I have pre ordered a set of the forthcoming Intermountain HO EMD FT A/B series engines in the orange and green GN livery and have also been looking for a F3 or F7 A/B set with sound in the Empire Builder colours
I am interested in the sound versions and was surprised at how few and expensive the Walthers units are at the moment. Stewart and Intermountain units F3’s and F7’s are also quite limited.
A couple of one line hobby shops have the complete sets of the Walthers Empire Builder series of passenger cars and F7’s but they are very expensive at the present time. Perhaps after Christmas the selection will be better.
I ordered my Walther’s F7s with the Empire Builder train (ABBA and ABA) sets, so I got a pretty good deal. In my opinion the price has gone through the roof and would not buy a set today. I have also been disappointed in the Walther’s units as their top speed is 70 mph. It it quite discouraging to see the Empire Builder creeping along at 70 mph when the Super Chief flashes by at 90.
I’ve got a set of the old original Stewart/Kato F3s ABB set in GN paint scheme. Picked them up 2nd hand on ebay. They probably have logged more hours than any other locomotive in my fleet. I added the DCC and sound myself.
I thought all of the Walthers EMD F3’s and F7’s were now using their 14:1 gear ratio.
I have searched for Stewart GN F3’s and have never found any, I have found FT’s and am impressed with their running characteristics. I have other Stewart F units with the Kato drives and they are excellent runners as you mentioned, just to bad they are not as DCC ready as the later Stewart drives are.
I picked up an ABBA ATSF warbonnet set of F7s from BLI (w/dcc & snd) and they are great, and can pull pretty darn good.
I also have 6 Stewart/Kato ABBA F unit sets (FT, FT, FT, F7, F7, F3) and find that they are outstanding runners. No, they don’t have all the detail as the BLIs & P2Ks, but I did add the KDs and diaghprams, etc., and they really are nice. Frankly, “for the money”, I feel they are the best buys out there.
To me expensive is very little off MSRP or maybe even above MSRP. One example (to use passenger cars) of “expensive” are the HO BLI California Zephyr passenger cars. I have no idea what happened to that market because after the first and second runs were sold out, I regularly saw CZ cars going for under $40. Now that a 3rd run has come and gone, most of the CZ cars on ebay are in the $99-$135 price range which is roughly double MSRP. What gives? I’d love to acquire a few more of the BLI CZ cars but no way I’m paying more than MSRP so I’ll just sit back and watch the price gouging from the sidelines. I have 15 of the cars anyway - enough to make a mixed full CZ train and a decent RGZ with 7 all D&RGW named cars. Incidentally since cost is part of the discussion, I paid about $54 each for the D&RGW named CZ cars from my pusher, and picked up the other 8 cars from someone who didn’t want them for about $37 each. I often saw the sleepers selling on Ebay for under $30 before the 3rd run and sudden major interest that came out of no where.
Regarding the Walthers F units, they follow the pricing trends of the past few years which is through the roof. I picked up my single Walthers F7ABBA set up discount for $180 non sound AB set and $250 for the sound AB set. The subsequent F3’s spiked up in MSRP a large degree. I didn’t buy them partly for the price hike and partly because the Athearn Genesis were more accurate in phase details - and I got them for killer prices ($160 for one AB set and $130 for the other and they are lovely).
A lot of people have complained about the many iterations of F units but they must sell because every maker has to run their own. According to many, the Genesis F units are still the standard to be measured by in terms of nose renditions and I’ll have to agree. Walthers P2K F units are pretty decent, especially if they come in a paint scheme you need - in my case I picked up the F7
I just found a HO F7A/B Great Northern set, it is a never used Intermountain set in the Empire Builder livery.
I thought I would end up with a Stewart set but lucked out with the Intermountain set. I have a number of Intermountain F7 sets and I am very impressed with their running characteristics and their detail. In my opinion Intermountain is a step above the Athearn Genesis, the Proto 2000 units are fine but in my opinion the riveting of the roof panels is way too large.
As luck would have it I just checked Walthers and the Empire Builder cars are on sale and marked down considerably. They do not have all of the cars but they do have all the main cars and the end observation.
Will have to write this off as Santa’s gift to me.
The only cheap sets on E-Bay are the new DC Bachmann Train sets which do not compare to the Intermountain or Proto 2000 or BLI engines. Nothing cheap for quality Empire Builder Diesels that I could see.
I’ve always wondered why the Protto 2000 F units where sooo much more expensive than their Athearn Genesis counterparts? Except for the pre Tsunami sound in the Genesis, I feel the Genesis are just as good looking as the more pricey Protto 2000’s. In short, I’d rather get an older Genesis F unit without sound and add the Tsunami sound to it , instead of buying a new Protto 2000 with sound.
You assume I use Walther’s locos with the Super Chief! Remember the Walther’s Super Chief came out in 2004 which was one year before they purchased Lifelike. The F units that came with the set were Athearn Genesis. Also Walthers didn’t set the 14:1 gear ratio until recently. Many of the earlier Proto-2000 are much quicker locomotives.
They might not be “DCC” ready but are the EASIEST conversions I’ve ever done. Get any of the drop in replacement decoders for Atlas or Athearn Genesis F units (NCE DASR, Digitrax DA163AO, etc.). Solder a brass spring wire to the four corners (power input) of the new decoder, do what you want for lighting, disconnect the four wires from the track, remove board, drop in decoder, hook up the four wires, solder the two brass motor feeds to the sides, done. I can do one in about 15 minutes. The fancy lighting if you want it is the hardest party.
It seems to me that prices are going sky high with no regard to the stagnant incomes of most folks. I have seveeral 7 or 8 year old Stewart FT’s that run great that I am adding Soundbugs to the Digitrax DH163D decoders I added several years ago. I am totally happy with them, and see no need to spend today’s asking prices.
I bought severa twelvepacks of B&LE ore cars b Walthers when they came out at $48.00 per dozen. Ten years latwr and ore cars are now $160.00 per dozen. Oil prices are part of it but as Ricky Ricardo would say. “Somebody got some splainin’ to do”.
Now that I have EMD F units with factory sound by Intermountain, Athearn Genesis, BLI and Proto 2000 I can rate the running characteristics of each in order.
I find that the best overall running engines are the Intermountain diesels, followed by the Athearn Genesis, BLI and Proto 2000 all tied for second.
What is strange to me is that when the street prices are noted this is the reverse order by price. The best running IMHO are the Intermoutain sets.
The detail on the Proto 2000 has one serious error, the rivets for the roof line panels are too large. When the engines are all lined up by each other that aspect is just so noticeable.
I also have a number of Stewart engines and they too are great runners, their body moulds date from the 1980’s and out of the box are very plain looking and are outdated by all of the added detail of the other manufactures.
I have seen the new Stewart EMD F units however non of the road names I model have yet to be released , so I have not yet acquired one.,
I have a lot of the Stewart F units and consider them anythig “but” outdated, granted they don’t have the details “pre-applied” like the Genesis and others but those railings, lift rings, and such are inexpensive and are a one night job to install bringing them up to Genesis standars very easily.
And as for the mechanisms they all have a way to go to match those “obsolete” (?) Kato drives plus they can be found on EBAy and at train shows very cheaply. Normal street price seems to be in the $50 per unit range but I have picked up many for as low as $25, so with $10 worth of detail parts and not much time involved I can have engines as detailed as most anything offered and still run better than most. Plus there are still a lot of them around!
Maybe it’s time somebody took a closer look at what is available that isn’t “new”. New doesn’t always mean better, sometimes it just means “different”.
To me they are just another example of one of the great “underated” bargains of today.
The newer ones (Stewart) with the Buhler motors are anything but slouches. Extremely smooth and quiet. I wouldn’t pass one up just to try and come across an older Kato drive one. I don’t think the Kato is so superior to discount the Buhler ones. The only thing I have quieter are my Stewart Baldwin switchers with Canon motors.
I agree 100% with you there but the basic premise of what I was saying is that “none” of the Stewart’s are anything to be dismissed be they powered by the Kato motor or the Buehler motors.
When Sagami quit making the original “satin black” motors I bought Kato motors and have used them every since as replacements for my 20X32’s and have repowered several of my brass steamers with them since then including 2 Tenshodo Big Boys. They have preformed flawlessly as they also do in the F units.
The only reason I didn’t mention the Beuhler powered versions is because they can’t be found as cheaply as the Kato powered versions but I agree, they are every bit as good. Never had any “cracked gear” issues with a Stewart engine either, even after Kato quit supplying them.
I don’t understand the pricing of today’s new Stewart/Bowser F units so that is the main reason I didn’t mention them.
They seem to be about the same price they always were, list price-wise. The Executive Line ones are more but they have allt eh grabs and details installed, and also have sound versions. So you cna buy the basic models and add a dress-up kit to add handrails and grabs and MU hoses and so forth, or pay more for the Executive Line version and get all those details already installed. There aren’t a lot of F units in the Executive Line - I guess they didn’t sell as well as expected.
The ones whose pricing I don’t get is Walthers, since they aquired Life-Like the list price of the P2K F units has gone through the roof. Typically they sell at a steep discount but how they can justify the initial high MSRP is beyond me.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the P2K F unit series didn’t even exist before Walthers took over the Proto 2000 line. At least the F units didn’t hit the shelf until Walthers owned the line, even if they were in development prior to the take over. I will say I noticed Proto 2000 prices start to rise sharply before Walthers came on the scene. One of the first diesels to show up at markedly higher prices was the GP60. Since then the cost of manufacturing models in china has skyrocketed affecting other makers like Atlas and now Athearn too. The high MSRP seems to be the newer higher cost of production being passed on to the consumer along with the weaker dollar. Sucks I know - I don’t like it either. With my greatly reduced disposable income and the newer super high prices, my diesel purchasing has tanked in the last year or two.
As luck would have it, there was another Intermountain GN F7 set in the Empire livery on E-bay today that I scored. Now I have a matched set in the ABBA configuration. I am so lucky that Walthers had the appropriate cars on sale as well.