Life-Like, Tyco or Bachman Santa Fe F7 ???

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XavierJ123

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Dec 17, 2004
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Somewhere in the back of my brain is the childhood desire to own one of those streamlined Santa Fe F7 diesels with the red nose and yellow "warbonnet" paint stripe. I have been looking at them on eBay and noticed the inexpensive ones are: Life-Like, Tyco, & Bachman. Is it a waste of money to buy one of these or should I invest more $ ? I have no experience with these manufacturers so I thought I would solicit some feedback from The Gauge. :confused:
 
Yes, buy an athearns blue box if you want a modest priced unit that runs well. The ones you mention are toy quality. I just sold an A-B Athearn set in January for $50 :( Fred
 
Of the three brands you mentioned, the Bachmann is ok IF it is Bachmann+.
They made a bunch of those in red and silver warbonnett. They are not correct because the shell has a single light (no mars light). Santa Fe passenger F7's all had mars lights below the headlight. The Bachmann+ is designed like an n scale locomotive with the frame in two halves surrounding the motor. The motor is a can motor driving all 8 wheels through shafts to gear boxes. All 8 wheels pick up as well. The standard Bachmann like MODEL Power and Lifelike will have a motor built into one truck and the other truck picks up power, but doesn't do anything to help traction.
 
Bachmann Spectrum series...

Just to be picky... :p

The new Bachmann Spectrum series is a FT-A Unit. Not an F7-A.

It is a much older (Origional?) F-Unit.

The first F-Unit was built by EMC (Electromotive Company): the FT. EMC was bought out by General Motors to become EMD (Electromotive Division of General Motors.) the F2, F3, F7, FP7, F9, FP9, FL9.

It's not always easy to tell them apart. But hard-core rivit counters can.

Take a look at "EMD's F Unit: The Champion" for more information.

The competetors also made streamlined locomotives: Fairbanks-Morse, Baldwin and Alco.

There was also the larger E-Units built by EMD and the odd-ball BL-2's...

For all of these, take a look at: Exotic Diesel Locomotives

Now, for models... There are alot to choose from, but the Athern F7's are a good start.
 
It depends on how much you're willing to spend and the level of detail you want. IMO you can't go wrong with a Stewart esp the older Kato drives. Many are dumping these in favor of the Athearn Genesis units which I think the best (but also cost the most). I think Broadway Ltd is doing a sound equipped one if that strikes your fancy...
 
If the Bachman FT is a reincarnation of the old AHM one, it is considerably off in dimensions and I don't know if a matching B-unit is available. AHM did not offer a B-unit which was part of the mentioned Gordy Odegard article. Most roads pruchased them as A-B sets or A-B-B-A which they broke up. Until considerably later, most were kept in fairly pure sets with perhaps the addition of something else like Rock Island which split the 4-unit sets to 2 2-unit sets and purchaced F-2s to go with them to make 3-unit sets.
 
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