Well, we just won an ebay auction for an A/B set of Stewart FT’s. These have the Buhler drive. I’ve heard good things about Stewart. Are they true?
They were actually traded back to EMD for GP30/35’s on the real Grande, so we’ll be using a bit of that “modeler’s license” in running the three types together.[;)] For our purposes, there was a shortage of power on the Sub and a few FT’s escaped the trade in until a later date…[:)] They were just to gorgious to pass up!
The A unit is, of course, powered but the B is a dummy. We’re planning for it to be the Platte Canyon Sub’s first sound unit! I can hear the sounds and see the Mars light right now…
I have a Stewart Baldwin VO-660 switcher (with the CANON motor) that is VERY good and smooth. My only gripe about Stewart is that their paint jobs are not quite as durable as other manufactueres - e.g. P2Ks and Athearns. Other than that, they are just terrific runners.
I also have some special edition NYC FT “Cat-Whisker” A-Bs (with sound! [:)]) that will be coming from Empire Nortern Models, probably around Christmas time. If any of you are interested, you can check it out at the link below:
Grande man–YUMMY!! Black and yellow FT’s, and that really handsome businesslike Rio Grande striping–wowser! FYI, I had some Stewarts (Rio Grande F-3’s) before I decided to backdate to all steam, gave them to my nephew, and they run like Swiss watches, and will pull the walls off the house. That Buehler motor means business! Enjoy. With a little drilling and some wire and super-detail parts, they’ll catch everyone’s eye.
Gorgeous, just gorgeous. You’ve got me thinking about–NAH, I need some more L-131’s.
Tom [:P][:P]
The stewart ft’s are fantastic runners-their mechanism is a xact copy of kato’s. One prob you may run into when running on tight curves is derailments. this is caused by the brake cylinders hitting the steps. leave these off or remove and you should be fine. I have also replaced the drawbar with the kadee drop down 45 series.
If you have older MR’s, the Stewart FT was reviewed by MR Nov 96.
Back in those days I paid Standard Hobby $99.00 with shipping for the A/B and later bot the powered B chasis for $60.00.
When Stewart was Stewart these FT’s were guaranteed for life. If you are interested I have
an extra exploded detailed parts list for the A and the 1996 review.
Two draw bars were provided, scale and a longer one.
Stewart is one of the better loco manufacturers out there. Their older stuff with Kato drives, and the new stuff with Stewart drives are all fine runners. About 1/2 my loco fleet is Stewart F-units, from FTs to F9s, with a DS-4-4-1000 switcher thrown it. They just run and run and pull like beasts too. You’ll be very happy with your new engines.
tstage- They went for $85. When I started bidding they were at $59. I paid more than I wanted to but kept going back and looking at the pic in the item description, lol.[:D] Most places sell them for $129, so I guess I did alright.
twhite- Gave them to a nephew? I need a rich uncle like you![:D]
locomotive3- Thanks for the offer. I’d love to read the review. Can you email or fax it to me? Shoot me a PM and let me know if you need a fax number if email isn’t an option.
billwm87- Thanks for the tips!
jsalemi- Sounds good! We’re both looking forward to running them.
Yeah, the stewarts are sweet! I have a 4 unit FT that has pulled 65 cars on a club layout with no problems other than pulling the ends out of the plastic drawbars on 24" curves. With larger curves now I’m Free-mo they are great! One thing I did was swap one B unit back to a dummy for loading with sound. I run sound around 40-50% volume and they sre great! It makes me want to run prototypically. Enjoy them and try to find another pair for those mountain runs, eh?
I did a set of Stewart FT’s for the Boston and Maine (see October '04 RMC) and am very pleased. They are the same set up as yours, powered A/dummy B, but still pull quite well. They’ll handle 20 or so cars on 26-28" curves. I run them with the short drawbar and it gives them a really close coupled appearance with no problems in terms of the radii. Another good thing about Stewart is the way that they back up their products. I had a problem with an F-3, and had it resolved in a very short time.
I bought the Stewart FT A/B unit about a year ago, and installed a Soundtrax sound decoder with speaker. It’s a smooth runner, but it is my most sensitive unit when it comes to the track starting to get dirty. No one else above mentioned this and it’s possible that it might have something to do with the Soundtrax decoder. However, if the track starts to get a little dirty, this unit will begin to stop and start. At the same time the Proto 2000, Proto 100, Bachman, and BLI will run smooth.
Grande Man–you’d have to take up a musical instrument and promise to stick with it all the way through high school. Oh, yah, and keep a 3.0 minimum GPA. [:D][:D]
Tom
Outstanding recommendation! My FT no longer derails. Discovery does come but for me
it takes a lot longer.
Thanks billwm87. Now perhaps you can share with me what is the the KD drop down series 45?
Kadee has a close-coupling kit for Stewart F-units, the #450. This allows you to disconnect the units instead of having the fixed drawbar, but keeps the distance between them prototypical. I used them on my F7’s and it looks MUCH better than stock. FT’s were rarely seperated though, the prototypes also had drawbars between A and B units.
I probably have more FT’s than any other single model of a locomotive, truely fleets in several different road names. All Stewarts. At the club they are accusing me of having a bigger roster than the real railroads. I’ve made sets of ABBB (Santa Fe), ABA, ABBA, I’ve made all formats of power/dummy and sound, I’ve run them with all versions of power DC, DCC, Railcommand, etc. I’ve won every locomotive pulling contest in the “stock” catetory I’ve entered. These locomotives are great.
They have only failed me once. The trucks are a tiny bit ridgid, so when I gave a set to my daughter to run on the “Youth in Model Railroading” layout the track was a bit too bumpy for them. On a curve when the outside rail suddenly dropped about 1/16" an inch they would head for the ditch. A set of Stewart/Kato F3’s took over and saved the day.
Texas Zepher,
Do you have any tips on wiring up the B-units to feed the powered A-units?
I was reading the thread and was just going to comment that this is my only gripe – they run great, except over certain block gaps. I’ve had a ABBA set of Rio Grande’s on the shelf for quite some time and finally decided to put them in service last week and noticed this problem right away.
I assume that the pickups may already be in place on the trucks and all I need to do is solder some wire on the contacts and feed to the A-unit? Or is it something more? I know the powered units have a circuit board, so maybe I want to run wire to that instead?
Also, does anyone know ? – and I think this is prototypical for the Rio Grande, anyway – but only the lower headlight is lit on my units.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
