Intermountain FP7 - Anyone have any of these ?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Does anyone have any experience with these Intermountain FP7’s with sound ?

I emailed Intermountain and they indicated “…it comes with the QSI chip and to use the Quantum 1 System Analog and DCC Sound Decoder with Magnetic wand. You can look at the manual at www.qsindustries.com/#manuals . The one you want to look at is Universal Diesel (Magnetic Version) Manual Ver. 3.1”

I’m never had an Intermountain loco. I’m looking at picking up about 4 of these.

Any advice on quality and/or performance would be appreciated.

http://www.imrcmodels.com/ho/html/49952.htm

Thanks and Regards,

2

I’ve got two in the old Ontario Northland colours. They sound good but I’m not really sure how prototypical the sounds really are, somebody will probably know. The detail is great and they run very well. I haven’t got a lot of running time on them, maybe a couple of hours so far but so far I’m very happy with them. I plan on bringing them to the Picton, Ontario train show and running them with my Rapido passenger cars on the club layout. By then I’ll have more of a opinion on their overall performance.

3

I don’t have an FP7. My only gripe with the F7s was that the plastic in the nose was a bit thin so the headlamp glowed through the nose. This was easily fixed by painting the inside of the nose black to keep the light in. I don’t know if the FP7s have the same issue or not.

4

Thanks for the replies. I may mosey over to my LHS today as I’ve heard he has one on the shelf.

Regards,

5

Intermountain’s mold tooling and paint work is excellent. The detail fidelity is first class and the mechanisms run very well. Unfortunately this is all ruined by atrocious assembly quality. The knife marks, glue marks and crooked parts make Intermountain models look as if they were built by grade school kids.

6

I have experienced this too but things seem to have improved recently. I still inspect before I buy. I have not experienced FP-7’s.

7

My 2 are great with no quality issues what so ever. I couldn’t have assembled them any better. Gandy Dancer, my lights don’t glow through the nose.

8

I dont have 7s, however I have a few F3s, they run great and the detail is supurb. All I know is the detail work on the 3’s outclass all others, But this is only from my personal memory of working on them during my employment with the railroad, not from using a micrometer for exact scale.

9

I would be wary of the BLI sound units. They have issues if you dont upgrade the chip. That would be my only reservation for these units.

David B

10

Thanks again for all the replies and insight. I inspected the one unit my LHS had in stock and was pleased with the look.

I’ve ordered the 4 road numbers available for MKT. I’ll let you know in Nov-Dec how they are.

Again, thanks

11

I have 2 in the Southern Railway paint scheme (running on DC) and so far I am pleased with them. I have not updated the chips, but may have to do so if/when I upgrade to DCC.

Brad