Whatever became of the Santa Fe's CF7's? I remember seeing one pass through Old Saybrook, CT all by it's lonesome maybe 18 years ago. It was still in blue and yellow without Santa Fe markings on the nose. It may have said Amtrak if I'm not mistaken. Another question is how many of them did they make?
Check Jim Fuhrman's web site at: http://members.aol.com/JFuhrtrain/ He done pretty thourgh study of the Fs & CF7s. There is also a book out on the CF7s w/ a complete(as of pub. date) disposition run down. Would give you the title but Jim has my copy! Email him for it.
I haven't checked the site, but I know a lot of the CF7's were sold off to short lines. I have photos of some I caught in North Carolina + Virginia Harold
Harold, your photos are always amazing! I'm sure myself and others would love to see your shots of the CF7s!
Johnny about one third of the way down this list is some CF7 pics to check out. http://www.dnaco.net/~gelwood/other/atsf-loco.html Hope this helps
The CF7s were either retired or all sold off to shortlines, switching companies, or individuals. Rescar wound up with a few, Columbus & Greenville got several, and somewhere I have pics of two CF7s with the round cab roofs sitting in Katy's Ray Yard in Denison, TX in spring 1988.
I puled out my trusty Contemporary Diesel Spotters Guide (Marre & Pinkepank, Kalmbach, 1989), and according to these fellas, Santa Fe converted 233 F7s to CF7s at their Cleburne (TX) Shops from February 1970 to March 1978. Starting with 2649 and numbering downwards, 179 were built with round cab roofs (to match the contour of the original F-unit carbody) and 54 were built with flat roofs. All were off the roster by 1988. If I can find those round-roof CF7s I shot in Denison, I'll post the pics to my website & place a link here. If it's any consolation, I've seen more angle-roof CF7s than round-roof ones, too. Strange, that!
That's probably because a good number of the CF7's built with round roofs got angled roofs on subsequent visits to Cleburne. Santa Fe loved to do things to drive us modeler's nuts.
I believe I've seen two units in my lifetime, but both had an angled roof. I'd love to see a round one. Does it resemble an F unit still?
Amtrak has a few - there are two assigned to DC's Union Station, one each of the round- and angled-cab styles. You can see photos of a bunch of them here: Amtrak Photo Archives CF7 Page One of these days I'll have to build a model of one in HO - it's one of the more interesting rebuilds in my opinion. Maybe I can fit an Athearn Genesis chassis under the Railpower shell...
I've got a CF7 with a modified Athearn F-unit chassis, using Smokey Valley handrails. From what I've read in the model railroading press and what I've seen in person, the modified F-unit chassis is the way to go. I'm referring to the stock, non-Genesis chassis. The Genesis F-unit powered chassis MAY work, but the whole model looks too good to chop up. Of course, that's my opinion , but you probably could mill the chassis down to fit the shell. Best bet may be replacing the Athearn motor with a different, can motor.
A friend of mine built four of these. I bought one. It started out life as an Atlas O scale F-9. A long hood from a Red Caboose GP-9 was used as was a scratch built cab. While it isn't 100% accurate, it looks good to me and I will be lettering it for my Sierra Western Railroad. Greg Elems
RPP makes both cab versions in HO. They even have them painted ATSF B/Y w/ & w/o #s. Be nice to see them painted for some of the shortlines that own them now. Maybe if enough of us requested them????
