumbing and gas tanks on the underframes.

Battery boxes and gas tanks aren’t the only external details below the frame. Each Evolution coach will feature Fox-pattern bogies fitted with electrical pickups. Some versions will feature extra footboards on the bogies and there are also additional central lower footboards on some designs too.

Finally, each vehicle is fitted with NEM pockets mounted on kinematic mechanisms and has optional close-coupling bars (modelled to resemble vacuum pipes) included. 

These coaches will be available in three-car multipacks (RRP £199.95), featuring one of each body version. Alongside the multipacks, single coaches (RRP £69.95) will also be offered to modellers who wish to extend their rakes. These single vehicles will each have an alternate running number to their multipack counterparts.

Further batches are planned and will include other pre-grouping, grouping and nationalisation-era liveries, with the potential of future additional tooling for further vehicles. With a growing number of pre-grouping locomotives available from Rapido and other manufacturers, we are sure that these will find a home on many modellers’ layouts.

 

[amdaley]

I'll have to take out a mortgage or else find a rich widow somewhere 

My credit card is melting under the strain 

[DJ Dangerous]

6 minutes ago, amdaley said:

I'll have to take out a mortgage or else find a rich widow somewhere 

My credit card is melting under the strain 

 

Or, you could be smarter about it, find the rich widow, and then take out the mortgage.

[Flying Snail]

Nice, and its pretty clear whats the genesis of this idea!

I've preordered a LNWR set. I wonder will we get Irish versions 

Has anyone been in touch? ... @jhb171achill

Edited September 20 by Flying Snail

[DJ Dangerous]

Just now, Flying Snail said:

Nice, and its pretty clear whats the genesis of this idea!

I've preordered a LNWR set. I wonder will we get an Irish versions 

Has anyone been in touch? ... @jhb171achill

 

Shhhhh, he's on the 'phone to them as we speak!

[amdaley]

Just now, DJ Dangerous said:

 

Or, you could be smarter about it, find the rich widow, and then take out the mortgage.

I suppose if I had the rich widow I wouldn't need a mortgage 

[LNERW1]

Surely one of them will look good in green… I need some proper “old” coaches for my layout.

[Horsetan]

21 minutes ago, amdaley said:

I suppose if I had the rich widow I wouldn't need a mortgage 

There might be some Russian ones available 

[Richard EH]

If you squint, the GNR ones could pass for GNRi coaches.... the lovely paint work will look the part I think with a crest!

Richard.

[leslie10646]

I waited for Mr McLachlan to arrive - he's staying overnight before Scaleforum tomorrow.

We both think that the roofs are a bit angular, the Clerestories especially so.

That said, as Richard E-H has said above the GNR ones look close-ish. The GNR(I) had 48ft  coaches "fairly like" these and the Irish ones had the low eliptical roof, so a relative win? I'll probably go for a set of these.

The Midland railway clerestories have the beautiful MR Crimson Lake - BUT - a VERY BIG BUT, AWFUL ROOFS. Anyway, the NCC didn't have anything like them!

The LNWR ones have a high arc roof - COMPLETELY UNLIKE the fairly flat  LNWR ones.

So, good for we GN types with poor eyesight!

[Horsetan]

6 minutes ago, leslie10646 said:

I waited for Mr McLachlan to arrive - he's staying overnight before Scaleforum tomorrow.

We both think that the roofs are a bit angular, the Clerestories especially so.

That said, as Richard E-H has said above the GNR ones look close-ish. The GNR(I) had 48ft  coaches "fairly like" these and the Irish ones had the low eliptical roof, so a relative win? I'll probably go for a set of these.

The Midland railway clerestories have the beautiful MR Crimson Lake - BUT - a VERY BIG BUT, AWFUL ROOFS. Anyway, the NCC didn't have anything like them!

The LNWR ones have a high arc roof - COMPLETELY UNLIKE the fairly flat  LNWR ones.

So, good for we GN types with poor eyesight!

Might it be possible to swap roofs and correct the ends accordingly?

[jhb171achill]

12 hours ago, Horsetan said:

Might it be possible to swap roofs and correct the ends accordingly?

As long as the ends aren’t curved in, like British MR or many GWR types. While this was common in Britain, only the WLWR had that feature here, and they only had about half a dozen bogie coaches which in other terms were unlike these. So, for Irish layouts, flat ends.

[Patrick Davey]

Interior detail looks pretty nice!

[DJ Dangerous]

3 hours ago, Patrick Davey said:

Interior detail looks pretty nice!

 

Shame they have no Clogherhead posters, though.

[jhb171achill]

6 hours ago, DJ Dangerous said:

 

Shame they have no Clogherhead posters, though.

Ah sure them yokes from Dunleer and Laytown tore ‘em all down.

[Colin R]

I wonder how long it will be before some brave soul takes one apart with a mini-saw, that said I am still confused as to which ones to get.

 

Colin

[Richard EH]

On 22/9/2024 at 4:12 PM, Colin R said:

I wonder how long it will be before some brave soul takes one apart with a mini-saw, that said I am still confused as to which ones to get.

 

Colin

It'd be a shame to! My view with these is that you're paying for a great paint job and detail - and having tried to paint LNWR livery, it's something I can really appreciate when done well - as it looks terrible when done badly(!)

cheers for now!

 

Richard.

[Mayner]

  On 23/9/2024 at 3:12 AM, Colin R said:

I wonder how long it will be before some brave soul takes one apart with a mini-saw, that said I am still confused as to which ones to get.

 

Colin

On 28/9/2024 at 6:24 AM, Richard EH said:

It'd be a shame to! My view with these is that you're paying for a great paint job and detail - and having tried to paint LNWR livery, it's something I can really appreciate when done well - as it looks terrible when done badly(!)

cheers for now!

 

Richard.

 

Reminds me of the joke among American modellers during the 60/70s about converting a (very expensive) Brass Shay into a (cheap) plastic diesel. 

It was one thing to convert the relatively chaeap basic plastic rtr models of the pre-2000 era into representations of Irish stock but Rapido coaches appear to be expensive highly detailed models. It was only modellers like E H Francis that turned out 4mm coaches with fully detailed  interiors which included fine details such as mirrors and publicity photos in the individual compartments.

The elliptical roofed coaches are similar in roof outline to MGWR limited mail stock of the 1900, but the MGWR coaches were 6' longer corridor vehicles not non-corridor compartment stock. Scratchbuilding in plastciard using methods detailed by David Jenkinson in "Carriage Modelling made easy" is probably the best approach for modelling pre-50s era coaching stock.

[Horsetan]

On 22/9/2024 at 4:12 PM, Colin R said:

I wonder how long it will be before some brave soul takes one apart with a mini-saw, that said I am still confused as to which ones to get.

Wonder how many of these "genericoaches" will eventually end up in bargain bins after a few years?

[jhb171achill]

Looking at them a bit closer, they are not really all that "Irish" looking at all. They are too short - while we did have 48-footers, they were few and far between and not similar.

The Genesis Hattons six-wheelers at least bore (by sheer conicidence, obviously) a more than passing resemblance to several GSWR designs, which is why they appeared in Irish liveries in the first place. Looking at the diagram above, the middle left one, a composite clerestorey, probably looks best, and it would also be a GSWR type. We have yet to see anything on the model market that approximates to the GNR(I).

Naturally, if one were to take one of each, paint green, and place in an assorted rake of GSR / CIE stock of all types, the overall impression of the whole lot would look very convincing.

[Galteemore]

The words of Jim McGeown on his 7mm scale generic coach kits always bear reading…..

Although based on prototypes the concept of these coach kits is that they are very generic and represent typical coaches that were built by all the railway companies.

http://www.jimmcgeown.com/images/6 Wheel Brass Coach Photo.jpg http://www.jimmcgeown.com/images/LNER Coach Side 2.jpg http://www.jimmcgeown.com/images/GWR Coach Side 2.jpg http://www.jimmcgeown.com/images/LMS Coach Side 2.jpg http://www.jimmcgeown.com/images/SR Coach Side 2.jpg

These kits have been designed to provide the modeller with an economical coach that can be built in a reasonable weekend modelling session to a level of detail suitable for running on a layout. The modeller can then paint the coach in their chosen railways livery.   By painting and lettering in say LNER brown livery a set of these coaches will capture the look and feel of a typical LNER rural branch line train made up of inherited pre grouping coaches.   Your friends will probably make comments like "I see that you have modeled the coaches used on the Campbellwick Green branch in October 1936". You can then nod sagely and secretly smile to yourself knowing that the most distinguishing thing about coaches is their colour and lettering.   Painted chocolate and cream they have the look of some of the South Wales railway companies coaches that were absorbed by the Great western and painted LMS maroon a Midland appearance and so on. The possibilities for these coaches is only limited by your imagination.

Edited October 1 by Galteemore

[Horsetan]

30 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

..., if one were to take one of each, paint green, and place in an assorted rake of GSR / CIE stock of all types, the overall impression of the whole lot would look very convincing.

Hiding in plain sight 

[Colin R]

2 hours ago, Horsetan said:

Wonder how many of these "genericoaches" will eventually end up in bargain bins after a few years?

Well if that happens wait till the 009 modellers get their hands on them

[LNERW1]

Oh god save us…

[Westcorkrailway]

look good enough to me to try my CBSCR bogeys out of them. 

[DiveController]

On 1/10/2024 at 1:25 PM, Horsetan said:

Wonder how many of these "genericoaches" will eventually end up in bargain bins after a few years?

May are happy with the 2ft rule until something better comes along

[jhb171achill]

On 3/10/2024 at 1:14 PM, Westcorkrailway said:

look good enough to me to try my CBSCR bogeys out of them. 

Actually, if you look at one roof profile of the new Rapido "generic" coaches, the all-third looks close enough to one design of CBSCR coach. many of their (few!) bogie coaches were comparatively short in length. Paint it dark olive green and away ye go!

[Westcorkrailway]

1 hour ago, jhb171achill said:

Actually, if you look at one roof profile of the new Rapido "generic" coaches, the all-third looks close enough to one design of CBSCR coach. many of their (few!) bogie coaches were comparatively short in length. Paint it dark olive green and away ye go!

Like don’t get me wrong. There not exactly like for like, but they’ll “do the job” (I’m not even sure if the below coaches are CBSC or GSWR bogeys but you catch my drift!) 

 

60 quid a coach is a lot for something for me to go at with masking tape and rattle cans but I’ll see as time goes on 

 

[jhb171achill]

The carriages in that shot are ex-GSWR which were brought in (I think five of them) to replace worn-out Bandon stock. Go for the style of coach on the far right in this image. The one shown above has distinctive LNWR-style panelling, found nowhere in Ireland bar a tiny number of 2nd hand GNR coaches and DNGR stock, so it's unsuitable as the panelling gives it away.

I'm just wondering if the panelling is moulded on these things or printed. If printed, they'd be no use for anything Irish as any repaint would obliterate any "panelling".

[Mayner]

3 hours ago, jhb171achill said:

The carriages in that shot are ex-GSWR which were brought in (I think five of them) to replace worn-out Bandon stock. Go for the style of coach on the far right in this image. The one shown above has distinctive LNWR-style panelling, found nowhere in Ireland bar a tiny number of 2nd hand GNR coaches and DNGR stock, so it's unsuitable as the panelling gives it away.

I'm just wondering if the panelling is moulded on these things or printed. If printed, they'd be no use for anything Irish as any repaint would obliterate any "panelling".

A modeller could always follow the Tim Cramer's example of converting a Triang-Hornby/Hornby Clerestory coach into a 45' GSWR  arc roofed coach by fitting a plasticard arc roof, fitting new (flat ends) and interior partitions. One currently listed on e-bay at £7.00 bit easier on the pocket than carving up an Evolution coach at almost £70.00.

Tims ex-GSWR coach was was featured in a Railway Modeller "Irish Miscellanery" artice possible May 1972 along with 4mm 21mm gauge scratch built models of No 90, a Bandon Tank and a J26. Tim's coach was basically a scratchbuilt plasticard model with Triang Clerestory sides, a lsee extensive re-build could be achieved by replacing the clerestory roof with a plasticard arc roof and fitting the distinctive roof vents/lamps supplied with SSM GSWR 6w coach kits.

[jhb171achill]

7 hours ago, Mayner said:

A modeller could always follow the Tim Cramer's example of converting a Triang-Hornby/Hornby Clerestory coach into a 45' GSWR  arc roofed coach by fitting a plasticard arc roof, fitting new (flat ends) and interior partitions. One currently listed on e-bay at £7.00 bit easier on the pocket than carving up an Evolution coach at almost £70.00.

Tims ex-GSWR coach was was featured in a Railway Modeller "Irish Miscellanery" artice possible May 1972 along with 4mm 21mm gauge scratch built models of No 90, a Bandon Tank and a J26. Tim's coach was basically a scratchbuilt plasticard model with Triang Clerestory sides, a lsee extensive re-build could be achieved by replacing the clerestory roof with a plasticard arc roof and fitting the distinctive roof vents/lamps supplied with SSM GSWR 6w coach kits.

Indeed. I’ve two of those old Hornby clerestoreys. If I ever have time they’ll get arc roofs as you say.

By happy coincidence, even retaining the bowed-in end (unique to the WLWR as far as Ireland was concerned), they bear a very good resemblance to two old WLWR brake thirds (953 rings a bell, number-wise) which lasted to the early & mid-50s.

The narrative will be that they lived out retirement on the Dugort Harbour line…. 

I think I paid about £9 for one and £3 or £4 for the other.

[Phil3150]

14 hours ago, Mayner said:

A modeller could always follow the Tim Cramer's example of converting a Triang-Hornby/Hornby Clerestory coach into a 45' GSWR  arc roofed coach by fitting a plasticard arc roof, fitting new (flat ends) and interior partitions. One currently listed on e-bay at £7.00 bit easier on the pocket than carving up an Evolution coach at almost £70.00.

Tims ex-GSWR coach was was featured in a Railway Modeller "Irish Miscellanery" artice possible May 1972 along with 4mm 21mm gauge scratch built models of No 90, a Bandon Tank and a J26. Tim's coach was basically a scratchbuilt plasticard model with Triang Clerestory sides, a lsee extensive re-build could be achieved by replacing the clerestory roof with a plasticard arc roof and fitting the distinctive roof vents/lamps supplied with SSM GSWR 6w coach kits.

Make that June 1972

Phil

Edited October 5 by Phil3150

[Colin R]

Talking of Tim Cramer is he still with us? Someone on here (sorry I forget who) sent me a contact address of sorts which I wish I had followed up on, I have sadly lost the details. But it would be good to find out what other stuff Tim might have, which hasn't been published so far.

 

Colin R

[DJ Dangerous]

Rapido are adding more body styles to their "Evolution" range:

https://rapidotrains.co.uk/evolution-coaches/

https://railsofsheffield.com/blogs/news/rapido-announce-evolution-bogie-coaches-in-oo

 

Quote

25/10/24 UPDATE - ENGINEERING SAMPLES & NEW ADDITIONS

First off, Rapido have announced some additions to the range! Responding to popular demand, they have pulled forward additional coach toolings to arrive in the first batch - namely 'Full Brake' and 'Non-Corridor First Class' vehicles - providing you with even more options to run accurate trains of these gorgeous coaches.