Rapido Trains - 540502 - Locomotive, Diesel, GE Dash 8-40CM - Canadian National - 2406

Model Information: Model introduced in September 2020.
Features:

• Accurately scaled from prototype blueprints - completely designed from new
• Roadname-specific details including bell position, single or double rear headlights, with or without battery boxes behind cab, horns, tall or short sand fillers, CN or BCOL style ditch lights, BCOL rock lights and more!
• An insane level of underbody detail with air filters, many separate pipes and moulded traction motor cabling and air/control pipe runs.
• Heavy, die-cast chassis with a powerful coreless motor and dual flywheels
• Operational headlights and real lights with operational factory-installed ditch lights (plus rock lights on BCOL locomotives)
• Separate grab irons and handrails installed at the factory

DCC Information: Moded available either as DC/Silent (Next18 DCC Ready) or DC/DCC/Sound (ESU LokSound V5 Micro with Next18 connector). Accurate sounds recorded from a real General Electric Dash 8-40CM.

Prototype History: The GE C40-8M is a 6-axle diesel locomotive built by GE Transportation Systems from 1990 to 1994. It is part of the GE Dash 8 Series of freight locomotives, and is often referred to as a Dash 8-40CM. It is mechanically identical to the Dash 8-40CW.
Powered by a V16 FDL 4000-horsepower prime mover, the main features of this distinctive design are the four-window North American cab, the cowl-style body and the famous ‘Draper Taper’ cutout behind the cabs (designed by CN’s Assistant Chief of Motive Power, William L. Draper to provide better reverse visibility on full-width cowl units). These great-looking locomotives always turn railfan heads in trains! The Dash 8-40CM (also known as the C40-8M) was introduced in 1990 with an order of 30 units for Canadian National (2400-2429), classified EF-640a. This was followed by a further 25 units (2430-2454) in 1992, classified EF-640b.

BC Rail received 22 units (4601-4622) in 1990, followed by four more (4623-26) in 1993. These were transferred to CN following the de facto purchase of BCR in 2004. The final units were for QNSL, which acquired three locomotives (401-403) in March 1994. Amazingly, all 81 CN and BC Rail Dash 8s are still in service. Most are still in their original paint schemes but several have been repainted into the newer CN.CA livery.

The "Draper Tapers" make regular visits to Chicago via CN’s Grand Trunk Western route through Michigan and Indiana in the mid-1990s and sometimes further afield as run-through power. However, it was CN’s purchase of the Illinois Central in 1998 that really expanded their range of use and it became common to see Dash 8-40CMs as far south as the Gulf Coast and all points inbetween, on and off CN/IC track. CN’s units were joined on their foreign adventures by BC Rail’s units from 2004.

From Rapido Trains Inc. website.

Road Name History: The Canadian National Railway Company (reporting mark CN) is a Canadian Class I railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec that serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States. CN's slogan is "North America's Railroad". CN is a public company with 24,000 employees. It had a market capitalization of 32 billion CAD in 2011. CN was government-owned, having been a Canadian Crown corporation from its founding to its privatization in 1995. Bill Gates was, in 2011, the largest single shareholder of CN stock.

CN is the largest railway in Canada, in terms of both revenue and the physical size of its rail network, and is currently Canada's only transcontinental railway company, spanning Canada from the Atlantic coast in Nova Scotia to the Pacific coast in British Columbia. Its range once reached across the island of Newfoundland until 1988, when the Newfoundland Railway was abandoned.

Following CN's purchase of Illinois Central (IC) and a number of smaller US railways, it also has extensive trackage in the central United States along the Mississippi River valley from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. Today, CN owns about 20,400 route miles (32,831 km) of track in 8 provinces (the only two not served by CN are Newfoundland & Labrador and Prince Edward Island), as well as a 70-mile (113 km) stretch of track (see Mackenzie Northern Railway) into the Northwest Territories to Hay River on the southern shore of Great Slave Lake; it is the northernmost rail line anywhere within the North American Rail Network, as far north as Anchorage, Alaska (although the Alaska Railroad goes further north than this, it is isolated from the rest of the rail network).

The railway was referred to as the Canadian National Railways (CNR) between 1918 and 1960, and as Canadian National/Canadien National (CN) from 1960 to the present.

Read more on Wikipedia.

Brand/Importer Information: Rapido Trains Inc. is a high-end manufacturer of model trains and accessories in HO, OO and N (North American 1:160 and British 1:148) scales. The firm's mission is to recreate the entire rail travel experience, from fully-detailed interiors and under-frames on models to fully-wired telephone poles for model railroads.

The name RAPIDO was introduced by Canadian National in 1965 to headline the railway's high-speed intercity passenger services. Until the mid-1980s, RAPIDO stood for fast schedules, frequent trains, and superb service.

Today, Rapido Trains continues the RAPIDO concept with state-of-the-art models and attention to fine detail. This company is not related to the venerable (and now defunct) German manufacturer Arnold Rapido, nor the present-day Arnold (which is owned by the United Kingdom's Hornby), Canadian based Rapido Trains was founded in 2003.