In all the discussion about the new MTH 2019 Vol 2 catalog, it may have missed the notice of a number of people that there’s a genuinely new and interesting offering that I don’t believe has been available before in O gauge, at least not for some time.
The Premier section shows that MTH is doing Great Northern F7’s in the freight version, as distinguished from the passenger version.
Generally, the freight version of GN’s F3/7’s had a single headlight on the front of the A-units and no steam generators, while the passenger version had dual headlights and was fitted with steam generators. GN did have one set of freight F7’s that had dual headlights on the A-units and a few freight B units were fitted with steam generators for dual service, but those were exceptions to the railroad’s usual practice.
According to MTH, the new model of the F7 freight version will have correct details with single head-lights on the A’s and no steam generators. And it’ll be available with fixed pilots with in the scale-wheel version.
To my knowledge, just about all of the previous O-scale models of Great Northern F3’s and F7’s in 3-rail scale, including Lionel, Atlas, Sunset 3rd Rail, and even MTH’s previous runs, have been passenger versions and a good, accurate freight version just hasn’t been available until now.
