Rapido Trains RDC, Operating Handbook

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bench or kitchen table. Dining room tables are not recommended. Coffee tables are 

punishable by a fine and a possible jail term. Kids play tables are just asking for trouble 

too, simply because your RDC is NOT A TOY! If you gave your RDC to your four-year-old 

grandson you clearly have money to burn and we’d like you to contribute $10,000 to 

our RDC restoration efforts. Please send a cheque payable to “cash” to the attention of 

Jordan Smith at the Rapido address.

Place a foam cradle (available from Micro-Mark, product #80784) or a thick-piled hand 

towel (not a tea towel!) folded over a couple of times on top of the table cloth and lay 

the RDC on its roof. 

Use a small Phillips screwdriver to unscrew the coupler box and slide it out without 

destroying the surrounding details, especially the really thin trapezoid-thing (we don’t 

know what it’s for either) that is liable to spring off into oblivion. Ping! Whooaaa!! There 

it goes.

Snap the lid off the coupler box, replace the coupler, and snap the lid back on. Slide the 

coupler box back in and replace the screw. Pick up the RDC and look around the white 

table cloth for all the grab irons and the horns that have fallen off. Glue them back on 

with white glue. Hey – don’t say we didn’t warn you! And on that note….

MISSING OR DAMAGED PARTS

With over 400 individual detail parts, the RDC is a far cry from the rubber-band-

equipped model it’s replacing. To prevent inevitable frustration, we recommend check-

ing your RDC as soon as possible to ensure that everything is where it should be. Don’t 

wait until you’ve retired and we’re all sitting around reminiscing in a retirement home. 

We’ll be lucky to be able to say RD… RD… RD whatever. You can forget about us send-

ing you parts at that point.

We try to catch all potential issues at the factory, but with literally hundreds of RDCs in 

each production run it is possible that the odd problem may slip past our quality control 

inspectors. Everyone gets their hair cut at, like, 2 a.m. in China. We don’t know why, but 

it’s true. Even Jason went for a late-night snip in Shenzhen in 2015. (Bill wanted a snip 

but then realized he had no hair.) The stylist was shocked that Jason wanted him to use 

clippers. He was ready to spend 45 minutes styling. Eventually Jason took the clippers 

and did it himself in five, not 45 minutes. Where were we? Right – so maybe the person 

assembling your RDC was at the barber all night and consequently installed a grab iron 

crooked. Your model – her hair. Hmmm. Tough choice. Hair wins. 

A bigger issue is damage in transit. More than 99.5% of all models are perfect when 

they leave our warehouse. But our gentle courier and postal carriers tend use our models 

to practice for their local kickball team every Thursday at 7pm down at the park by the 

tracks. No packaging is designed to survive such punishment. 

If underbody bits come loose in transit, they are easily reattached with CA (super glue). 

If grab irons or other parts on the shell come loose, we recommend white glue rather