Rapido Trains --Factories and Making Train Models

[bill937ca]

Rapido Trains a manufacturer primarily of North American HO model trains has posted videos of their new second factory in Chins and other videos.

 

New LRC Factory

 

 

Tooling Factory

 

 

Making RDC Models

 

 

Pad Printing

 

[cteno4]

Very interesting they are doing their own factories! That's brave! Most of the business I've been a part of with Chinese production you hire an already existing factories, even the big chains were doing this even if those factories were only doing their stuff for long periods. But the down side is factories would go poof or get a more lucrative client and be gone... One we worked with doing wooden stuff went completely poof between two products in the matter of a couple of months and they never did hear what happened... But it's been at least 5 years and I'm sure the legalities and such have changed.

 

Jeff

[keiichi77]

Jason Shron mentioned once the reason they decided to do their own factories was because of delays with other factories, along with other issues they had with out sourcing.

 

Jason

[katoftw]

Ask Micro Ace why owning your own factories are a good idea.

[cteno4]

The hurdles must have been high in the past to try to own and run your own factories as all the companies we worked with here in the states (even big ones) always contracted with factories and never owned them even if they were doing pretty much exclusive work with that company at the factory. There was also the fallout when the main train production manager chap in China that worked with most of factories producing model trains in China retired and sent things into chaos a few years back and it's left it pretty crazy since (and probably why rapido is doing this) and I expect the rough water that micro ace ran into the last few years.

 

I'm guessing that China has made it easier for foreign companies to own and run their own factories in China.

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[bill937ca]

Not to mention that Kader bought the biggest factory and kicked out most of the clients of that factory apart from Bachmann and the brands it owns.

[bill937ca]

Shipping day at the Rapido Trains original Factory

 

Edited November 21, 2016 by bill937ca

[cteno4]

Not to mention that Kader bought the biggest factory and kicked out most of the clients of that factory apart from Bachmann and the brands it owns.

Yeah it seems like that was about the time ownership by offshore companies started to be able to happen as before that all the big manufactures producing in Japan seemed to be just contracting factories and why it was a bit of chaos when that started to come unglued and then the Kander purchase. I have a friend that may know more on this, I'll email them.

 

Jeff

[bill937ca]

Kader is based in Hong Kong and run by a Chinese national.     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kader

Edited September 19, 2017 by bill937ca

[Suica]

Not to mention that Kader bought the biggest factory and kicked out most of the clients of that factory apart from Bachmann and the brands it owns.

If I recall correctly Minitrix, Brawa and especially Arnold were influenced by that. Piko already had its own factory in China at that time.

Some European manufacturers stopped production in China and actually went for a compromise and opened their own factories in Eastern-Europe.

Märklin/Trix have a factory in Hungary and Fleischmann/Roco are producing in Romania and Slovakia.

Fleischmann/Roco published video about their factory in Arad.

Sorry, it's only available in German

[bill937ca]

Another Rapido Trains factory video.

 

A tour of the Rapido Trains Inc. factory in China while production of the Alco/MLW FA-2 locomotives is in full swing. An interesting look at the processes involved in the manufacture and production of model trains. Also a look at making the tooling for the CPR Royal Hudson. http://www.rapidotrains.com

 

 

 

Edited September 19, 2017 by bill937ca

[kvp]

It's interesting to see that current european and chinese model train production is very similar to the classic small scale manufacturing that is still done in Europe by a few individuals and small companies. Tomix has a similar production system and the hand painting is especially visible on the cheaper Tomytec items.

 

Now comparing the Lego production process, with the directly tool steel and aluminium CNC-d molds and the automated pad printing shows how they managed to keep some of the production in Europe. (the reason is that almost no manual labor is involved, even the packaging is automated)

 

The third way is the 3d printed, 3d painted models we start to see for very small production runs, where each model is printed on order and painted by a non flat surface inkjet painter using UV curing base material and paint. (it's the same UV curing material used for modern tooth repair) This allows each model to be made individual, so road numbers and other things could be unique or even selectable by the customer. Prices here are mostly influenced by the cost of the design engineers.

[DF4B]

As far as I know, Jason will not have his own company in the real sense until 2019. But I saw the second video I think Jason's words I need to question

[gavino200]

19 hours ago, DF4B said:

As far as I know, Jason will not have his own company in the real sense until 2019. But I saw the second video I think Jason's words I need to question

 

That's interesting. What do you mean?