From Rapido:
TORONTO – Rapido Trains Inc. is delighted to announce that Bill Schneider will be joining the company’s growing product development department starting on May 1st of this year.
Schneider has been involved in the retail, wholesale and manufacturing aspects of model railroading since 1982. For the last 15 years, Schneider has been responsible for product development at Branchline Trains, including the ground-breaking heavyweight passenger cars introduced by Branchline in December 2003 and the critically-acclaimed line of Blueprint and Yardmaster freight car kits.
“Having Bill on board is a real step forward for Rapido,” says company president, Jason Shron. “We have had numerous requests for more American prototypes and Bill’s role with Rapido is to develop new 100% American models that will fill some big gaps in the US model railroad marketplace. The combination of Bill’s knowledge and experience with Rapido’s reputation for unprecedented detail will mean more choice for American prototype modelers.”
Schneider is an active HO scale prototype modeler. His New York, Ontario and Western double-deck layout has been featured in Great Model Railroads, Railroad Model Craftsman, Prototype Railroad Modeling, and Designing and Building Multi-Deck Model Railroads by Tony Koester (Kalmbach Books, 2008).
Bill Schneider lives in Connecticut with his wife, Theresa, and daughters Kayleigh and Laura. When he is not working on his model railroad, Schneider can be found fixing up his 120-year-old farmhouse or playing with his 1973 Mustang Convertible. Rapido is trying to convince him to trade the latter for a full-size LRC locomotive.
From Athearn’s Press Release:
Athearn Trains is excited to announce that all sound-equipped HO-scale Genesis locomotives, as well as Athearn N Scale and Roundhouse sound locomotives announced after April 27th, 2009 will proudly feature SoundTraxx Tsunami Digital Sound Decoders. Custom designed for Athearn, these state-of-the-art Digital Sound Decoders will include the following features:
Tsunami technology that provides smoot and precise locomotive operation.
Back-EMF control for consistent operating speeds.
Compatible with the NMRA DCC Standards and Recommended Practices.
Dual-mode capability to allow for operation on Analog or DCC layouts.
16-bit digital processor provides CD quality sound technology.
Diesel decoders will include the following sound effects: prime mover startup/shutdown, bell, air horn (with several user-selectable horn types), air compressor, turbocharger (where applicable), dynamic brakes (where applicable), brake squeal, fans, coupler crash, and many more.
Steam decoders will include the following sound effects: exhaust chuff, bell, whistle, air pump, dynamo, injectors, and many more.
HO-Scale models will feature effect lighting (as applicable per prototype), including:
Mars oscillating signal lights (clear and red, as applicable per prototype)
Pyle Gyralights (clear and red, as applicable per prototype)
Western-Cullen rotary beacons
Prime Stratolite sequential beacons
Xenon Strobes
Flashing ditch lights
and more!
Programmable acceleration, deceleration, and starting voltage.
Supports 14-bit address modes for addressing any Loco number up to 9,999.
Supports programming on the main.
A listing of SoundTraxx equipped locomotives can be found here.
