3rd Rail announces new run of EMD F7s

@The GN Man posted:

3. NP did have two FP7A units as Carl noted. These units mainly served the Twin Cities - Twin Ports route for which a single engine, but with additional water capacity, was satisfactory.  The notable exception is 1962; in that year NP had a power shortage for the transcontinental trains because of three major accidents plus the additional sections needed for travel to the Seattle World's Fair. In that year, the FP7's were permitted to go as far west as Livingston, MT.

I believe that the pair of NP FP7 units were not dynamic braking-equipped.  Might that be the reason they were turned at Livingston?

Tom, you are correct. The lack of dynamic brakes limited the NP FP7 operations to east of Livingston, according to Dale Sander’s excellent book, “Northern Pacific Diesel Power - Volume 2”. In the course of researching this I also found a picture of 6601 leading the North Coast Limited in 1970, confirming that it did occasionally happen.

As much as I'd like to see a 2nd run of FP7s it won't happen for a while.  The overwhelming majority of units sold in the first run were Canadian Pacific to go with the Canadian passenger sets and CP isn't a road that can carry a run otherwise. 

With the F7 the combination of ATSF, PRR, NYC, UP, & SP are enough to carry the run so the rest of the road names can go forward.  At the same time, if too many road names are done then it gets confusing for the factory and it can lead to errors.   

Producing locomotives that are road name specific is always a balancing act.  There has to be enough variety to generate interest, but not so much that it creates problems.  Some will recall that roughly 30 road names were done for first run F7s and the quality of the project suffered as a whole.  With the number offered now, proper QC can be done, and the newly offered road names will receive good quality research.     

When they are run again Jonathan there should be enough variety of roads to carry a run like PRR, MR, UP, SP, NP & WP -

I bet Reading/Conrail, L&N, SOO, Rock Island, ACL would also get interest ...

and an Alaska and FNdM would look fantastic!