F-7's

[phillyreading]

How old are the Reading F-7's by Williams? Parts number on the box is F104, a pair of A units.

Lee F.

[3rail]

Hi Lee,

They are at least 15 years old.  We don't have historical records for all of the numbers and many of the number were used for a long time.

3rail

[phillyreading]

Thanks 3rail,

I have another question about an additional horn unit that I found in the unpowered A unit. Not sure if it is just a horn or True Blast 2 unit that has been added. It has a quick disconnect(white in color) that has two sets of wires(black and red) on one side, for receiving power, and a single set of wires that go to the horn.
I have not been able to test it as yet.

Lee F.

[Joe Satnik]

Dear Lee,

I have very few old Williams catalogs from the early 2000's. 

2 of the few I have show F7s. 

The August 2003 fold up poster style catalog containing both "Golden Memory" and "Contemporary" (now "Traditional") lines

shows a Reading F7 (#F7-118, road #268) as the featured livery. 

Three thin yellow horizontal stripes, with a green solid stripe between the two lower yellow stripes. 

Plastic body looks black.

F7-104 is shown as Canadian Pacific (small picture, road # not visible), maroon and gray with yellow lettering, striping and accents. 

The Winter 2003 -2004 Contemporary line catalog (8-1/2" x 11" booklet with fold along 11" edge) shows F7s on pg. 15.

Same info above except C&O (F7-105, road #7025) the featured livery.

Lineup stays the same (for the most part) between the August (24 roads-colors) and following Winter (24 roads-colors) catalogs above.

Exceptions: C&NW seen in August, not following Winter.  Amtrak in seen in Winter, not previous August.

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik

[phillyreading]

Dear Joe,

The road number's are 902 and 904, Reading RR, a two unit set of F-7 AA's(Williams # F-104, not F7-104). The engines are dark green with a black stipe between two yellow stipes, just over half way up, or below the window level. The powered engine has just a basic horn installed. One of the two A units has a horn unit that is not factory for that time frame, a newer horn unit, have not tested it as yet to see what it does. The original horn wire was cut in the powered unit, and after connecting it again it works, my guess is because of the newer horn unit being put into the unpowered A unit.
The A units also have an opening coupler on the front end and have a non-opening coupler on the back end of the engine.
Also bought a B unit unpowered cab #903(Williams # F-204) in a differant auction, no center rail electrical at all, unpowered/no light.

Not sure, but could these be from the time of the Crown Edition line that Willims used to have?

Lee F.

[phillyreading]

Hey Joe,

The cab number 268 for the diesel engine, Reading Lines, is an F-7. Cab number 900 thru 907 are FP7A's, the number 903 is an FP7A not a B unit.
See Reading Company Technical and Historical Society's website for the correct cab number assignments.

While I am at it, I would love to see something(diesel engines and rolling stock) for the Reading and Northern RR, a regional RR, based out of Jim Thorpe PA(near Allentown). Or even Blue Mountain and Reading passenger RR, previously out of Hamburg PA.

Lee F.

[Joe Satnik]

Hi, Lee.

Good job sleuthing. 

Bob Keller reviews the E7s in the July 2001 Classic Toy Trains mag.   Could have been new tooling (E7) at that time. 

Bob mentions that "Williams F7s can trace their ancestry to the 1950's and AMT molds".

Some history:

http://www.robertstrains.com/Kusan.htm

Getting regional railroad paint sounds like a tough sell.

Joe

[phillyreading]

Hi Joe,

Thanks for saying that I did a good job sleuthing.
I am very interested in the Reading RR and that may be why I know that some of the cab numbers are not correct for a certain model of engine.
My grandfather worked for the Reading Company in Berks County PA for about 25 years, in building maintenance and repair. Also I lived in north Reading PA for about 8 years.

FYI, this is about the Chessie RR use of the Reading T-1 northern, Chessie repainted a leased Reading Company T-1 to their paint scheme, most likely the T-1 cab number is Reading 2101. Another tidbit on Reading T-1's, cab numbers were from 2100 to 2129, or 30 T-1's.

Lee F.

[phillyreading]

I just tested the unpowered A unit that has the sound unit in it, has a station leaving announcement about "train 910 clear to leave" and not the QSI sound unit about "clear to leave on track 10". Also has the engine revving noise for a diesel engine and has a bell, I guess it has a horn as well but I didn't test it as the volume was rather loud, would have to turn up the voltage to the engine. Didn't want to scare my cats.

It's interesting what you find out about the older Williams products before the  Bachmann/Williams era.

Lee F.

[rtraincollector]

Lee I use to have a set of shark nose that said about the same thing I think seems it did say engine 910 your clear to leave not sure if it said track 10 thou. it also had engine revving noises it was a cool set it was in the B-unit I actually got a dummy a with that and bought the B-unit separate and got that in it then I saw another B-unit but it didn't have that in it just horn and bell these were all Williams befor Bachmann took it over.

[phillyreading]

I added a power unit(from WBB) to unpowered Williams F-7, the new motors were easy enuff to add, as it seems like Bachmann has not changed much about the Williams engines.

RTR, the announcement was one or the other not both, either you had leaving on track ten or clear to leave, as it seems to be two different circuit boards that were used.
Also there were powered engines sold with just a horn, depending on when they were produced by Williams.

Lee F.