As the FPA-2s have appeared in HO, I am hoping that they will appear in N. WKW/LL has not done FAs in some time. B&O had FPA-2s and made extensive use of them as both passenger and freight power on the Baltimore/Washington lines. B&O even had B units. They worked the accommodation and mail trains, which is what most of the passenger trains that I run are. They would be a good fit for me, even though Rapido issued only one in a three digit number (my era requires three digits or less for diesels). That is no big deal, as I can change the numbers. It is very easy to do that on B&O diesels of that era, as all that you need do is change the number on the front and in the numberboards. I did do that on one LL (and added steam generator stacks). I hope that when they appear in N, they will be as good as the FPA-4s. We did not have FPA-4s on too many roads in the U.S. of A. Perhaps GTW, CV or SOO, but other than that, they did not sell in the U.S. of A. WM Scenic did have one for a while. A couple of dinner trains and tourist lines had a few, but those came either from CN or CP.
Interesting to imagine that, because some model railroaders believe that their brand new $175 PLUS locomotive should NOT have 20% of its visible body molded BACKWARDS (especially considering that even the cheapest of those that have gone before haven't made this blunder), that they are considered 'rivet counters'... funniest thing I've read all day...lol
Not gonna say you're wrong, sir, just... those details are 6mm tall and viewable only from a certain angle, under good lighting. Once a train gets underway, I would bet dollars to doughnuts nobody would ever notice until it's under full stop inspection. Just my opinion... but, nobody complains Kato has side-to-nose stripes that don't meet, flat molded-on grabs that look more like welding seams (or are missing altogether on nose, cab and sides), and chunky side ladders that would be a scale three feet deep? Not to mention those mediocre side grills.... It's a 4" long plastic locomotive, all I'm saying is that to me (and a lot of people) good enough is when I watch my tiny trains run and enjoy them. Yes, We are all entitled to ask more of our manufacturers. Remember when intermountain printed single-headlight GN F7's and backwards roofs on hundreds of models? They realized their mistake and printed and painted new shells for everyone, and swapped them out free of charge. That earned them a LOT of repeat business, but if we lambasted them day-one and returned everything to the shop? We may never have gotten the subsequent runs in dozens more schemes, with DCC, and etc. It's an imperfect trade, and as always asking for perfection is subjective on who defines perfection.
Right/wrong is a binary condition. It's an expensive locomotive...is it made right or wrong (not wrong in certain light)?
I agree, but every model is wrong in some ways! I'm hoping they'll come up with a fix or replace option, I'm an optimist after what intermountain did ; )
Well, I'm going to swim against the stream here. I have the F7AB Southern Pacific set and as far as I can tell there are no glaring errors, though to be honest I haven't matched it up against prototype pics or drawings and really don't care to. The gear box in the trucks are tight and there appears to be no slippage at this time. The sound it puts out is incredible albeit too loud, which is easy enough to correct. It operates at all speeds very well and I haven't had any hurky jerky movement or restarts. It's run beautifully. Could it fall apart tomorrow? Well, none of my other BLI locomotives have so I don't expect this one to either and given how willing they are to fix problems I will keep my set. Spookshow's examples may have been awful but mine are not.
Norseman Jack asked: How are you retrofitting your BLI units to use the unimates? Are you mounting the 51060's in the MT1015 draft gears? Can you post photos? Yes, I am mounting the Unimate/RC/FV 51060s in the housings for the MT1015s. Used the same screws to hold the Unimates in place, both horizontally and vertically. The trick is to have a loose enough connection so that the couplers would swing freely enough not to derail the engines, but tight enough so they will not strip (at least not anytime soon). You have to fiddle with the placement of the coupler on the screw to make sure it's at the correct height. Here's what it looks like via a close up photo from my five year old android phone: Note how high the coupler sits on the screw. Here's a photo of the F7 A-B-A set with the stock MT1015 couplers between the A unit on the left and the B unit and the Unimates between the B unit and the A unit on the right. Here's a close up of the close coupled engines: Note that there is only one diaphragm--doesn't look too bad. And here's a shot of the stock coupling arrangement with a diaphragm on each engine: Nicely detailed engines as you can see from this shot--which also shows the MT905 Z-scale coupler on the lead unit. The grilles don't look that good IMHO, but I'm aiming to cover them up with Plano grilles. Later. One reason I think I have had good luck with these (knock on wood) is that I bought them at a LHS (well, not THAT local) and was able to test them. You can't give them the whole Spookshow treatment, but you can make sure they have all the pieces attached when you pick them up, that they don't wobble too weirdly on the tracks and that, basically, they run decently for a short period of time. For what it's worth. Rick
Thanks Rick!! Good photos. A subtle clarification. It appears that you've installed the Unimate onto the screw originally used to mount the 1015-1, but didn't reuse the 1015 draft gear (i.e. the "box" that forms the body of the 1015). Is that correct? When I added Unimates to some IMR F3s a few years back, I believe I disassembled the 1015 coupler, cut off the cylindrical piece off plastic inside, and installed the Unimate along with the 1015 draft gear. I likely enlarged the hole on the Unimate shaft to allow snug but free rotation around the mounting screw. IIRC, that allowed the screw to be snugged, but the coupler would freely rotate. The 1015 draft gear provided the right amount of clearance to hold the coupler level, but not restrict it's movement. I believe the same could be done with the BLI units if somebody wanted to go that route. Just fyi.
Yup, that is correct. I used the screw but not the 1015 box. Thanks for the information. Yours is sounds like a much more stable, more permanent approach. On the other hand, I haven't had to buy 1015s in years...
Sorry to raise this Zombie thread from purgatory, but I was looking for C&O F-units to purchase and wanted to do due diligence before purchasing an unknown (to me) brand. It looks as though the problems from the early run of F-Units are fixed? Anyone running the 2020 release BLI F units? Jeff C
Just picked up a pair of the SP Black-widow F7's from the latest run. They look, sound and run great with excellent smooth slow-speed response. I also noticed that the F3 body issue has also been fixed.
It's also worth mentioning, Spookshow rated the original 2018 run as "F" because it had some real issues, but this new "2020" run he gave it an "A". Not going to say it is perfect, but after running my WP F3A for a few hours it seems to be a good runner. Time will tell I guess. http://www.spookshow.net/loco/blif3f7.html
I was very hesistant to acquire more of the BLI F3 and F7 units due to the prior reports from 2018. A few days ago I decided to get an A/B set of SP Black Widows. They should arrive in about a week. My A/B/A set of Rio Grande F7s are fine... but maybe I was just lucky. I have numerous BLI products and found them to be good runners and well detailed. They have been much maligned since they originally announced production runs that kept being pushed years into the future. I feel that those delays in their early days of existance set them up to be a better provider of quality models. None-the-less, they still get tripped up as do other manufacturer/importers. Sent from my SM-J737T using Tapatalk
Thanks for the input, everyone. I'm still interested in those C&O locos. All of my current F-units are Kato, except for an AB Wabash F7 set from Intermountain. I love the Kato engines--sure wish they would do the roadnames I like... Jeff C
