Intermountain F7A and F7B Units Get out your wallets Frisco fans. Intermountain Railway Company has just announced six new units in Frisco livery. These units will be available in both N and HO Scales. The item/road numbers (for the N Scale units) are: (A Units) 69264-01/22, 69264-02/32, 69264-03/6032, 69264-04/5033, (B Units) 69764-01/118, and 69764-02/125. (See the announcement for the HO model and road numbers.) The MSRP is: A Units; DC $129.95, DCC $179.95, and DCC with sound $239.95. For the B Units; DC $129.95, DCC $174.95, and DCC with sound $234.95. Intermountain promotional language lists the following features: Sharp painting and lettering Wire grab irons Etched metal details Knuckle couplers These units were announced on November 13, 2015. Reservations are due by December 31, and are expected to be released in June or July 2016. Continue reading...
Maybe get out your wallet on the IRC o/w Frisco F7A's, and I might because they look OK, but hold off on the F7B's. See my comments in the other posting on this topic above (or below) in the posting list. Several of us communicated with IRC when they messed up and put d/b on their b/y F7B that came along with their (fairly nice, generally correct) b/y FP7A in 2007. I am amazed they would now announce a Frisco F7A in o/w colors, which we need, along with an accompanying F7B .......... but the F7B shell is apparently the same screw-up shell with d/b as they first released in year 2007! And the image in their announcement shows the same F7B with no lettering or numbers on it, also totally wrong. IRC, please listen (again) .......... Frisco F7B's had NO d/b! (And like the b/y F7B's, the o/w F7B's had lettering and numbers on them). Sorry about my frustrations! Ken
Adding letters and numbers would be easy with the proper decals. How difficult would be to remove the D/B from B models? Joe
There is a separate IRC roof panel for non-d/b F-units. When I complained to them about the incorrect black and yellow F7Bs they did along with the black and yellow FP7As in 2007, they apologized and sent me replacement panels for each of the F7Bs I bought (4 I think). I've sold all but one now, and for each unit I sold, I provided the buyer with the correct roof panel. But, there is no reason we have to do this. You have to get the incorrect panel out, it is glued in, without messing up the roof, then install the correct panel such that it fits tightly, and then paint it to match the rest of the model. I also agree with the comment above that it would be easy to use decals to add the missing lettering and numbers to the F7B, but again, why do we have to do this? It might be a slight problem matching the decal color to the o/w shade IRC uses. So be it! Ken
Ken, The N-scale F7Bs IRC did when the N-scale FP7s were released were correctly produced without dynamic brakes. For the other issues, it's best to e-mail intermountain to make sure they are aware of our concerns. I'll shoot one off here in a couple of minutes. Paul
In 2007, I didn't e-mail them, I called them. We had a good chat; they were very apologetic. As I recall, they thought the problem was that they looked at pics of F9B's instead of F7B's. I'm not sure of that - you would think they would notice the different grills. As I said, they sent me a bunch of non-d/b panels to fix the problem. But I still ask, why don't they check a few pictures, or even better, ask frisco.org, so they can get the details straight before they do the art work and announce them. Ken
Ok, so I sent Intermountain the following e-mail on November 22nd: and here is theresponse I received from Intermountain today: I did have to correct Kirk about the B unit photos being posted. I know those were photos posted to the Frisco Archive. So the bottom line is that the B units will be correct, and they will do F7A 34 instead of F7A 32. Also, when Kirk refereed to the thumbnails, he was talking about the pictures on the scale specific product release pages ( such as http://www.intermountain-railway.com/newsncomingsoon.html or http://www.intermountain-railway.com/n/nloco/nlocf7.htm ) if you find the Frisco locomotives on either of those pages, you'll see the thumbnail image is correct, but when you click on it, the full size image is without lettering and with dynamic brakes. Paul
Good work, thanks. We'll see what we get. Hopefully, all will be done very well. I must say in 2007, when I vented some frustrations about the HO b/y FP7/F7B models they released, with the d/b incorrectly on the F7B, they were sincere in their apologies, said it would be corrected on future releases, and did send me a bunch of the correct roof panels without d/b for the F7B's I bought. Ken K
It is good news that IRC and Athearn are releasing new F units. We should have a very good variety from which to choose. To be honest, I was concerned that IRC might not release any more Frisco models due to the criticism ( justified, I might add) after the previous offerings. I did not buy B unit because of the d/b issue. I have duplicate Genesis F3 As and Bs which I will convert to F7s. Unless I am missing something, it seems all I need to do is replace the chicken wire on the F3s with grills on the F7s. Is that correct? Terry
Terry - You are essentially correct regarding the differences between the late Phase III F3A's and the Phase I F7A's that the Frisco had (except for F3A's SLSF 5000 & 5001, which were early Phase III's) is the fact that the F7's had the 2-ft high Farr-Air horizontal grill covering the full length of the upper side vents, while the F3A'a had "chicken wire" screens covering the same vents. Both had horizontal louvers covering the vents between the portholes. The F3B's vs the F7B's both had the same differences with the upper vent covers: chicken wire on the F3B's, Farr-Air grill for the F7B's, otherwise looked pretty much the same. There were other differences, but they didn't affect the Frisco units. The d/b's were different - roof grills for the F3's vs roof 36" fans for the F7's (later 48"), but the SLSF units didn't have d/b, so no difference. And, during the F7 run, EMD dropped the rear body roof pointed overhang as a cost saving matter. I've checked my Frisco F7 pics to confirm, and I have only one blurred, high numbered F7A that gives a good view - it looks like all the Frisco F7's had the overhang. There were other little differences also, I'm sure. But, except for satisfying severe rivet counters, it would seem that changing the side grill on the Frisco Genesis F3A to the Farr-Air horizontal grill, will make it into a presentable Frisco F7. I just checked the January, 1970 X2200S article "All About F's", and they pretty much confirm. Many of the F3 vs F7 differences were internal. Ken
Thanks, Ken, that is what I thought. After comparing the F3s and F7s in Marre's book, I couldn't find any obvious external differences except for the grills. Terry
Hi Terry, I did pretty much exactly as you are talking about, wish I had Ken's write up on it, before hand, but being lucky rather than good, worked out OK for me. Something about those Frisco B/Y covered wagons, the Frisco made sure there were enough HPT on the train to move the tonnage. Nowadays they dont want a single HPT to move the train based on the service design. BTW service design means how fast do you want it, and how much of a HP premium payout are you willing to pay for that service.
Found out about the status of these units. The mechanicals, shells and everything is ready to release except the electronics. The hold up is in the DCC and sound board. Intermountain has spec'd out a LokSound DCC decoder to be delivered with our units, but the Chinese supplier has reverse engineered these decoders and insists on using their own electronics. There are SD40s and newly revised frames for FP7 and FP9 units that are also delayed and will be out first. My supplier doesn't expect the F7A and B units until late September or October... Thoughts? JFM
I talked to Intermountain about these units and they estimated that late spring we should be able to get these locomotives. They confirmed the holdup was a reliable decoder with sound and the SD40-2 was their priority. Can't wait! JFM
The intermountain website says April now. I just recieved two of the SD40-2s. They are nice. I asked intermountain about Frisco SD40-2s at the NTS last summer, and they said it could happen. If it does, they might even have factory installed gyralights in the nose. The rep also mentioned the possibility of SD38-2s. They have already indicated they will be producing HO scale versions of those in Frisco paint. Paul
I hope youse guys don't have to wait for these as long as us N scalers did for the black and yellow "N" FP-7s. Tom G.
