This is a picture of the engine that runs near where I grew up. I am very new to all of this, and have no idea how to tell what it is. I certainly realize that noone would make it with this paint sceme [:)], but is this a fairly common engine?
CF7: An F7 rebuilt by the Santa Fe, I believe it is not available in N Scale [:(] although its possible that some small company has done a resin conversion shell that I don’t know about.
I believe it is or has been available in HO recently, or will be available soon.
This is only a guess, but it looks vaguely like an ex-AT&SF CF-7. These engines were created in the 1970’s at the Santa Fe’s Cleburne, Texas shops out of old EMD F-7s. Thus, the name Cleburne F-7. These are somewhat common on shortlines like the Pioneer Valley RR, but aren’t common on mainline service anymore.
to answer your questions, no they are not common at this point. ATSFrebuilt F7’s into these engines to save money. It was cheaper at the time to convert them which was no simple task since the streamlined carbody was part of the structure of the engine. I’d suggest you get a book called the Diesel Spotters Guide which tells you how to indetify a locomtive and what to look for in each model. It also lists all the aprticulars about who originally had the engine in question. It is well worth the investment and I keep mine under the seat of my car for field work.
Actually, they don’t according to their website, http://www.jnjtrains.com/ . Which is too bad, because it would be quite an involved kitbash/scratchbuild project. At least you should be able to use an Atlas GP7 mechanism.