Color Scheme Concept for North Pole Central F7

Happy Holidays...............................Looks great!

Regards, 

Frank

Thanks.

I was just looking through the Lionel product finder, and it looks like the only affordable (at least in a similar price range to most of the other North Pole Central items and Christmas items in general) F series locomotives they make are the conventional FT locomotives.  It would look similar with another pair of portholes.

It would be neat if Lionel did something similar in a North Pole Central color scheme in an FT. I think they have done the NYC in a FT, so they already have similar paint masks. It has 2 motors, so hopefully it could pull all of the NPC streamliner passenger cars.

Wow...  If that is the scale tooled F7 by Lionel I would HAVE to add that to the basement railroad.  That is a fantastic scheme...  I love it...  I hope they do it!

I would like to see the trucks and the fuel tank in silver...  Might be snappier than Black

you know me... anything NYC-related is awesome!

I would also love to see it in a SP-inspired scheme that was talked about last year, as well...

I was looking through the Lionel 2012 Volume 2 catalog, and they have a Grand Central Express set that has a FT diesel locomotive in New York Central livery. I've attached the image I copied from the Lionel catalog. You can see the North Pole Central drawing is pretty close to it, other than the colors (and the drawing is of a F7, not a FT). Lionel would just need to change the decal on the front and the lettering on the side from NYC to North Pole Central, and add a mask to paint the roof green, and use red and green paint instead of light and dark gray.

I don't know if there would be enough interest in the marketplace, but it looks like it would be pretty easy to do from a technical stand point.

It would be nice to have a locomotive in North Pole Central colors to pull the 8 NPC passenger cars that have been previously issued. That is a tough job for the 4-4-2 in the original set. I don't have any experience with the Lionel FT locomotives (I started a new topic asking about the engine), but they are dual motored. I remember someone on the forum posted that they used the Route of the Reindeer RS-3 locomotive to pull their NPC passenger cars. That RS-3 is also dual motored, so I'm wondering if the FT has similar pulling power to the RS-3? Anyone have any experience with the pulling power of the FT?

Any way, it would be neat to see Lionel come out with a NPC locomotive that could pull the 8 NPC passenger cars.

Say, you could have a NPC tender tank like the one CN is demo'ing in Canada for NG!

Hi Bob,

I didn't reply to your earlier post.

I was thinking of something more for the traditional line than the standard (scale) line since the North Pole Central items produced by Lionel have been almost entirely for the traditional line (they did do the TrackMobile and 0-4-0 shifter for the 2012 catalog). The 8 streamlined NPC passenger cars Lionel produced over a period of several years (that would look nice with a FT, F3, F7, etc.) are traditional line items. Something like a FT is historically more likely to be in the price range for a Christmas item than a scale F7, at least for North Pole Central items, but then again, Lionel has been producing the scale Polar Railroad items the last few years, so there does seem to be a market for scale Christmas items.

I used the black trucks and fuel tank in my color scheme because the North Pole Central passenger cars, and most of the NPC freight cars have black trucks. I think the only NPC car with silver trucks has been the crane car. While silver trucks and fuel tank would be snappier, I thought it would look more cohesive if the locomotive had matching color trucks with the passenger cars. As another option, I could have gone with red on the upper part of the fuel tank.

Very nice! I would buy a starter set version with dual can motors if they made it. I couldn't justify a high end engine with Legacy for something I'm only going to run one month out of the year.

I'd be in for an FT or Alco version.

Here's my latest re-imagining in my campaign for Lionel to make a North Pole Central Lines locomotive to pull all 8 of the NPC streamliner passenger cars.

It is the NYC FT from the 2012 volume 2 catalog, recolored for NPC.

I would add a Santa figurine in the cab just like they did for the North Pole central Docksider.

Sunrise

That's a good idea.

They could add Santa and an elf as the 2 figures in the cab.

The FT's could pull a ton.  I've gone up to 20 cars with mine.  They have two motors, two traction tires for each truck and I recently discovered that they have magnetraction, though not advertised as such (at least my Santa Fe unit from 2007 does)

Use the "Santa's Flyer" locomotive.  The livery of #1 matchs perfectly to the cars.  As I believe was the Intent: 8 reindeer cars hooked to Santa's Flyer.  The new "Potter" cars look better with the livery on #2, IMHO.

Interesting point. I looked back at the catalog description for the Santa's Flyer locomotive, and it does say it goes with the NPC passenger cars.

I do have the Santa's Flyer #1, but passed on the green #2 locomotive. It is in storage, so I can't look at it at this time. I am thinking about getting the new "Potter" style cars in NPC livery to run with it.

For some reason, in my mind, I never have been able to see the Santa's Flyer locomotive being operated with the streamliner passenger cars. I guess I can't picture a Hogwarts British type engine with the streamliners. I know that is silly, because it is a fantasy Christmas scheme, and hey, Santa can run whatever locomotive and cars together that he wants to operate. Funny, because I run traditional size equipment and don't normally concern myself with prototypical concerns. From posts I have read on the forum, I seem to recall someone mentioning a while back that they ran the Santa's Flyer with the passenger cars, but it seems like most people didn't make the connection between the Santa's Flyer and the passenger cars either.

The other concern with the Hogwarts style locomotive is the minimum curve. With O36 minimum (and some folks say it runs better on larger curves), it limits the use of smaller curves on a temporary Christmas layout. The Christmas layout I set up has plenty of room to run a locomotive and 8 passenger cars, but it turns around in a nook area on O31 curves, so I can't operate the Santa's Flyer on the set up.

In any case, I just like the idea of an EMD cab unit in bright red and green NPC livery pulling the 8 streamliner passenger car train.

They had named trains during the heyday of passenger train travel. Were some of the locomotives used on those trains named? For the proposed NPC FT locomotive, they could name the locomotive and add an extra little decal on either side of the locomotive under the cab windows. Here's a few ideas for names. Someone can probably suggest better names:

"Santa's New Sleigh"

"Sleigh X-1939" or "Sleigh X-2013" - With the theme that this is a new model of one of Santa's sleighs, either for the year the FT was introduced, or for the current year. I like the 1939 idea better for the nostalgia factor.

"Village of the North Pole" - Some trains and planes have been named "City of _____",  so going off that theme, but Santa only has a village at the North Pole.

Another option would be to have the locomotive named "Rudy" or "Rudolph". The upper headlight of the two headlights could be red, with the bottom headlight white. But this idea might infringe on Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer (copyright?, trademark?). I don't know, as I see plenty of Christmas items with a red-nosed reindeer, and I don't think many of them are tied in with Rudolph. Something for the legal department to consider carefully.

All I can say is WOW. This is a wonderful rendition and I would live to see this made.

Here's a shot of the full rake...

oh, I do love it!

It doesn't even have to be an FT, any F unit should be fine to pull the O-27 cars.

Maybe Williams would be interested with their Fs?

Thanks,

Mario

Personally, I would prefer the F-3 AA in this scheme over a single FT (unless Lionel can make this AA as well). 

Since these are O27 cars, could the same scheme could be applied to ALCO FAs as well? This would be more in line with the postwar sets as made in the early 50s. 

I am looking for a full set of these (just missed Chris's set) to run under my tree. I think these would look great alongside the green 2400 series remakes from the 1990 Service Station set (which I have). 

Good Luck!  It took me 2 years to get them all! (I only started looking long after the production runs were done)  I think "Blitzen" is the  hardest to find.

Oh heck yes.  Went and looked at ebay, they were all there, except, yes, Blitzen!  

I would prefer to see Lionel's "Polar Railroad" paint scheme applied to an F-unit.  It was a very pleasing paint scheme and more "realistic" than the far more common red-and-green liveries.  Could be used for the holidays or year round as a fictitious but somewhat believable rail line.

Yep, I bought the Polar RR Geep and caboose and would definitely buy an F-unit or other locomotive produced in that paint scheme.

CentralFan1976,

I was looking for some info on my computer, and I came across a similar topic we had last year. At the time, it sounded like you were seriously considering buying an engine and having it repainted in a North Pole Central scheme.

If you are thinking about repainting an  engine rather than waiting in hopes of Lionel producing a NPC F unit, the Williams F units are probably a good candidate. They have 2 can motors and are fairly reasonable on the price.

Here is some info on Williams engines originally posted by Jim Policastro on another topic where someone asked about Williams E and F units:

"E7: good nose/window shape, scale length - much longer than either F unit, looks better on O42 curves and wider.

F7: odd nose/window shape (based on an old Kusan mold), much shorter than the E units - runs well on the tightest curves, but will have problems with O27 switch machines.

F3: same body size and shape as a Lionel postwar F3, close to scale in length, runs on tight curves but also will have problems on those O27 switch machine housings.

All three Williams engine types are excellent runners with dependable conventional electronic reverse."

Oh I love these in the north pole central paint scheme.  I would also buy each one they made.  Single F-unit or ABA.  Very cool.  I want.

BTW theres a full consist of the NPC passenger cars on Ebay right now.