Does anybody know of any manufacturers that have any F45 ATSF’s or any loco in pintripe/pre 72 blue yellow scheme? F45, SD45, any loco that was painted in the old scheme, does anybody make them? N scale and HO wonderiing? thnks, Ben
Santa Fe F45’s never were in black/silver pin-stripe.
Please see this link for all the incarnations of the locomotive.
To answer the question… No manufacturer has yet been dumb enought to do a zebra striped F45.
http://members.aol.com/JFuhrtrain/FP45data.htm
I took this picture back in 1990 at Corwith yard of the class unit after being renumbered from #90 and repainted into the Superfleets beautiful #100.
Athearn Made the Solid Blue No Warbonnet F-45. But I think that loco was dropped from the line of models Athearn Now sells, thanks to Horizon.
Neutrino, Athearn stopped producing the F45 and FP45 before the Horizon buyout.
BNSF97,
EBay is your best bet, but you have to check it daily. I’ve purchased four FP45s over the past year on it. Somedays there will only be 2 or 3 of these locomotives and then “wham!”, ten of them suddenly come up for bidding! [:p] Some new, others in good condition. Undecorated units also pop up.
I’m not sure but correct me if I’m wrong:
It sounds like you’re referring to the Dark Blue/ “Yellow Mask” paint scheme that came before the Dark Blue & Yellow War Bonnet version.
IMHO, that simplified blue scheme was sharp. [4:-)][tup] On the F45/FP45, the windshield area was yellow (hence, the “mask”) and the dark blue carbody had two thick strips running along the sides, one above and one below the big yellow Santa Fe logos. From a distance, they do look like pinstripes.
Athearn dropped this version years back and contuned with the passenger and freight “Warbonnet” paint schemes.
Ironically I saw an Athearn FP45 on Ebay in the "mask version. Used but in good shape, but I didn’t go for it. I have a total of six FP45s, and decided to repaint one in this version.
Keep checking Ebay as Blue Box SD45s, F45s and FP45s often show up for sale. Be careful and DON’T PAY TOO MUCH FOR ONE! [:0] I made that mistake once. Over the past year I’ve observed that most of these units have sold for between $30 and $50. I even saw one dummy F45 go for $12!
You may just have to buy these units in another version and repaint it yourself. Athearn Blue Box locomotives are a piece of cake to strip and repaint. Microscale has the Santa Fe decals for that version.
Hope this helps!
While we’re talking FP45s, can anyone say if it they have the same distance between truck centres (or even better, the same trucks) as the SD45? The reason I ask is I have a pair of unpowered N-scale FP45s that were given away with a magazine a year or so ago (they’re good mouldings, painted in Amtrak colours), and would quite like to motorise them, as nobody offers N scale FP45s at the moment. Bachmann SD45 mechanisms appear on ebay UK fairly regularly and would be fairly simple to fit into the models assuming the trucks, etc are right? Thanks for any help/advice!
Antonio - I believe the question was about the pre 72 (actually pre 1960) Black and Silver stripes. All F45’s were delivered in 1967-68 in the silver/red warbonnet [SRW paint] and then painted in the byt2 (Black with Yellow Trim) scheme in July 71 to May 72. The Black with Yellow trim scheme was used from 1960 to 72 on regular freight locomotives.
I’ve known an Athearn F45 or two in my day too.
Those trucks are correct.
Neutrino! SHE’S A BEAUTY!! Excellent job! Cool detailing.
Those class lights next to the number boards: What brand are they and do they function? Did you use the Details West fans or Cannon?
I plan on performing a similar job on my 5 remaining Santa Fe cowls. I “royally” screwed up the first one. Things were looking good and then I made the mistake of using “Liquid CA” to glue on “See Thru” metal radiator grills (Plano Products). That CA ran like water and ruined the shell (burned right through the masking tape). So, I’m going to try again, this time with a thicker CA.
Thanks, and a big thumbs up on your job.[4:-)][tup]
Thanks for the nice complements Antonio.
I did that unit about 10 years ago and I’m not sure about the class lights. They weren’t lit. Cannon fans were used along with a Kato drive. In my time I’ve probably done about 25 F45’s and one FB45 as a fantasy. She sure looked sweet in an F45 A-B-A lash-up. I’ve stopped doing the detail work and engine building as my eyes aren’t what they used to be, now I just slop on weathering powders and Dull-Cote.
Neutrino,
Great modeling. Seeing those photos are making me want to get my work bench active again.
Were both the F45’s and FP45’s delivered in the red/silver scheme or just the FP’s?
Thanks,
Jay
If the models are a straight F-45. Then an SD45 mechanism is what you need. But if they are an FP45 with the steam generating equipment, I would suggest you find an Atlas SD 50/60 Mechanism and add SD45 side frames. THe FP45 is Longer than the F 45 and That extra Frame length is needed for the FP45. I have seen people strip and repaint and redetail old AHM FP-45s and mount them on Proto-2000 SD60 drives. I am sure the same can be done in N-scale. I have a couple SD60s that I am going to heavily cobble and kitbash into SDP45s. Basicly a non-Cowel FP-45
I used the F45 as a generic term for all the different variatons of this lcomotive. I get all my ATSF roster info from. http://rosters.gcrossett.com/atsf/
The first units were FP45’s then FP45u’s, then SDPF45’s etc, etc. Too many and too confusing to relist here.
If you know the unit #'s you can find all the variations and paint schemes here…
http://rosters.gcrossett.com/atsf/
The ex-Amtrk units were 5200 series, the original units were later numbered in the 5900 series.
Thanks to the “Q Station” for the information. http://www.qstation.org/
Thanks for the help - I’m not sure whether they are FP45s or F45s though - I think the same magazine offered a SF Warbonnet F45 later on so they may have cut a corner and used the same tooling. I think I might have to look for a cheap Bachmann SD45 that I can either use as a chassis donor (if it turns out to be the right length) or detail and keep as an SD45 if it’s too short. Thanks again to all who responded!
F45s (SDF45s) were never in the Red and Silver Warbonet. They were delivered in the Blue with Yellow details scheme and then were in the Blue & Yellow Warbonnet for the rest oftheir careers. The FP45s (later rebuild as SDFP45s) were delivered in the Warbonnet, then were in Blue and Yellow, and in 1989 got the Superfleet scheme. They renumbered from the 5990 series to the 100 series but had to be renumbered back to the 5990s and then the 90s to make room for the 100 class GP60Ms. More info can be found here: http://atsf.railfan.net/cowls/
IM CONFUSED:
until 1952 all Santa Fe non passenger diesels were all delivered in Black with Silver stripes or F-3/F-7’s in the Blue and cream colors to match wartime 40’s FT’s . In 1952 the ‘cream’ yellow was replaced with the gold yellow used by the passenger engine’s… ‘Pinstripe’ now seems to be the hobby manufacturer’s name, officially it was the ‘1952 paint scheme’, but was known as around the ‘Atchison’ as ‘Yellow noses’.
The ‘FP-45’ was Santa Fe’s special cab enclosed version of EMD’s SD-45P to replace aging F-3/F-7 passenger equipment., and was delivered in Santa Fe’s red 'War bonnet theme. They were affectioniately dubbed 'Red noses by the engine men.
Santa Fe also ordered some similarly cowled SD-45’s - without the steam generator - and dubbed them 'F-45’s These were delivered in the (soon to be) 1952 scheme. To my knowlege they never wore any other color’s until the 1972 'Yellow War bonnet 'scheme was adopted.
I stand corrected BigBoy. The 5900-5939 (ex 1900-1939) F45’s were delivered in the BYT2 paint scheme. (Blue with Yellow trim 1960-72)
Don,
The F45s were delivered in either 1967 or 1968 (the SD45 came out in 1966). At this time ATSF had stopped using the Black and Silver Zebra stripe paintscheme and all freight diesels were delivered in Blue with Yellow details or the Yellow and Blue warbonnet. To my knowledge, no F45s (or any Santa Fe cowls, for that matter) were ever in the Zebra stripe scheme.
Something to consider: The Santa Fe also had a few ex-Amtrak SDP40F’s as well. These look similar to the FP45 and F45…but have a front platform and other modifications. I think these were painted in the blue warbonnet scheme, and some might have even been repainted in the red scheme. I think they’re being retired soon.
The Santa Fe SDP40fs have been retired. All were due to be scrapped and likely were except for one, which was purchased by a railfan. I don’t know for certain, but it might have been the MAERSK unit that was in the baby blue. After being blamed for derailments on Amtrak, these units redeemed themselves on the Santa Fe pulling hot shot intermodals at 70+ mph, until relegated as trailing units after 1997 (when ditch lights became law).
If my memory serves me correctly there never were any N scale F45 commercially available.The only ones are aftermarket resin shells.Some are done correctly and someshould have never seen the light of day.
That being said the KATO SD45 mech. is correct for those shells.The ATLAS SD50/60 mech. works just fine for the FP 45 shell though in both cases shims will be needed to center the mechs.
Grant Eastman in Canada is getting ready to do a correct F45 shell in resin.The last I heard it was about two months from production and will use the KATO SD45 mech.