Assembling the Rapido 44-tonner

It should come as no surprise that I have several of the Rapido 44-tonners.  This includes a couple of the decorated ones, along with four (for now) undecorated ones that I'll be doing in other paint schemes.  It was also a nice surprise to find I was mentioned in the manual (in French too!). (It should also come as no surprise that I started this post on November 18...).  

 

Like many undecorated locomotives, these are unassembled. Most of the assembly is pretty straightforward, but since instructions aren't included I thought I'd mention a few things.  First, there are details that need to be installed on the running boards, but holes have not been pre-drilled. But there are dimples underneath for that purpose, you just need to figure out which ones are needed, since not all are used for every phase.

Looking at the picture below, here are what the holes are for (on the NH models, anyway):

• Blue - bell. There's a hole at the other end of tanks too, which may be used for the bell on other roads.
• Green - steps for Phase Ic models. The one closer to the edge is also the alignment for the skirt. You need to drill the hole in the semi-circular portion closer to the center of the model.
• Yellow - steps/curved portion of the cab for Phase III model. This probably applies to the Phase IV models too, but I don't have one to verify.

The side frames that come preinstalled are the later version, for the Phase III and Phase IV models. They need to be replaced for the Phase Ic version. I did this the hard way, not realizing that they trucks themselves are easily removed (I hadn't read the portion of the manual regarding removing the coupler, since I wasn't planning on doing that...).

You do need to remove the pickup contact strips to install on the other side frames. It appears they attached them using heat to melt the plastic pins. It's easy enough to pry the strips off the plastic sideframes.

To install them on the new sideframes I didn't want to use heat.  Instead, I applied a liberal amount of styrene cement and used the flat end of a pair of tweezers to mash them down.

I won't bother to explain the process I had to use to reinstall the trucks since you all know now that you can simply pull and turn to remove the entire truck assembly.

As for other details, note that the New Haven units used one of two horns.  The Phase Ic units had Wabco AA-2 horns.  The A-2 horn was produced in short and long bell versions. The AA-2 has the short stacked on top of the long.

The phase III and IV units used the long bell A-2.

Fiddling

Progress is one of those things that I think we all struggle with from time to time.  Tom Jacobs has his "hour a day" mantra and Chris Adams has "do one thing." Similar approaches are great ways to keep things moving.

My approach is similar, but in an ADHD bent rather than an OCD sort of way.  What's the difference? Chris and Tom get more things completed.

Rather than try to force myself to do those things that I should be doing, I've gone back to doing whatever I gravitate to instead. Lately that has been fiddling around with freight car kits. Cleaning flash off resin kits, drilling holes, etc. are great mindless things when my brain has had enough, but I want to keep busy. That has led to assembling some bodies and doing some of the detail work when a particular kit captures my interest. 

This leads to lots of projects in progress, but my theory is that they will all get finished eventually.  Progress is progress, after all. There is a bit of method to my madness, though.  When I start doing a particular task, such as cleaning flash or drilling holes, it's easy to just keep moving forward with that task.  Thus, pulling several kits (often with a theme) and completing the process on several.

In addition to getting to see the cool kits I've picked out over the years as important to my layout, right now it's a better approach for me.  Changes in work has left me more mentally fatigued than short on time. These more mindless tasks are good distractions, but also let me give my brain a rest.  The reality is, for me anyway, that my brain becomes more productive and finds solutions best when I don't think about them. So this approach ends up being helpful for my work and my modeling. The apparent chaos can be a good thing.

The big thing here is that, as a hobby, it's supposed to not only be fun, but engaging. It's a distraction from the rest of life, and a better one (at least for me) than just watching TV or videos online (I've done way too much of that already).  It's also a way of accomplishing things that are uniquely you.  Leaning into my nature has already made me far more productive, and I have already found solutions to some of the things that have been holding me back on those things that I should do.  As a result, I do want to complete a number of these works in progress, and get to a few critical things to get the layout fully operational again, and set up in a way that I can be prepared for regular sessions. And scenery.

So what have I been working on?

Rapido 44-tonners

Various Box Car Mini-kits and Kitbashes

Ballast and Cinders experiments

Painting and Weathering Ties Experiments

Resin Gondola Kits

Resin Reefer Kits

Reorganizing