I’ve enjoyed Southbound Night Train’s discussion of favorite F units. Many great responses with personal favorites taking a number of spots.
With so many handsome F units, it begs the question if there were any “ugly” ones? While my favorite was the SP black widow, my first nominatigon for ugly is the SP bloody nose red and gray. It’s why I could never model the SP post 1958.
Ray
The Conrail units. Your choice, black or blue.
Ugly F-units? - No. Ugly paint schemes? The orange & green on the Elgin Joliet & Eastern HH660s. Thankfully, it doesn’t appear that they had any F-units.
Tom
Look for ones done in a single color with the roadname done in an uninspired typeface. Preferably without a logo. But, if there is a logo, again: uninspired.
The Conrail blue is hard to beat, but here’s one. Note that the roadname on the nose isn’t even horizontal:
Ed
MKT converted an A-unit to a B-unit. 
The result was ugly.
Garry:
Not only is the MKT conversion’s paint ugly, the very act of converting the A to a B is sacrilege!!![swg][(-D][(-D][(-D]
I agree that there were no ugly F series locomotives, just ugly paint jobs. However, if you really want an ugly locomotive, regardless of the paint job, I nominate the FAs. The attempt to copy cat the EMD Fs was a complete failure IMHO. The FAs all look like they had been punched in the nose!
There. That ought to stimulate some discussion!!![oX)]
Be nice please!! (Ray - I hope I haven’t hijacked the thread).
Dave
I agree that the shade of Conrail Blue just doesn’t work on Fs or Es. Even the “Golden Spike” blue GG1 looked pretty gaudy (but not quite as bad as the Bicentennial GG1!)
My vote for one of the top “abusers” of the classic EMD nose would go to C&NW.
For example:
http://www.morscher.com/rr/1979/19790331_01.jpg
The bell and blanked out headlights are just, wierd!
And if turning an A unit into a B unit is sacrelige, so is this Crandall design…
http://www.american-rails.com/crandall-cabs.html
And, hey, as long as we’re on the subject of paint jobs (although not designed as such) how’s this for a not-often modeled paint scheme?
http://www.railpictures.net/photo/331015/
Bonus points if you can find a decal set for the above loco [:D]
If E units count, this would have to be one of the prize winners:
http://www.railpictures.net/photo/321162/
Talk about a bad shade of blue…
Regards, Ed
Ed:
Very interesting locomotives!
North Western # 502 must have been in a collision. There can’t be any other explanation for that truly ugly nose.
Wisconsin Central #3008 is a great example of of making due with what you have. I think that modelling it in that pre-paint shop state would be an interesting challenge. It would be a great conversation piece, although I suspect that most observers would keep their honest opinions to themselves![(-D][(-D][(-D] Buying all the various decal sets would make it a rather expensive project, but it would be a very interesting exercise in prototypical accuracy. I’m actually really tempted even thought its way too modern for my era. Does anybody have any examples of earlier diesels in the same condition?
Thanks for the fun photos!
Regards,
Dave
Dave,
No collision repair. C&NW picked up ex-UP boosters on the cheap and built new cabs for them…ugly!
Jim
[#offtopic]
David, that sort of statement needs to be settled at dawn with water pistols at 50 paces.
Dave, first off, I like ALCO FA’s…
But more importantly, the ALCO FA was not an attempt to copy anything from EMD, It was simply a shortened version of the styling of the ALCO PA, one of the most beautiful diesels ever built.
And the B&O painted their ALCO’s in the same beautiful paint scheme as the EMD F units…I have several sets…
My ATLANTIC CENTRAL has lots of EMD F units, and also lots of ALCO FA/FB units…
Not the best picture…
Sheldon
I never liked C&O’s black and white Zebra stripe F7s…Apprently C&O didn’t either and went back to their normal Enchantment blue with yellow band.
C&O painted few Geeps and F7s in that experiential scheme in '61 or '62. IIRC less then 10 units got that scheme.
As a added foot note…Needless to say the railfan rumor mill was abuzz about how and why the Santa Fe and C&O was getting ready to merge.
That explains a lot, Sheldon. [swg] I’m with Dave. I’ll run FTs and F3s on my layout…but it’s a nopity-no to FAs. [X-)]
Tom
Alco 4 lyfe!
But I prefer the road switcher design to the cab type, so I have EMD F’s and FAs, but WAY more RS-3’s. Those trump any EMD design.
Part way down the page of search results for that first link which is mainly Conrail F units is a picture of what has to be the worst model version of an F unit ever - the shape is just WAY wrong and it sticks out like a sore thumb.
–Randy
Tom and Dave, well to each their own.
Despite some mechanical issues early on, the ALCO FA gave EMD a run for their money at first. It was more powerful than the EMD F and served well for many roads. When EMD got their non turbo HP up into the same range as the FA, that was the beginning of the end for the FA.
Personally, I’m not automaticly attracted to curvy or aerodynamic styling on cars or trains, so I’m just fine with an FA, or my FORD FLEX - form follows function…
And the ATLANTIC CENTRAL has ALCO PA’s as well…
Sheldon
PLEASE, those CNW E units are so ugly and I just ate breakfast. WHAT was C&NW thinking???
Hi Sheldon, Your paint scheme actually has a prototype here in Australia, notably
https://www.flickr.com/photos/58476760@N05/6020872498
and interestingly of Alcos world designs, this unit was one of 6 single ended units, the other end of 131 units here in Australia was a flat second cab. The logistics were assessed of getting these 6 units rebuilt into B units in the early 70’s which were unknown at that time here but it never happened and these locos worked
into the 1990’s!
Cheers
Trevor
PS Thanks Tom, I should not try to post late at night… sorry about that! Cheers
An off-topic FYI to ALL FORUM USERS (because I’ve seen this more than once on the forum lately)…
If you use the “Add Quote to your Post” feature: Be sure to place your comments either before the bracketed “quote user=” OR after the bracketed “/quote”. If you don’t then your comment gets lost in the big, gray box that’s meant to differentiate the quote from your response, like Trevor’s example above.
Okay, back to our regularly scheduled program…
Tom
Chicago Great Western was pretty ugly. Kind of a red version of a CR paint kob
Who said the MKT B unit conversion was ugly? It was one of my most favorite projects 10 years ago…
