Old F-9 roadnames

[readingrails]

Hi,
I was wondering if you could help. I am trying to get a collection of Bachmann F-9s together. I was wondering if anyone could just tell me which road names you know of.

Known so far:
Reading
Illinois Central
Pennsylvania
Penn Central
Santa Fe
Union Pacific
Chessie
Burlington
Burlington Northern
Great Northern
Canadian National 

[jward]

i can't tell you which ones bachmann produced. but of those you had listed only 3 railroads actually had f9a s: burlington, santa fe, and bn. Great northern had f9b s but no a's.....

for a roster of f9s as built:
http://www.trainweb.org/emdloco/f9.htm

[Jim Banner]

CN had a number of FP9A's which were basically F9A's stretched out 4' to give more room for water and steam generators needed to heat passenger trains in cold Canadian winters.  Many of these went to VIA when it was formed.  CP had both F9A's and FP9A's, more of the latter than the former, and used them in passenger service before VIA.  The only non brass models of FP9A's that I am aware of were produced by in Austria and sold by Atlas about 20 years ago.

Many companies have painted their F9A's in CN and CP colours, sometimes numbering them as FP9A's, sometimes not.  Don't let this interfere with your fun of collecting these and other F9A's.

Jim

[jward]

jim.

i am not showing any f9a's built for canada. cp rail had quite a few fp7's and 10 fp9's......

cp rail EMD locos as built:
http://www.trainweb.org/emdloco/cp.htm

[Jim Banner]

Jeffery,

I believe you are right.  I was thinking of CP 4074 and 4075 which a number of online sources identify as F9A's.  More research shows them also identified as FP9A's and as FP7A's.  ARGH!  To settle the issue, I actually opened a book, The Canadian Trackside Guide, which tells me they were FP7A's.

I thought I would take a photo to show readingrails what we were talking about.  The photo below shows a 40 year old Tyco F7A and below it a 20 year old Atlas FP7A.  At least the Second Diesel Spotter's Guide tells me it is an FP7A.  Memory says I bought it as a FP9A.  Double ARGH!  My memory tells me that some early diesels made by GMD in Canada looked a bit different from the same model made in the US by EMD.  Specifically, in some instances they had old body styles around newer innards.  I guess the next step is to crawl around in the attic of my garage looking for the box it came in.  Triple ARGH!

Tyco had a different solution to the F7/F9 identification problem - they numbered their locomotive 4107, a number apparently never used by CP.



The saga continues ...

Jim

[jward]

to further complicate matters, the tyco "f9" is actually an f7, while the bachmann model is in fact an f9. the easiest way to tell the difference is to note the location of the louvered openings in the carbody. only f9s and their derivatives had a louver between the cab door and the first porthole. note: union pacific had some f3s rebuilt by emd which also had this louver arrangement, but these were not true f9s and retained their f3 horsepower rating.

isn't diesel identification wonderful? the web pages i referred to in this thread are all from my web site, and the result of years of research into EMD locomotives.

[Jim Banner]

That kind of research takes a lot of time and patience but is invaluable to the rest of us trying to learn.  I hope others appreciate your efforts as much as I do.

As far as the Tyco F7 being sold as an F9 (I call it an F7/F9 to denote this) I have heard the story that they were just finishing up the dies for the F7 when EMD brought out the F9.  Of course every kid on the block wanted the latest so Tyco obliged them by slapping an "F9" label on the box.  Then again, I have heard the same story about Athearn and their F7/F9.

Jim

[fieromike]

An upcoming FP9 in HO:
http://www.rapidotrains.com/fp9_1.html
Also includes a bit of history on the prototype.

Mike

[readingrails]

Thanks everyone for all the help. I appreciate it a great deal!!!!

[phillyreading]

Does Bachmann make an F-9 for O gauge trains in the Williams line?
I would like to find some more Reading Company passenger cars to go with my Williams GP-9.
Didn't Reading Lines have some GP-38's in their freight line-up?

Lee F.

[jward]

reading had ft's f3s f7s and fp7s, but no f9s. they also had no gp38s, but they had gp35s, gp39-2s and gp40-2s. the last twp models were painted solid green instead of the yellow and green.