Any guesses on what the next Micro-Trains F7s will be? I think UP would be the logical choice since they are a popular roadname and they have done passenger cars in UP. Santa Fe (Warbonnet and/or Bluebonnet) would be a good choice as well. It could be Great Northern or Pennsy. Any guesses or other comments welcome.
I don't have a guess on what they will do next, but if they are going to do roads that they have done before, I would like to see a Pennsy in the freight scheme using the proper shade of "green" like they have on their GPs. But, it would also be nice if they continue making roads that they haven't done before. Dan S.
I know ) Look for freight schemes we didn't do. UP is for sure...ATSF blue and yellow, Pennsy green, CB&q are some of the ones I did the work up on. Very happy with the response and working on ways we can get them out faster. Also back to work on the E8's now that we have our chassis situation all figured out. Cheers Joe MTL
Well Joe, one sure way to get them out faster would be to cancel your coffee breaks and work the swing shift also. The answer is so obvious. I'm surprised you didn't figure it out yourself..) Well, there goes the pie night.....
I guess that is the neat thing about the f-7, there were soooo many roads that had them it gives many choices. E-8? now we are talking!
My question is are the chassis themselves going to be made available and if so, how much and will they be compatible with the older F7 skins?
If you are talking about the F7 Chassis, they are the same chassis as the older F7s. So, if they were available separately, they would fit the old shells. But, they are not available by themselves (I've checked). If you are talking about the E8s, totally different animal, totally different mechanism and shell. Dan S.
Joe, I think you might just be my hero, now. There's only so much weathering you can do to the old Pennsy F7. The only way to get it dark enough is to turn off the lights. The worst part is trying to match the color so I can close off the extra headlight. But, that being said, I still have about a dozen of them in that scheme with matching B units, and they are what got me into Z. So, I'm glad to see the old F7s get a second life. Dan S.
I'm having some problems with mine. First it wouldn't run (but the light was on) on my track until found the capacitor bridging the shell halfs. It ran after I took that out, but now won't run and the lights won't come on. Also, why does the B weigh 18 grams more than a similarly sized MTL box car? The locomotive trucks I can understand even though the increased rolling resistance is probably more than the increased weight of the chassis. The lack of electrical pickups is also puzzling as being able to put sound in a z scale loco would be huge. It just seems that it's designed for extra weight, just like the A only with the A the increased traction overcomes the increased weight and rolling resistance. Am I missing something here? Why make it that heavy?
The two halves of the chassis are plus and minus and the capacitor is supposed to in the plastic separator between the two halves and contact each side. The headlight in the front is the same. If the two halves of the chassis are touching them you have a dead short across the rails and nothing will run with the loco on the track. The B units are a dummies and since it is using trucks designed to be powered they are stiff when dragged behind another loco and are not free rolling. There have been several help files on the Z web sites about how to make these trucks more free rolling. The weight is to try and help the trucks roll and to keep the dummy on the rails if you are pulling a long string of cars because without the weight it would topple on the curves. Many of us solved this problem by simply thinning the inside of the B shell to accept a power unit and got around the problem that way others worked on the inside of the truck to reduce the friction of the wheel sets in this truck frame so they would roll better TrainBoard.com There might be some info on this thread. t=112418 Yahoo! Groups
Did I miss something too? I thought the molds for the F7's were caput (don't ask me where I read that). Is this new tooling for the F7 shells? ~J
Hi Jimmy, they are the same molds and chassis, just cleaned up for re-release. It's good because we still need F units for all those passenger cars out there, but sadly, it's not an all new loco.
Yes...same model as before, but tweaked. Now that our chassis manufacturing is back on line, we are back on the E8's and E9's and looking forward at some new surprises...something...shorter? ) Hope to hit a lot of the schemes we didn't get to before, especially some of the freights. Cheers Joe MTl
I think that's just plain wrong. It would make perfect sense to have the chassis available without skins for those of us who want to upgrade our older F7's. How about it Joe. Any chance of this? I could use two.
