Williams E-7

What kind of modifications are you talking about?

 

If upgrading to a seond motor kit for the unpowered A unit, I have done a Williams F-7 unpowered A unit and converted it to a powered unit. It is rather easy to change out but now it is very expensive to buy the motor kits, $100.00 plus shipping is the cheapest I have found.

Also have added the True Blast-2 diesel horn to an older GP-9 and installed a Williams T.B.2 into an unpowered Lionel diesel A unit.

 

Some of the newer parts for the WBB SD-90's will fit an older SD-45, like the windshield wipers.

 

Lee F.

One of our members customized one into a Seaboard unit, with special paint and some other body mods.

I bought an unpowered Williams E7 that I ended up getting the powered trucks they sell.  I also bought the ERR Cruise Commander and the MRC AC Sounder kits and installed them.

 

While I was at it I shaved off all the cast-on handgrabs, etc and added wire handgrabs, windhield wipers, 5-chime horn, a cab interior, and a LED headlight.  I also fixed the pilot and mounted Kadee couplers to it.  It'll take an 072 curve but not an 054, due to the position of the side steps below the cab doors.

 

After that I re-painted it for Seaboard Air Line (insert obligatory photo here):

 

 

I like it fine, but it's still a conventional engine.  For what I put into it (close to $600) I can buy a 3rd Rail E7 that comes already done up for me and comes with TMCC.  Actually I've got one on order which will be here (hopefully) by Christmas.

 

My E7 Southerns have the window shades and interior in the front A unit plus Kadee coupler on the front A and wipers on both A's and Fire cracker antenna on both A's. Then weather on the top and trucks of both A's. looks really nice and great runners. They get the most workout on my layout. Pulling a set of MTH Southern green and white passengers cars.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was a discussion on the forum several months ago about making the pilots fixed.  I fixed the pilots on my E-7s and added a cab interior and engineers using Lionel parts.

 

Neal Jeter

Could PS 2 be aded to a Williams E-7?

Yes; As long as the motors have flywheels a PS-2 kit can be installed.

obx, I put a ps2 unit in my Williams-Southern, f3[not f7] with no problem at all. It is one of my favorite to run on the layout. Runs like a dream, slow,fast,whatever. I also installed LEDs for front & rear{green & red} along with flashing forward lite that came in kit, plus the oper. couplers. The sound is awesome since I replaced the speaker with a better 5watt spkr. Plenty of room for pcb in f3 so I am sure there is plenty more room in the f7. Tom

WHere do you buy a PS-2 kit??

Here ya go:

 

http://www.modeltrainstuff.com...it-p/mth-50-1902.htm

 

only 1 left, not sure how much longer these will be available as PS3 will be coming sooner or later, but then you could buy the PS3 kit (I hope).

The Williams E-7 does a PS-2 conversion very well.

Trainworld is having a sale for an AA only 175! Thats less than 375 with a PS2 kit!!! The E7s are also scale that sweetens the deal even more. These seem to be well worth it. Williams are nice and heavy with metal frames and all metal gears and trucks. Their pilots are also metal. With cab figures and leds these would be nice for the price. The nice thing about PS2 and DCS is that you can change the sounds.

Hello obx1951,

I have the Williams C&O/Pere Marquette E7.  I wanted mine to look more like the prototype so, I attach part of a P&D Hobby F3 pilot along with their brass pilot door and painted it to match.  I made the pilot door removable by using a Mighties Magnet.  Once the door is removed, it reveals a kadee coupler that slides in and out.

 

Mine can still handle O-36 curves if needed, but I now run O-60 and O-72 curves.

 

 

I also added an LED headlight and I lightly weathered the trucks.  A Lionel F3 cab interior and figures were installed as well.  In the future I would like to lower the stance of this unit.

 

Stock unit on left and modified unit on right...

 

 

Here is a Thomas W. Dixon photo of the real E7 #95...

 

 

More photos of the project can be seen here...

Williams by Bachmann E7 fixed pilot

 

Here is a video of mine running on my old carpet layout.  About halfway through the video you will see a closeup of the modified pilot functions.

 

That's a great price.  When I got back in the hobby, about seven years ago, the C&O E7 was the first new locomotive I bought.  I paid $220 from WholesaleTrains.com.  These E7s are well worth it...and you get a powered and a dummy unit.

 

You can find a lot of used MTH E8 ABA sets for this kind of money. A lot (all?) of MTH sets also have both A units powered. This would cost you $475 with the Williams set.

Many thanks for your replies.The reason I asked was that I bought the C&O E7 and a U33 Reading yesterday from Train World.I received them today.I havn't bought a train in over a year and a half and it's my first Williams train.I love to see what ideas you guys come up with just to make them a little bit better.Does anybody have any how-to videos?