Because I want it in my road name?

Weren't the Weaver locos E-8's?  While not "a diesel fan", so probably oblivious, but l don't recall an E-7 in three rail, although l seen to recall one, maybe in two rail?

@colorado hirailer posted:

Weren't the Weaver locos E-8's?  While not "a diesel fan", so probably oblivious, but l don't recall an E-7 in three rail, although l seen to recall one, maybe in two rail?

Williams and Lionel both made E7's.

MARX made O27 E7's back in the day.

Rusty

Historical accuracy has to compromise with the tooling/production/distribution costs of a product that is serving what is actually a tiny customer base (model railroaders).

On the other hand, if we accept too much wiggling, it only encourages them.

Lionel and Williams did indeed produce E-7's; Lionel even produced the E-6 in scale, as did MTH in RK. Not sure about a scale MTH E-7. I think that 3rd Rail did some.

Decals (see eBay to start) may be your answer.

Whats the road name?

MTH also did an E6 in Premier

I got tired of waiting for MTH or Big L to produce a proper Boston and Maine E7, so I bought a Williams pair and had PS2 boards installed in it.  It runs fine on DCS.

@CALNNC posted:

I was looking for an E7 in a particular road name, and I keep finding E8's.  I am not a total purist about things, but I like to have locos in my road name that the RR actually owned, and in this case, they never owed an E8.  So, is it just the manf. providing models that folks covet, and in their favorite road name, with no historical accuracy applied?  I know you can apply modeling license to you railroad and do anything you want, like a T1 Duplex on the FEC, but still...

3rd Rail did 4 runs of E7s starting in 2011.  I have one from the first run, four from the 2nd, and 1 from the 4th.  The third run was a special run for the "Train of Tomorrow".

While 3rd rail has done a few "fantasy" paint schemes at the request of specific buyers the vast majority of product is thoroughly researched for accuracy to the prototype.

What road name are you looking for?  One of my E7s is in SPS and not only did they have E8s, they only had one E7.

The rest of mine are PRR and in 2 rail.

\

FYI

A great reference/summary for many 3rd Rail and Golden Gate Depot production runs is Bigjohnsbigtrainsale.com. He’s put together nice lists so you can see what’s been done in the different runs. You can at least know if you might someday run across a model you want in the secondary market. There’s some pictures and road numbers and car names. He’s slowly adding more info as he obtains it.  

Welcome to the world of toy trains. Manufacturers have been doing this forever in all scales, with some even making up paint schemes.

The narrow band of purists have always been outnumbered by those who aren’t the least bit concerned, so in a scale with so few hobbyists to offset the cost of tooling, I don’t expect it will change much.

Sometimes it bothers me. Sometimes it doesn’t. It’s the duality of anyone involved in 3-rail trains with a background in scale modeling as well.

@CALNNC posted:

I was looking for an E7 in a particular road name, and I keep finding E8's.  I am not a total purist about things, but I like to have locos in my road name that the RR actually owned, and in this case, they never owed an E8. <snip>

Welcome to prototype modeling.

Years ago (long before there was such variety in my chosen scale of HO), to get an engine that matched the prototype I was modeling (Frisco), I would have to modify an existing engine model, and as was the case with 100% of my Frisco engines at the time, also had to paint decal them myself. Then there was the issue that I would face that I liked engine types that the Frisco never had. On and on.

I finally created my own large Class 1 (The Kansas City & Gulf) and model small portion of its "Ozark Subdivision" ala' Autumn of 1964. I've even created a fictional "history" for the KC&G's origin as well as a fictional "history" of the KC&G's dieselization!  I've had a ton of fun with the concept and it has been a very satisfying approach.

SO... I wish you well in your quest for the correct engine in the correct livery! Been there, done that!

Andre

Someone asked the road name, it is the Florida East Coast.  They did own E9's though, and the only difference I know of were all internal, HP I think.  A few years ago, nobody made anything in the FEC, so beggars can't be choosers.  i snapped up one of the HO Proto2000 BL2's when it came out a couple decades ago.  I did repurpose HO's  locos from other roads into FEC colors, and in O gauge I put a motor truck I picked up and E unit in a Lionel FEC GP9 dummy, along with converting a SanteFe branded diesel into a FEC blue loco.  Chose the SanteFe as its blue color was a very close match and all that  had to be removed was the SanteFe on the sides only, plus the dynamic brake plastic addition.  Nice to see red and orange come back, I grew up with just blue.

@CALNNC posted:

Someone asked the road name, it is the Florida East Coast.  They did own E9's though, and the only difference I know of were all internal, HP I think.  A few years ago, nobody made anything in the FEC, so beggars can't be choosers.  i snapped up one of the HO Proto2000 BL2's when it came out a couple decades ago.  I did repurpose HO's  locos from other roads into FEC colors, and in O gauge I put a motor truck I picked up and E unit in a Lionel FEC GP9 dummy, along with converting a SanteFe branded diesel into a FEC blue loco.  Chose the SanteFe as its blue color was a very close match and all that  had to be removed was the SanteFe on the sides only, plus the dynamic brake plastic addition.  Nice to see red and orange come back, I grew up with just blue.

I checked and FEC was on the original list of 3rd Rail E7s to do, but there were not enough orders to move forward on it.  However, we did do the E6 in the earlier Florida Special blue and silver and the E9 in the red and orange scheme. 

You are correct, the E8 and E9 was mostly a horsepower change internally, however some E9s could be distinguished by having a stainless headlight bezel in lieu of the painted one on the E8s.

3rd Rail also did the GP7 in red and orange FEC.

The red and orange paint scheme is a classic scheme to be sure!