Grandpa.... ???? This things got to be more like... great-great-Grandpa... make me feel young. Really... this looks like it was unearthed in an Egyptian archealogical dig under some old pyramids. Is this a Lonestar model?
Mark, er Spookshow, has it properly identified as a first-generation Rapido (Arnold) F-something-9. He's got a shot of one on his site with the same trucks and bizarre coupler. 1963, probably the third N scale engine ever made. Arnold-Rapido (Germany) EMD F9 What I find fascinating is that paint. Even Mark doesn't have any mention of an ORANGE Santa Fe unit, he's got a picture of one in better red and silver, and one in B&O. And a shot of the mechanism inside. So yeah, while you are all making fun of this thing, it's like 'hey, look at that stupid stamp, the airplane is upside down!' Botched stamp fetches record price - U.S. news- msnbc.com
Randy,I find it funny that Mark's description of the loco says it was "dropped" in 1968..Bet a few were thrown long before that...That metal shell was to protect it from the impact,LOL!!!
1963, eh. I wonder how many Kato and IM F7's will be turning up on Ebay in 2055, and what modellers then will think of them.
Well of course by then, our model trains will run from micro fuel cells powering micro traction motors. You wont even be able to give away our Kato and IM F7s of today.
Old Rapido/Arnold stuff is really cool. They did neat stuff in the evolution of N. The cast-metal FA1, man alive, could that thing pull. I got one to test once, and it blew my mind. And they put cup reduction gears in the GP's, first to try that, and it worked. They designed a pop-apart mechanism that didn't need screws. After that F-thing, you'll notice that no subsequent locomotive used soldered wires on the trucks. Always wipers. I mean I have a 1968-designed 0-6-0, heavily rebuilt, that is STILL my prime locomotive on the Hickory Valley, and it's had lots of other stuff come and go and it is still going, and going, and going. You can look at that F-unit mechanism and thank them, they proved that single-axle truck drive WOULD NOT WORK and nobody after that ever tried that stunt again. Talk about taking one for the team... 40 years later Modemo tries it in a 25-tonner, and physics haven't changed, it still won't work. We owe those guys a lot, they really advanced the technology for the scale.
Randy,till this day,I still run a few of those Arnold FA's..The Atlas/Roco FA is credited with being the first N scale loco that had one flywheel,guess nobody noticed that the Arnold had TWO "flyworms" long before that.The worms are huge.I found one thing that really smooths those locos out.The motors are usually loose in the shells,so the bounce around.I put a little white glue between the motor and the contact plate before I put them together,quiets some of them down quit a bit...
Isn't that the Baldwin shell the F unit sits on? If not, they were really ahead of their time. They still don't put SRS in locomotives.
This actually reminds me of when I was stationed in Germany, in 1976. In a small-town train station not far from Hanau, a small model train display sat at the entrance. It was encased in Plexiglas, and people could walk up and push buttons, sending one or another of three trains into motion. They were very, very small. In fact, they were N scale. That experience was what attracted me to N scale trains. I thought it was incredible that they had such nice-running N scale locos then, but now I'm learning they had nice-running N scale locos by 1963! I'm like, who knew?
Just remember for prior to about 1975 when the Atlas/Roco stuff came out, there wasn't anything that even remotely resembled a GP7 or GP30 except the Arnold Rapido ones. So you got out the styrene, tools, wire, decals and paint and got to work. Man, those were beasts. Heavy, huge flanges, oversize feet. Great slow-speed with the cup gears, and if you tuned and tuned and tuned them, and ran them in for hours to wear the burrs off the brass gears, they ran well. Pulled and picked up well. The bodies were just a disaster; sat high, big gaps at the frame, lots of detail issue and proportion problems, and the paint was worse. I remember the gold-painted Santa Fe scheme on the GP7, wow. Stuff like that is still why I have a difficult time with people getting all bent out of shape on things like number boards and literally, rivet counters. If you were willing to put a TON of work into one, you could make them look OK. Pretty much jack up the air horn and start over, but if you study it, you'll see the Rapido legacy under there. This was my last survivor of the batch, so its an old photo, but I got a good 20+ years out of it. Looked OK until you put an Atlas Classic beside it, then OMG... I had a Rapido GP7 that was the mainstay of local freight operations for a long, long, long time, and the darn thing still outpulled my Atlas Classics.
The Arnold GP30 wasn't as bad as the Lima one, especially the early ones with plastic frames and stamped metal handrails. Their only redeeming feature was that you could pick them up for $6, but even at that price they weren't worth keeping.
I have been modeling in N scale for thirty years and seen the many changes in the hobby. I agree we have come a long way from the oversize couplers, jerky underpowered 3 pole motors just to mention a few things we had to cope with. But with all these shortcomings it was fun! Cheers,
Arnold GP9. Whats with the dynamic break not being painted?? A C&O early classic just the same. And the old Lima F unit. Man! Talk about an incredible challenge to make it around the track without self destructing!! And the grand daddy of them all! Lone Star F9.
RK,I just got surprised by a Lima GP30..It was an old. I had in pieces in a box for years.I had some extra parts,railings,shells,motor parts,ETC..I said:"what the heck"..Took the pile,put all the best parts on it,then repainted the shell PRR,kind "fantasyish",like a loco woulda looked back then,WRONG,extra keystones,wrong number,ETC..LOL!! Anyway,immagine my shock when I put it on the track,[Okay,when I put it on the track the second time..The first time it ran backwards,hadda reverse the wiring..] It ran like a watch!!! I put new traction tires on it too,the stupid thing pulls 20+ cars..A definate keeper..
