Well, whadaya know? I was missing my now hard-to-find Williams Santa Fe ALCO ABA Fs (although the Santa Fe never operated Alco Fs, only Ps), only to run onto them for sale on eBay, and all NIB, never run! The Williams Santa Fe ALCO FB units are extremely scarce now. But I was able to spot one, along with a couple of FAs from a different seller. Both were Buy it Now, so I counter-offered at an even lower price and won both for a song!
Oh, the simplicity of Williams diesels! 4 screws pop off the shell, then 1 motor mount screw releases each motor. Amazingly enough, there was still fresh, wet grease in the worm gear. But I added a little more and greased the external gears, along with oiling the axles and pickup rollers. Then added engineer and fireman figures to the cab of the lead unit and good to go. I had to switch back to conventional. But what a treat to see it run again, only this time pulling more modern Lionel cars.
This was my old set pulling Williams aluminum SF cars taken in 2018. Then I sold this train after I switched to all command control and ended up missing it when it sold. It was an all Williams train back then.
Here's the new engine set pulling a longer string of Lionel aluminum Santa Fe cars (except for the MTH Santa Fe express reefer). A Lionel TMCC Santa Fe F7 ABA set, with the lead A and B behind it both powered, since it's a longer train are what usually pulls my Super Chief. But the 2-motored conventional FA pulled the whole train without a whimper, just like in the old days. In fact, I had to slow it down so it wouldn't come off at the curves! I love the efficiency of Williams's bullet proof, stump-puller diesels!
So, it's nice to have the good old Williams ALCO Fs back. 😀