Athearn Genesis Frisco FP7A & F9B units in O/W paint scheme

Ordered all three; FP7A, FP7A&F7B, FP7A&F9B, from Spring Creek.

 

They are definitely going to be produced. At present they are indicating a March '16 arrival.

 

IRC has fooled us before - pulled the model away before they ran them. But I think I agree with Keith - I'm betting this time they run them. I'm looking forward to the o/w F9B from the upcoming FP7-F9B run as well. Fits nicely in between the SD45's.

Ken

 

Ken, in this case we are talking about Athearn Genesis units.

 

Keith - Indeed. I'm glad - the Genesis FP7/F9B models will be better than the IRC's. I never have understood totally why Athearn Genesis didn't build on their success with the Frisco F3A/B models by doing a similar run of b/y F7A/B's. They had everything they need on hand. I suspect it is because they made a lot of the F3's, and it took a while to move them all. Athearn has certainly shown a willingness to do Frisco models, thankfully. Now that IRC has done F7B's in both b/y and o/w I suspect the chance Athearn Genesis will ever do them is not great.

IRC's models are fine, except when they get significant details totally wrong!, and they run very well, but their graphics pale in comparison to Athearn's.

We have been very fortunate, though. Is there any Frisco diesel model that has not been reproduced for us in a good to excellent HO model? H12-44? SD38-2? Maybe a totally correct SW9?

Ken

 

Received my set of five from Deb Zucker at Spring Creek Model Trains yesterday. Very nice looking units, they hit the fine details like color, the front coonskin straddling the border between the red and white, spark arrestors and correct horns for each unit. I got the A/B pairs with sound already installed. I immediately pulled the OEM speaker from one and replaced it with one of my Sweet Sound speakers for a comparison. That lead to pulling the speakers in the other units and replacing them as well (not that the sound was poor; the low frequency range just needed help). I installed a GN-1000 Tsunami board in the third FP7A, connected the lights (which were all there in this DCC-ready model) and another Sweet Sound speaker. I will install class lights at a later date.

In the mean time, they're ready for an Op Session at Rick McClellan's tonight. I'll add pictures of them at work during the Op Session afterwards.

 

Here are some pictures I took at Rick's last night. These are great units, they run very well and got many complements from the N Scale Conventioners that were operating last night.

 

Mmmm! Nice looking units. Mine are on the way (more to move!).

Question - why does F7B SLSF 135 sport the F9 style Farr Air grill? Did it get retrofitted at some time, and Athearn caught that detail for their model? Just curious.

I'm very glad to see that Athearn has a keen enough eye to realize that Frisco F9B's did have d/b, but the earlier Frisco F7B's did not. I wish Intermountain had that keen eye.

Ken

 

Irv Athearn would never do that. What you see is Horizion's idea of marketing links.

K

 

In order to program sound units, you need either a DCC system with a programming track and programming track booster (such as a PowerPax or SoundTraxx PTB-100, OR one can use Decoder Pro with a Sprog. One could also program a sound decoder using Ops Mode (Programming on the Main) if the addresses of the two locomotives are set to an address that doesn't match another locomotive on your layout.

For #43 with a Genesis OEM Tsunami decoder CV115 should be 1 for the Leslie S5T horns, and for #50 with the Genesis OEM Tsunami decoder, CV115 should be 4 for the S3L horns.

If you install a Soundtraxx Tsunami GN-1000 EMD 567 decoder in either locomotive, CV 115 should be 7 for the S5T horns and should be 6 for the S3L horns.

With the new SoundTraxx Tsunami 2 EMD Diesels, the set CV120 to 23 for the RS3L, 24 for the RS5T, 28 for the S3L, 29 for the S5T, and 30 for an S5T and A200 combination.