Atlas FP7

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I am thinking of purchasing an older Atlas FP7…supposedly new…How would you in Forumland who has one of these rate them…Thanks

Enjoy your layouts

2

I would give it a 7 out of 10. Great runner. Pretty good looks (depending on the road you are modeling). Impossible to have it close couple.

All in all, if you are ok with moulded on grabirons and the such, then its a great loco.

David B

3

Thanks David…I was loking to purchase a Canadian Pacific in script lettering. Do you mean you cna couple this locomotive to a car up close to it…Thanks Michael

4

The molded on grab irons are hidious by today’s standards. They could have left them off and the unit would look better or like Stewarts, you could drill and add them.

Mine ran OK, but I never used it because of the lack of detail.

Don’t pay much for one since they are not in demand.

Cheers

5

The way the coupler sits, there will always be a 6’ gap betwen the FP unit and whatever is coupled to it (prototype is 3’). To me this is a huge drawback as there is no way to correct this (the rear truck gets in the way).

There are other things wrong with the unit, including the numberboards, the shape of the nose, the pilot detail, the lack of depth in the trucks, the wrong roof details (or lack there of)…etc…

Bottom line…the drive is nice, but the shell is dated.

On a side note, I did manage to make a nice model out of one…once…a long time ago. There was probably 100 steps involved and I sold it for a nice profit. But it isnt for the faint of heart.

Save your pennies and buy the Intermountain version, you will be much happier!

David B

6

There are three things that I didn’t care for on the Atlas FP7

  1. Windshields were too narrow (compare to all other F’s by Stewart, Genesis etc)

  2. The side air grills weren’t rendered properly (again compare)

  3. Difficult or impossible to get correct close coupling because of the way Atlas did the coupler boxes.

Since we now have Intermountain offering FP7’s, that is what I would choose. I’m waiting on a Western Pacific FP7 since those lead the California Zephyr.

7

Melchior, it sounds suspiciously like you are talking about one of the first Atlas offerings from the mid-1970s. These had drives which set new quality standards for Ready-To-Run locomotives; their SD/GPs with their scale width hoods caused the Athearn units of that era with their too-broad hoods to stand out like a sore thumb. However, by today’s standards of expectation they leave just a little bit to be desired.

8

How much is the asking price? If it’s $20 or less, I’d still buy it. It has all the flaws mentioned but it is a good runner and it still looks OK as long as you don’t look at it too closely. [:)]

9

always been very happy with mine

10

As mentioned, the puppy runs great but detail wise, is not up to today’s standard that many are looking for. However, me([:-^]?) I’d buy the puppy as I’m very satisfied with my Atlas FP7, and Kadee does offer a coupler mod to help the unit “close the gap”.[C):-)]

11

David B

The save your pennies and buy the Intermountain is the way to go. It sits too high but can be lowered to the correct height fairly easily.

Cheers

12

Yup…been there…done that.

David B

13

How old is old? One of the really old Yellow box Roco units? I have both types and have been satisfied with them. As the others have said they lack detail, but run OK. They looked better and outperformed the Athearn blue box F unit models that were their contemporary competition. I always liked the squinty looking windshields as opposed to the way too large gaping hole Athearn windshields. Kadee makes a short shank, shallow box coupler to help with the spacing issue. I don’t remember them being as bad as dealing with the rear coupler on an Athearn F unit.

Back in 1983-1990 time period if I saw one for $20 or less I would buy it.

14

Any of the FP7’s produced by Atlas still had the same shell with the same “too narrow” wind shields and mis-profiled side grills. The wind shields did look better than the blue box Athearn F unit, but ANYTHING looked better than them. You can’t really compare 30 year old tooling with 60 year old tooling. Some may be ok with the old Atlas FP7, but if you are used to even Stewart F units at least, and Genesis F units at best, the Atlas FP7 isn’t holding up well by todays standards. I guess it all depends what is good enough for you, but I’m kind of living in the modern age an prefer current state of the art diesels to 30 year old state of the art.