Lionel Santa Fe Warbonnet F3 & F7

I think that the LNL Santa Fe ABBA of the 1946 "16 Class" F3 Passenger diesels that was first released in 02 was the beginning of the best SF F3s ever made. My issue with the very first set, the 16 number, was that the cab subunit letters were wrong.

It wasn't until the "18" series that the sub-letters went from L to  A, B, C. The first set, the 16, re-used 16B twice.

So the corrected front and trailing a-unit engines of the 18 series are 18L and 18C with the b-units numbered 18A and 18C respectively.

the total head was 18L-18A-18B-18C or A-B-B-A. "L" stands for Lead engine. 

I have the 18 series.

Alan, thanks for the Santa Fe diesel info. and great pix, very helpful....

Do your LNL Santa Fe A units have Mars lights?

The color pix shows 18L with I believe FARR grills. Are they available in O scale?

Also, the carbody looks like the units were painted silver and not stainlees steel? Is that right?

I believe the EMD Warbonnet FT's were also painted silver.

Thanks again for your input and pix.

I think the Lionel SantaFe Anniversary Passenger set is altogether the best
Warbonnet Santa Fe set they made.  It dates from 2000 catalog, I think second Volume that year.  I have four or five other Lionel and MTH Warbonnet F ABBA sets and I think this is far and away the best.

Lee, do you use TMCC or Legacy ops systems?

If you use conventional only, you are spot on!

The Santa Fe Anniversary set is awesome.

I have the 2002 "first" scale models and like them very much.

I run only conventional!

I agree with Alan.  I have the #18 6-24529 & #19 6-14588.  #18 was the first release after #16 and #19 followed the next year with an upgraded version of TMCC and RailSounds.  Both engines have hundreds of hours on them.  Excellent and strong runners.

It has been a number of years since Lionel released these engines.  I keep looking for a new release in Legacy and hope it happens soon. 

In this picture you can see the first Warbonnet 2343 6-18130 with the earliest version of TMCC.  I ran this very hard when it was released.  Behind it is engine #19.

 In this picture you can see #19 running the rails.

The Farr vertical slit grilles are available from P&D Hobby Shop.  The first group of rednose F3's did not have stainless steel side panels.  The stainless panels were used on F3's 22 through 36 and on all the passenger F7's

All the E1, E3, E6, and E8m units, as well as the Alco-GE DL-109 and 110, and PA1 and PB1 units also had stainless steel side panels.  The FT's converted to passenger engines, and the Fairbanks-Morse Erie-Built units lacked stainless steel.  I'm sure that you also noticed that F3's 16 through 21 have what is commonly called the long warbonnet, where the stripe reaches back to wrap around the center porthole which was present when the units were delivered but was replaced with filters within 6 months.  The stripe on these units was never revised to the profile used on later F-units.  The 16 through 21 looked like the black and white photo from 1947 through 1952.  The vertical slit air filter panels and the Farr grilles were applied beginning in 1952, but the project was lengthy.

One thing I will note about my SF Anniversary Passenger set - it is a power hog par excellence! . . . . .  The ABBA engine set has four Pullmor motors, and the seven cars are lit by incandescent bulbs. I normally run the set with two or three extra cars (also incandescent lights). This is the only train I have that routinely runs right up at the limit of what the ZW-L or my old Z4000 could provide - about 160-175 watts when running at 17-18V.  When starting out, the four Pullmor motors and their AC field windings always trigger the blinking red "exceeding ten amps" warning light on the ZW-L - although with carefull backing off of the throttle I can avoid tripping the breaker - light goes off within a second or two if I am judicious with the throttle. (Did the same thing with the Z4K,too). Those Pullmors eat alot ofcurrent, particularly at low RPM.

I have the PW Scale from a couple years back.  They run, sound (except for only being in powered A), and look great!

Train 16, 18, and 19 are all Odyssey with Railsounds 4. Trains 16 and 18 used a generic EMD sound board. Train 19 is specific for Train 19. I have Train 19 ABA set along with B units for 16, 18, and 17. The sounds even on 19 are nothing to write home about. I have been able to run them together ABBBA with no real issues. I think only the Postwar Scale set with the 4 digit train number (2333??) has Legacy.

Pete

Marty,

Thanks Marty. Per Pete's comments, are your PW Santa Fe units Legacy or ?

Tom, Lee, Wood, Pax Train Collector, Alan and Pete, thanks for your feedback.

Can anyone provide a comparison between LNL and MTH Santa Fe F Warbonnets?

One other item. The early F3s, 16, 18, 19 and 17 (scale but conventional) have all axles powered and the bodies sit at a reasonable height off the trucks. The later F-7s have only one driven axle per truck and sit higher off the trucks. A big step backwards in appearance. OTOH the F7s are closer coupled but the F3s are a mile apart. 

As delivered:

Modified (these will still negotiate 042):

Pete

Pete, which Kadee coupler set did you use for your LNL F units?

The close coupling looks great.

Pete, do all of your F3 lead(L) units have a Mars light?

Thanks,

Bill

None of  the warbonnet F3s or F7s came with Legacy, they predate it.  However, all of the F3s/F7s since Legacy was introduced do come with Legacy. 

Whether or not Lionel will redo the warbonnets with Legacy I believe to be a question of when not if.  They still have liveries to do with the new tooling F3s and F7s they have not yet done.  I would suspect that once all the liveries are done that Lionel figures they can make a buck on the warbonnets will return.  That could be the 2nd 2013 catalog or a 2023 catalog.  They did every number of the 16 class as TMCC so I would not expect to see those again for a very long time.  However, the 22 class, which are identical except for having the shortened warbonnet...  And they only did one run of warbonnet F7s so I would expect those to be redone first.  The warbonnet market was probably pretty saturated with F3s when the F7s were released.

It would be nice if they corrected the too wide bottom stripe when they do but...

What is considered "war bonnet?"  The engines I have are Legacy. Although the official scheme is PW paint Scheme scale. 

Bill, I only have Train 19 A units. All the rest are various "Bs". I am fairly certain 16, 17 ,18, and 19 all have mars lights. In fact most details are same on all of them. They differ in number and 18 and 19 have an updated version of early Odyssey.

I used Kadee 742s on the B units and A unit rears. The A unit front I used 806s as the short shank 743s were not available when I did these.

The 806s are mounted on the pilot but the 742s are truck mounted using homemade adapters. I wanted to close the gap but still be able to negotiate tighter radiuses. I don't think body mounted couplers would allow those tight curves.

Here is a thread that shows what I did.

Here is the A unit.

Pete

Pete, the nose of F3 #19 looks great. Have you considered fixing the pilot by filling in the gap between the pilot and carbody?

thanks,

Bill

Bill, I am really not a 3RS guy. The primary reason to use Kadees was to close the gap and while I agree they look better, if I could have closed the gap using lobster claws I would have. I am fan of electro couplers. Maybe someday MTH and/or Lionel will make a more scale electro couplers.

Pete

Ahh, seeing as how the OP appeared to be describing the 2002 new tooling F-units I was only relating to those.

The set that I have looks great but the light shines through the front of the cab body cannot see it in the first photo but the red body glows where the light is so bright it iluminates right through the body and around the # boards and other leaks of light. And is really bright in the cab.

These have the 1 powered axle per truck.

The board in the powered B unit over heated has been giving me problems I am no longer able to run these as a set as of yet I cannot get them to run at the same speed since the board failed. 1 powered A and 1 powered B

Not sure what to do if it is worth sending it in and getting a new control board installed.

Nice looking set though love them otherwise for the look and details. 

Click on photos for a larger view.

From looking at the nice photos above from Norton and kj356 it would appear that the F7s are afflicted with the dreaded 'high-water' truck mounting that was such a detriment on several of the scale E7s. 

Laidoffsick posted a thread on how he lowered his E7s by 1/4" or so resulting in a much-improved appearance. Am certain that the F7s could benefit from that too.

I understand the concerns about the high-water trucks and number board details.  I'm never a stickler for exact prototypical detail anyway as long as the loco looks good, but in the case of these locos and actually don't want perfect fidelity to the real world.

My expectations and preferences for Warbonnet EMD F units were set in the early '50s.  Regardless of what the real locos looked like, I want modern Warbonnet F3s that look like and remind me of those toy trains I played with and loved in 1955-57. 

I realize this is somewhat inconsistent: with steam and most other diesels and turbine locos, I want scale, fairly detailed and representative but not necessarily perfectly rendered prototypical detail, but with Warbonnett F3s, I want the look of the early Lionel F3 toy trains.  Just me. 

The latest Legacy Units from about 2 years ago.  This is a powered A w/sound, 2 powered B Units, and a dummy A.  Makes for an impressive MU.  Hoping to find the passenger cars to compliment it this year at York.

That's a neat clip Marty - I've never heard a F3 make 'moo-ing' sounds before!