First Lionel 'Scale' F3's (or F7's)?

OK Sam, this is the best I can do from my old memory.  To the best of my knowledge the first scale Lionel F3 was the Alaska Railroad F3 with TMCC released in the 2004 catalog.  In 2010 Lionel released a line of Scale F3 Legacy units starting with the Santa Fe Warbonnet.

I tried Sam.

Steve, Lady and Tex

Sam,

Lionel did release scale Santa Fe F3's I believe in the 2003-2004 era. They were very nine and the cab numbers were like 19 and 21. I could be off on those numbers but close. 

Lionel has not made Santa Fe F3's or F7's in legacy. I am waiting. 

Now those would make for a nice vision line model , can we say ABBA. 

As far as the high water pants on the earlier models of the E7/8 models only Lionel can explain why. I wanted the UP version at the time but passed on them when I saw them. 

I believe the f3's in early 2000's were ok. Its the mid 2000's f7's that were are an high water truck issue. I suspect it was a change in truck design with the "advent of the "Liondrive" truck which allows the truck to be turned 180 degrees and removed from the loco without removing the shell or motormounts. Its a great design for lubrication or repair. I believe Lionel made corrections with legacy f units so that they sit lower on these trucks.

I have a set of the Santa Fe warbonnets from 2006, they have the high trucks. I still like them and the sound is far superior to the earlier f units, basically on a par with legacy, 8 rpm levels, etc.

Heres poorly done video I made, gives a good idea of the sound and appearance going down the track.

As David1 said I believe they were first made in 2003. They were uncatalogued, and announced in a brochure back when Lionel was doing those 5 surprize announcements a year. Santa Fe, and New York Central were the first ones.

Bill

The first Standard O (scale) F3's were 2002.  

Starting with the F7 RickO has pictured, Lionel changed the chassis, motor, and tuck design.  The new design, which was also used on the E7's and possibly others caused the F's and E's to ride high over the trucks.  (Sam, look at your breakdown B).  There was another issue at the time which was that each truck only had one axle powered.  There were a lot of complaints on the forum about the 2 wheel per truck drive and the "high water look"  

I owned the F7's and a later conventional Standard O F3 that Lionel produced to get rid of those drives.  The pulling power was NOT an issue, those units pulled within a car of the earlier 4 wheel drive trucks.  I had a lengthy test to verify that.  Most of the complaints were probably from people that didn't own the engine.  Those units had RS5 sound.  The next generation brought about Legacy, 4 wheel drive trucks and the gap between the truck and the body was narrowed. 

Regarding the Santa Fe F7 that RickO pictured, there were some features that got overlooked because of the complaints about the new drive.  The lighting was very special.  The top light included a Mars light and a red signal light that came on when the engine stopped.  The lower light had a twin sealed beam look with 2 LED's.  The problem with anyone noticing the twin sealed beam look (you can't see it in the picture) was Lionel used a lens that didn't allow it to be seen.  If they had used the appropriate lens it would have added significantly to the scale looks.  I owned the engine 2 years before I noticed it.

Rick O is correct, the RS5 sound is spectacular and if you have the breakdown B, which had better sound than the A, it is amazing.  The reason the Breakdown B had better sound was because they had the room to baffle the speaker better and it provided significantly more bass.

Marker, thank you for your post. You are 100% correct, the F3 Sante Fe and NYC were the first Lionel scale F units.

I was at the Museum TCA presentations where Lionel first showed the pilot model. Interesting, the Sante Fe was my choice this week for the Weekend Photo Fun thread. And by the way, it is a wonderful performer.

So how many B units were available for the early scale F3's?  I know there was a dummy B and a powered B but was the breakdown B unit the 3rd B unit offered?

Steve, Lady and Tex

Steve:

I don't remember a Breakdown B unit produced to go with these early scale F3s. I got the powered and non-powered B units to go with this set.

Thanks Passenger Train Collector.  Mine are still in factory shipping boxes until I finish with the dirty work in my train room.  I guess the breakdown b unit came later than our Santa Fe F3's.

Steve, Lady and Tex

The Breakdown B was for the F7 set.  The Santa Fe came as an A-B-A.  Lionel offered a powered B and a Breakdown B. So if you bought everything, you would have had an A-B-B-B-A set.  

A funny story.  The F7 Breakdown B simulated a B unit that was going bad.  There was a sequence that started with talk about how if sounded as if it needed service.  As it continued to run, smoke would come out from the stainless grills on the side.

I took it over to a friends house to run it on a large layout because the timing for the breakdown work better on a large layout.  We ran the A-B-B-B-A for a while and then I triggered the breakdown sequence.  As the engine ran, the smoked started up, the sounds of a bad engine got worse, and eventually smoke came pouring out of the B unit. My friend and I couldn't believe how much smoke it put out, the room was filled.  We ran it back to where we were and I touched the roof and the plastic was soft.  It warped.  I called Lionel and sent it back.  They sent it back with some modifications.  I think they lowered the smoke unit so it wasn't so close to the roof and put some aluminum tape on the roof.  I never intentionally triggered the sequence again.

Lionel lists these as "Traditional O".  Santa Fe F3 6-14356

For sure these were scale F3s.

Chris - Unfortunately, Lionel listed them incorrectly, they were the first set of Lionel Scale Standard O F3's.  I've owned A-B-B-A sets of all the Scale Santa Fe F3's except the PW Scale version.  The numbers were 16, 17, 18, and 19.  #16 was the first. 

Passenger Train Collectors #16.  If you know the difference between the Scale version and the traditional version, you can see in the picture that #16 is a scale version and it was the first release.

Marker is correct because I had these units, they looked great and sound was good for the era. 

I now now want a legacy version. 

Lionel did four sets of SF F3s before the high water F7s. Train 16, 17, 18, and 19. Train 17 was conventional. The rest came with Odyssey and I believe all had RS4. Train 16 was early Odyssey and 18 and 19 a later version. I have not had any issues running multiple powered units with Odyssey turned on. This with a legacy base connected to the track and a Command base connected to the a legacy base. No difference using a Cab1 or Cab2.

Pete

Brian, which ones are pictured on your layout...the 6-14356 set or the 6-14588 set?

I thought maybe that's what I had but I just checked and mine are from 2004: 6-24529.

I had thought these were scale.  Am I wrong?

- Mike

Mike, your engines are scale. The 4 versions above are identical except for cab numbers. Train 18 and 19 have a switch to disable Odyssey and Train 16 does not. The switch was added because the powered units would buck each other in Odyssey mode.

With the advent of Legacy that is much less of an issue.

Pete

Mike:

Mine our 6-14536. Yours are however scale as well.

The 16-19 are the best F3s Lionel has done to date.

The UP F3s, 6-24552, from '05 are really nice IMO.

Doug

Thanks, Brian and Pete, for the clarification.  

- Mike

We picked up set No 18 several years ago. Marker alerted me to the availability of the breakdown B unit for the F7 set and that it had great sound. I picked one up but the color and grills didn't match (see photo below) the ABA so I located another F3B and switched the cabs. Now we have a 'proper' ABBA with the breakdown F3 B unit cab (2nd photo) but the F7 chassis is a 'high water' unit and doesn't quite match the others. Not really a distraction to me as there is so much nice to look at when these run that it is easily overlooked!