F Units - How to Differentiate Them

Bobby Ogage posted:

I have been a die-hard steam engine aficionado, but 1st generation hood units are beginning to amuse me. A while ago, I heard a diesel guy say that some railroads geared their F Units for intercity and commuter passenger train operations. This interests me because E Units are too long for the 042 curves on my railroad. So as built by EMD, how can I tell an FT, from an F3, from an F7, from an F9 from a BL109? How different F Units were there?

Pictures will be worth a lot of words.

You might try Google first. Then, get a copy of the Diesel Spotters Guide that covers first generation diesel units. A lot depends on WHICH railroad, and WHICH era you are trying to model, as many railroad's "F Units" changed in appearance from the time they were delivered to when they were removed from service.

Edit:  Forgot to add, don't forget about the longer models FP7 and FP9, which were primarily designed for passenger service.

Hot Water,

"So as built by EMD, how can I tell an FT, from an F3, from an F7, from an F9 from a BL109?" There is more expertise on the OGR Forum than on Google, and I can interact with forum members.

Bobby Ogage posted:

Hot Water,

"So as built by EMD, how can I tell an FT, from an F3, from an F7, from an F9 from a BL109?" There is more expertise on the OGR Forum than on Google, and I can interact with forum members.

Well maybe, however pictures are worth a thousand words, and without really good side view pictures, you will NOT get the full differences. 

Again, what railroad and era are you trying to model, makes a big difference! 

Bobby,don't forget the FL9...somewhere between an FP7 and E8 in length....

BL109???

Do you mean Alco DL109?

Or

EMD BL2?

Rusty

What's a BL109? I never herd of that locomotive. 

Now a DL109 is an ALCo diesel product that the New Haven RR bought into.

Here's a general spotting guide from the October 2006 Model Railroader magazine:

Bear in mind that details can change as the locomotives went through shoppings.

And here's the difference between an FT (the brass model) and an F3 model:

All FT's were built with four portholes on both the A and B units which distinguishes them from any other F-unit.  As you can see, the FT roofline is entirely different.

Rusty

Bobby Ogage,

Not sure if you'd be interested in getting a back issue but Classic Trains Magazine did an entire issue on EMD F units in their Spring 2015 edition. Very informative with lots of history and pictures detailing the development of this loco.

Back issues available from their web site:

http://ctr.trains.com/issues/2015/spring-2015

And keep in mind, many railroads rebuilt the earlier F units so an F3 could look like an F7 late in its life span.  Passenger units had a different gear ratio enabling higher track speed, but if lugged on a freight duty, would overheat the traction motors if the engineer wasn't careful.   Not all steam generator(ie passenger F units) had the higher speed gearing, it was railroad specific as were most details.  Kind of like the old days when you ordered a car with the exact features you wanted instead of shopping the lot as we mostly due today.   Both freight and passenger units could have the Mars headlight, it wasnt specific to passenger or freight use.  It was always in the upper housing due to all the stuff to make it move, would have been hard to open the nose door with it in that position.  FT's are easy, they were shorter in length and had specific roof details as shown above.  F2 thru F9's can be fun due to rebuilding, parts replacement and so forth.  Mike the Aspie.  

The FP7s and FP9s were 4 feet longer than the F7/9 to allow room for a steam heat boiler for passenger service.   They designed to be dual service.   Gearing could vary but default was between freight F and Passenger gearing.   

Sunset 3rd Rail recently imported FP7s in both 2 and 3 rail.   I have a pair of 2 rail ones and they are very nice.    They would be a possible solution to a passenger train on curves too sharp for an E  unit.

F3, F7 and F9 units could and did have steam generators for passenger service, it didn’t require an FP7 or FP9 model. The difference is that the FP units had more water carrying capacity, especially important if a single unit was used. B units had room for a lot more water capacity; railroads such as GN had water transfer hoses between A and B units. 

Bobby,

Do you run a specific road or run multiple roads?  As mentioned, different railroads used their F3s differently.  I run Pennsy, and they did not buy their first freight engine until 1948.  Their first F3 was the Phase II early model, so they did not have any FT, F2, or F3 Phase 1 units.  All Pennsy F3s were freight engines delivered in the single stripe freight scheme.  So, if you run Pennsy an F3 would not be a good choice for intercity/commuter operations.  Need to check the railroad you run.

OK, the "phase" thing.  This was not an EMD "thing", but something which developed in the railfan community to help point out body style changes with a particular model.  Did EXTRA 2200 SOUTH magazine come up with this?

Here in Houston when I was about six, I saw a few SP F units.  I or my parents did not know too much about trains.  So I called the A units the "curved nose" engines.

Bobby, IMO, you are short circuiting some of greatest fun in model railroading. A small resource library of the history of the American railroad adds to the fun of modeling railroading. Of course, your library would contain the special interests that you have, e.g., 1st generation diesels. Books and videos both helpful components of your library. Of course, the Ogauge Forum and the internet are great additional resources.

Thank you all for responding. I got confused with the BL109. My railroad is predominantly East Coast railroads, and it's the color schemes for passenger trains that peaks my fancy.

My preferences are the Delaware & Hudson, the New York, Ontario & Western, the Erie, the Lackawanna, the Boston & Maine, the New Haven and stretching it a bit, the Rock Island Line, the Denver & Rio Grande and the Santa Fe.

There are tons of info. out there in book/magazine form, and that's where you need to go. The Classic Trains issue recommended  by johnstrains above is very good.

ECI

This is an easy topic to get into the weeds on.  I have entire books on nothing but specific F units showing all the variations and spec changes over the years for that model designation.  I have entire historical society issues of just one railroad's specific F units and the changes that occurred during their service years.  It can get overwhelming.

The key information you really need is already in this thread so there is no reason to confuse it more, but I always say it pays to research the prototype you are interested in if you want to learn more on the subject.  Personally, I have at least some representation of every model F unit EMD made.  FT, F3, F7, F9, FP7, FP9, FL9. 

Now let's talk about E units?

@GG1 4877 posted:

This is an easy topic to get into the weeds on.  I have entire books on nothing but specific F units showing all the variations and spec changes over the years for that model designation.  I have entire historical society issues of just one railroad's specific F units and the changes that occurred during their service years.  It can get overwhelming.

The key information you really need is already in this thread so there is no reason to confuse it more, but I always say it pays to research the prototype you are interested in if you want to learn more on the subject.  Personally, I have at least some representation of every model F unit EMD made.  FT, F3, F7, F9, FP7, FP9, FL9.

Now let's talk about E units?

Amen!

@GG1 4877 posted:

This is an easy topic to get into the weeds on.  I have entire books on nothing but specific F units showing all the variations and spec changes over the years for that model designation.  I have entire historical society issues of just one railroad's specific F units and the changes that occurred during their service years.  It can get overwhelming.

The key information you really need is already in this thread so there is no reason to confuse it more, but I always say it pays to research the prototype you are interested in if you want to learn more on the subject.  Personally, I have at least some representation of every model F unit EMD made.  FT, F3, F7, F9, FP7, FP9, FL9.

Now let's talk about E units?

I agree with Jonathon.  It is overwhelming.

To add to that, I myself make it worse because I choose to be informed on these details; with regard to accuracy versus an actual photograph and even road-number specific details.

For example; Lionel's excellent NYC F7s came with vertical grilles.  The prototype road numbers for the ABBA set (1684, 2438, 2439, 1685 respectively) did not all have vertical slit grilles, as built.  They are correct on the B units, but not on the A's.  With that said, they were also not built with the nose ladder grab irons, but they were added later in life.  They were built with passenger pilots.

Digging through photos I was able to see that at least the 1685 made it into the cigar band era with it's original horizontal grilles, original passenger pilot, nose ladder grab irons and ATS shoe.  So I can infer that this how it ended service in lightning stripes, and this is how I chose to model it.  This also means that the grilles are mismatched with the B unit's vertical slit grilles, which is also correct for them as-built.

I'm sure that this is the same with the PRR's units that had the smaller number boards, but later carbodies, or the ATSF's F3s with stainless grilles and short fans, but yet the early dynamic brake grids.

It is both the reason why I choose to model specific locomotives as much as I can, yet is also my most rewarding aspect of the hobby at the same time.

It comes down to what you like.  Good luck.

Thanks,

- Mario

Here are some photos of the 3rd rail FP7 CP and Menards new FP9 SF with an old Atlas F7 CN for reference in length. And CP FP7A and FP9A CN at our railway museum.

I would like to get some more Menards engines when they come out to paint up some VIA, CN and CP engines in the correct length!

Technically the Menards F unit is an FP9 as it has the gutter over the nose door and the first porthole window is further back.  These are distinguishing features between the FP7 and FP9.  As VIA ended up with former CN and CP FP9s, the Menards unit would be ideal for that repaint.

Somethings of interest.

Canadian Pacific never had any cab F units (F3A, F7A, or F9A), they only had FP7 and FP9 units (and the associated B units). Not all of them had steam generators either. The reason was that by standardizing on that model, if they needed a boiler equipped one, they could install the boiler in any unit that was available, without having to remove the dynamic brakes (all of their FP units had them) and still have sufficient water capacity for the boilers.

Meanwhile, Santa Fe never had any FP7 or FP9 units, and none of their cab passenger F units had steam generators, only the B units.

Stuart

One spotting feature of the FTs (besides the four portholes, although some railroads later changed/removed the portholes over time) is the spacing of the trucks. On F2 through F9 models, the distance from the front truck to the front of the engine and the distance from the rear truck to the back of the engine is the same. On FTs, the rear truck was much closer to the rear of the engine compared to the front. As designed, FTs were meant to operate in A-B sets, with only a drawbar between the two. By changing the spacing of the trucks on the F2 and later F units, railroads could have couplers on each end of the engine - although some railroads chose to continue doing A-B sets with drawbars on their later F unit purchases.