Rapido Trains - 538006A - Open Hopper, 5-Bay Autoflood III - CIT Group - Random - Set #1

Specific Item Information: Random Selection from Road # 600428, 600441, 600482, 600498, 600516, 600527

Model Information: Production began on these all-aluminum body railcars in 2004. What followed was thousands of orders for these rapid discharge hoppers, which have traversed almost all of North America. With millions of tons of coal per year being mined and hauled out of various locations across the continent, you would be hard pressed to not have seen one of these prototype cars in a modern day coal train.
This 4200 cubic foot, exterior post prototype (not to be confused with other types of prototype exterior-post or interior post models) is primarily used as a rapid discharge car, which can unload their cargo in a matter of seconds via the bottom bay doors. However, the car can also be equipped with a rotary coupler at the A end of the car (or on both ends on double-rotary cars), as indicated by the color blocks on the cars’ ends, for either bottom discharge or rotary unloading based on the infrastructure at the final processing facility.

Road Name History: CIT Group Inc. is an American financial holding company founded in 1908 with more than $65 billion in finance and leasing assets. The company's name is an abbreviation of an early corporate name, Commercial Investment Trust. It provides financing and leasing capital to its middle market clients and their customers across more than 30 industries. CIT maintains leadership positions in middle market lending, factoring, retail finance, aerospace, equipment and rail leasing, and global vendor finance. CIT also operates CIT Bank (Member FDIC), BankOnCIT.com, its primary bank subsidiary, which offers a suite of online savings options designed to help customers achieve a range of financial goals.

The company is part of the Fortune 500 and was a part of the S&P 500 Index until it was replaced by Red Hat at the close of trading July 24, 2009. The company is headquartered in New York City, and employs approximately 3,700 people in locations throughout North America, Europe, Latin America, and Asia Pacific. It declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy on November 1, 2009, and with the consent of its bondholders proposed to quickly emerge from bankruptcy court proceedings. The company emerged from bankruptcy 38 days later on December 10, 2009.

Reporting marks: CEFX (The CIT Group/Capital Finance, Inc. - formerly Transportation Corp. of America)

From 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.