To All: Intermountain has announced production of a U18b in the SLSF Orange & White paint scheme in what they are dubbing as their "Famous Image Collector's Series" for delivery in the Mar/Apr time frame. There will be two road numbers offered (1891 & 1992). They will be offered in both Sound (ESU Lok-Sound) and Non-Sound versions with an MSRP of $279.95 and $189.95 respectively. There are several other road names offered in this series and I don't know if those railroads actually had these units or not. Below are two link, one to Upcoming Releases Page (scroll down) and the other to an artist's sketch of the SLSF version. http://www.intermountain-railway.com/newshocomingsoon.html http://www.intermountain-railway.com/ho/html/49483.htm Finally, two things: (1) I did not work with Intermontain on this offering! (2) Is this an indication that Frisco models have become so popular that manufacturer's are scrambling to offer them even in models that never existed?
My goodness! Why would IRC tarnish their good reputation by offering a locomotive model that never existed on the Frisco? Instead of this fantasy, why not doing a Frisco F7A & F7B, this time with the correct details, in both b/y and o/w? Ken
Several years ago Intermountain did announce production of the F7's in the O&W paint scheme. Someone went up to their booth at the Oklahoma City Train Show and questioned their foresight in doing so. He later posted on another forum what he had done. It was cancelled by Intermountain due to lack of interest in the pre-order process.
To my knowledge, this scenario has never been discussed, but the Frisco could have turned to GE for some of this model when they purchased the GP15-1's. I realize that EMD had a trade-in program that was used with GP7's, but possibly U25b's could have been offered as trade-in fodder on a few of these.
Below is a link to the production roster of the U18b. Unless they came on board through either merger or second-hand purchase, they were all "Fantasy" locos. If I counted correctly, there were only 163 ever produced to begin with. http://www.thedieselshop.us/GE_U18B.HTML
You people do what you want regarding the U18b, but these were the least reliable units on the Maine Central. They rarely were sent out alone due to their habit of shutting down. We regularly were sent out with single Alco switchers on locals, GP7s on MOW trains, but I never saw, or worked on a train with a single U18b. If you dare put them on your layout, be prepared for trouble. I am a big fan of the Frisco U25b, but I believe they were kept in multiple lash-ups too. John Sanders
IMHO, IRC's mistake with the proposed o/w F7 run in HO was offering them in o/w first. I'll bet they would have had more than enough interest to do a b/y F7A & F7B run instead. I know I would have bought. No one has done a good Frisco b/y F7A, and the IRC F7A offered with their FP7 was flawed (had d/b). A correct F7A + F7B set in b/y would have sold. Perhaps they also could have offered a Frisco F9B, as that would be easy to do. The two F9A's, rebuilt form F3A's, would be more difficult as the side louvers were non-standard. Assuming success with the b/y's, then they could have offered the same in o/w. But the track record with o/w F's is not good. Ken
John and All: That is an interesting post. The MKT bought 3 of their bigger sister U23b's and also documented having trouble keeping them running. They eventually relegated them to the Parsons Sub which was more or less a local heading up to Chanute, KS and beyond. They were the only second generation GE units the MKT owned. If a railroad dedicated shop resources in the proper manner such as the Frisco did with the Fairbanks-Morse units and kept them centrally located at one shop they usually embraced them. Having said that, if the Frisco had purchased either U18b's or U23b's and assigned one to Wichita, KS as they did a single GP15-1 for use on the Burrton Sub it probably wouldn't have worked out.
If one were to accept the concept of this fanatasy, then I would propose that IRC should use a diferent number; say 870. With regard to Bob's point number 2; I don't believe that this will sell. A limited "edition" protoype, i.e. a Baby U-Boat in a regional livery.
Can anyone identify either a car or caboose or anything other series that the Frisco owned that would need to be renumbered if these were to come onboard? It's trivia time folks!
To All: I have sent an email to Intermountain regarding this matter. I will keep everyone updated as to a response.
It is at the least exciting to see lots of new Frisco stuff. What about the loksound decoders, has some of you had good luck with them. I know Soundtraxx is hard to beat, but I haven't tried Loksound yet.
I have bought every accurate Frisco item produced, but no fantasy items , and I won't start now. I will admit I have bought non-Frisco items out of ignorance at the time, but I do not buy anything now just because it has "Frisco" on it. The cost of being accurate in my purchases precludes my buying something that did not exist. I can't understand why anyone would go to the expense of producing a fantasy item when they could produce an accurate one and get many more buyers. I would buy everyone of the items Ken mentioned earlier if they were produced. Terry
A baby boat in Frisco colors is definitely fantasy, much like a GP20 or GP30 would have been. While the last two may have looked neat in the black & yellow (and I wouldn't be surprised if someone has done one for their own model railroad, but again, it's a fantasy scheme. Interesting for those who like "what-if" diesels, not so much for sticklers to prototype. IMO, Intermountain would be better off restricting the U18Bs to those railroads who had or still have them (the Pickens runs a small fleet of orange ex-CSX baby boats).
