Williams By Bachmann WP F3s

Classic Toy Trains Forum
1

I am considering purchasing a set of A-B-A F3s in Western Pacific from Williams By Bachmann. If someone owns a set could you please post some pictures of yours? Thanks in advance, Bob Schulz.

2

They are an exact knockoff of Lionel post war units with the exception of the front pilots. Very nice units. Hopefully someone will post a pic for you. I have the F7 units.

Roger

3

Bob, I don’t have the WP’s but I do have the Texas Express and New Haven F3’s from WBB and I can tell you that they are very well built and run great. My only complaint is the headlight is dim because the voltage used is so low so I installed a 5mm led bulb and what a difference! Here are a couple of shots before the new headlight bulbs were installed.

You won’t be disappointed

Paul

4

Paul,

Wire your motors in series. It is an easy mod. It will increase headlight brightness on the original incandescent lights and the engines will run much better at low speeds. I do that on all of my Williams twin-engine diesels.

Earl

5

Thanks for the tip Earl.

Do you make the modification at the motors by cutting into the wiring or is there a swap of the plugs on the board? I have not dealt with the new electronic units other than the bulb installation I just did the other night and I am a little shy about causing a problem with it so I just want to be sure before I go in wiring cutters-a-blazin’.

Thanks,

Paul

6

Thanks guys, I also already have a set of Williams F3s. They are Santa Fe F3 A-B-As. I was hoping for a nice photo of the Williams By Bachmann Western Pacific units.

Thanks again, Bob.

7

Nice layout, Bob! Thanks for sharing a pic [:)]

8

Paul, you don’t have to cut any wires, but you do have to extract a couple of pins from the connectors and solder them together so the mod is completely reversible. I will see if I can find the info for you.

Earl

9

Paul here is a website that illustrates the procedure to convert Williams engines to series wiring.

http://s574.photobucket.com/albums/ss182/SunfireGT1996/Series%20Wiring%20WBB%20E7/?action=view&current=Series07.jpg

Earl

10

Thanks for taking the time to look for the instructions Earl. It looks easy enough, I will give it a go later today.

Paul

11

Paul back in august/september 2006 OGR mag did an article on this if you email mr your email address Ican send the whole article to you its 2 pages i don’t know how else to do it that I can get it to you as don’t think I can send it to photobucket then post it here as think CTT would get a little upset and so would OGR

will try to send you an email first

12

Well, I finished the motor wiring conversion and it was pretty easy, thanks for the instruction Earl and collector!! The hardest thing was getting the wire pins out of the connectors but once I did it went back together and runs great. Here is a couple of pictures one of the powered A, converted, and one of the dummy A, not converted.

First the converted unit,

and now the non-converted unit,

Sorry Bob, I did not want or mean to high jack your thread.

Paul

13

Isnt there a company that provides replacement pilots for the Williams F3’s to make them look more like the postwar models? If so can anyone provide info on this company?

14

We ran two pics in the Dec 07 news. The Train Gallery, 2871 Glenmore Ave, Pittsburgh PA 15216 offered the postwar-style pilots. The number at the time (three years ago) was 412-401-6915. Don’t know if they still offer this or not.

15

It looks like your control panel is attached via drawer glides. Is that so? What a great idea. You can slide it under the track? Did you get them at a hardware store?

Thanks