I never purchased a MTH locomotive before, however I came across a RailKing F3ABA that I really like in the Canadian National roadname. From the catalog, it appears almost identical to the Lionel Postwar F3 down to the metal horms and ladders, but I cannot tell how they match up to the old Lionel non-scale F3’s.
Does anyone know if the new RailKing F3 ABA sets are suppossed to be Lionel clones in terms of appearance (not mechanicals)?
THANKS!
Lionel F3s are quite close to being scale models, in all three dimensions. I am not aware of any non-scale Lionel F3s. The Alcos, on the other hand, are under-sized. Their prototypes were about the same size as the F3s.
Be sure you have the RailKing Scale F3s, they made some minis (I have the NYC) which are way under scale and are now in the Rugged Rails line.
MTH Railking scale F3’s are near exact copies of postwar Lionel F3’s except for the mechanicals. They claimed to be when they first appeared in the MTH catalog.