3rd Rail F7 Demonstrators

Please, Scott, for the love of God, do these in 3-rail!!  

They are beautiful Richard!

Nice work.

Whether or not Scott would be willing to convert either of the 2 sets to 3-rail, and what he might charge, is a question for him.  I reserved enough to get them done, because NO ONE else reserved them, and I reserved them all in 2-rail. 

Really sweet! I wish I could afford a set but my train budget has taken some recent hits.

Rdunniii: Just curious but are all three units powered or is one or two of them dummies?

 

Hi Erik,

 

Those two prints of the same photo show the this and that we went though to choose the final colors for the model.  We all agreed the second pic is too yellow/green and went with the former.  It was as bad as picking the blue for the ToT.

All three units are independent and have their own DCC decoders and are powered, just like all the other 3rd Rail 2-rail F7s. 

Outstanding! Really great looking engines! I would love to see them in3 rail!

Multiple times when the reservations were open I asked folks here and elsewhere to email Scott if they would reserve them.  There simply wasn't sufficient interest to get them added to the website.  It only would have taken a couple of people and they would have been listed on the website.  People who said they wanted them did not email Scott. NO ONE emailed Scott.  So I did what I had to do to get them done when reservations closed.

Scott has asked me to say he does not do 2 to 3-rail conversions so these will be 2-rail only and one set has been spoken for.

So why can't you order a set of these, and another set in some 3-rail road name, swap shells, and sell the resulting 2- rail set?  Wouldn't that take about an hour of effort?

Whoa!  Somehow I missed all this as I was watching for them but figured they were not of interest to be made.  Key was talking about doing an F3 version,  but...

 

I would be interested in  a set even though I have Yellow War Bonnet F7s on order.  Crap, you guys qnd this forum are killing me with all this stuff.

 

Should I email you or Scott about a set?   There goes the 2016 train budget. Ugh!

If you are the person who sent me an email with a return address that I do not recognize then consider the 2nd set held for you.  Nothing else to do until they arrive.

 

Interesting the Yellowbonnets were in exactly the same situation except PassengerTrainCollector emailed Scott and then posted telling others to do the same.  But in that case lots of people emailed him so they were added to the list and became the second most popular livery (I think).

 

In this case when reservations closed I got an email saying insufficient reservations and I replied how many were required.  OBTW, I had to reserve them in ABBA sets to get enough B units so I have lots of leftover B units.

 

bob2,  I already have more money invested in these than I'm OK with so buying a leftover 3-rail of something to convert just isn't in the cards.

I didn't mean you - I meant a modeler who really wanted 3-rail models with your paint scheme.  I did not know you were already sold out.

My bad.  And they weren't when you responded so all is good

Wait,  so there are extra Yelow War Bonnet B units coming?  I will email you off forum about this so as not to hijack this thread.  BTW, thanks for posting this topic/pics.  Love this demo unit (F units in general) everytime people talk about it.

No, there are extra demonstrator B units.  Had to buy them in ABBA sets to get enough B units to get them done..

Folks, I have finished the inspection of the F7s. They are nothing less than STUNNING. The factory just keeps getting better and better.

 

The container of F7s is due to arrive October 27th. That means we begin shipping some 1-2 weeks after that.

 

I will be emailing those with reservations a special brochure, showing some of the other schemes. Like the SF War Bonnet (Red and Yellow) with inlaid nickel plated sheets. I want to personally thank those of you that contributed to the success of this project. There are many people behind the scenes helping correct drawings and details to make these models the most accurate available at any price.

 

The SD7 and SD9 project will have no less attention to detail and accuracy. There is a separate drawing for each road and paint scheme, 29 of them in fact. We are only making 400 units, and only have 20 reservation slots left.

 

The E8 and E9s are in design right now, and will be a redesign from the ground up. Please look our web site and put in your reservations.

 

Most of all, enjoy your hobby and we thank you for your continued support and enthusiasm making these the best models out there.

 

Richard, you are going to sorry that you didn't order 3R Demos, you better stay incognito if you ever get near a 3 Rail show.

BUMMER! 3 Rail Demo models are lacking in the marketplace. These would have sold just like the sd7's!

Did Sunset/GGD do the blue F-3 demo's?

Maybe there could be a 'Special Run' if there is enough interest?  Since there are only 40 FF2s  being made........

 

Norm

Did Sunset/GGD do the blue F-3 demo's?

 

Don't think Sunset/GGD did F-3's at all. Just KEY, Atlas and Lionel

 

Butch

What "blue demo's" would those be?  Any photos of the prototype?

Yea, about the FF-2s, the factory that over produced these, and was going to finish the 40 sets has since gone away. So we will be pulling that production from our web site. More over, we only got 20 reservations for the FF-2s so far, really disappointing numbers. 

 

From my experience, if we didn't get enough interest for a particular road name in first run of diesels or whatever, we don't get them in a second run announcement either. The only way some of these road names happen is if an individual or dealer sticks their neck out and orders the minimum quantity of 20 units. Anyone can do this if they wish. Contact me for terms.

 

Scott Mann

I'm just a customer, not a business.  The best that I could hope for is to get my money back; which won't happen because of the leftover B units.

 

If this spurs sufficient interest for a 2nd run of 400 F7s (the minimum # for plastic locomotives) that's cool. I have a clue how many Warbonnets alone are on the standby list so I guess it is not beyond the realm of possibility.

 

The demand for a 2nd run of El Capitan cars, including Amtrak, was certainly not expected by me.  I figured GGD would have a hard time selling the 1st run leftovers.

 

Note that E8 Demonstrators are in the same situation.  They do not show up on the website and will not show up unless 4 or 5 people email Scott that they will reserve them.  That is how this works. 

 

He has no clue where demands may lie and listing all the 50-100 possibilities is not feasible.  Posting on here for interest without also emailing Scott that you will reserve them is a waste of electrons.

Please forgive me for asking this, since:

 - You're free to do with them as you wish, and it's none of my business

 - There may be some obvious reason I've overlooked

 

but I "have" to ask:

 

Since you bought ABBA sets [ and they all have stand-alone capability ], why not sell them as AB sets ?   If a buyer wants an ABA formation, then the cost of a surplus B is on him.  Surely the prototype ran as an AB sometime during its demos ?

 

Best regards, SZ

Because the prototype was only an ABA set.  And near as I can tell only for the photograph Erik posted above.  The A units were then taken back inside and repainted L&N and delivered.  The B unit was an EMD training unit for F7s, which is why it has dynamic brakes and a steam generator and is painted uniquely.  And how long it remained painted thusly I have no clue.

So it wasn't a Demonstrator [ or even a Test ] set and never went on the road as such, but existed only for photographic purposes ??

 

SZ

That 1950 set, in the photo above, was indeed a demonstrator set, and definitely did go out and "demonstrate" on many railroads.

Please let me know any further information you have on this!  The only thing I could find showed the serial numbers of the 2 A units being delivered to the L&N less than 2 months after this pic was taken.

Yes, I was wondering about the s/n's too, having dug out my X2200 for 2/68.  And while we're at it, do those ABA photos above show A, B, C  or A, C, B ?

 

SZ

So what happens to those B units?  Are they simply junk, or will you market them for the mechanisms and presumably repaintable bodies?

 

I really do admire you for stepping up and taking a risk.  Most of us do not have the courage.  I guess I should pre-order about a hundred die cast SP G-50-9 gondolas, but $10,000 around here is earmarked for engine overhauls, avgas, and something called ADS-B.

All I have been able to discover is, the L&N purchased ONLY the two A Units. To this day, no one has been able to determine what ever happened to the B Unit.

Interesting the prototype B unit shows an orange painted fuel tank rather than the silver painted tanks on the A units, it makes sense that GM after painting in their Demo colours would have used these demonstrators for even a short period of time on prospective RRs.Just saying!

Received the emailed flyer today from SS/3rd Rail with photos of the actual models (I think) and they look to be some real winners. The cab steps are attached to the shell and really improve the looks. They really capture the overall look well. Very anxious to see them in person. 

 

Butch

I missed that email. I would have liked to see them.

Only people who reserved F7s are receiving the emails and it will take a day or so.  Did you reserve any Erik?  The flyer will probably show up on the website later.

 

And only the 2-rail units have the stirrups attached to the frame.  The 3-rail units have them attached to the trucks for the shorter radius curves they support.

The B unit was a training unit owned by EMD used to train railroad maintenance personnel.  The odd painting of the trucks and underframe identify it.  The battery box should be black but that is probably the easiest thing to change on the model there is. 

 

I was hoping Hot Water would have additional information on EMD's maintenance training programs   The history of diesel electric locomotive maintenance seems to have been completely ignored. 

Correct, rdunniii, I was looking at it strictly from 2-R application. Nice that an importer listens to his customers and makes changes when they can.

 

I'll send it to you Erik.

 

Butch