I have a small fleet of of FP7's, from Intermountian, because they come in kit form for the ATLANTIC CENTRAL.
I do agree the Highliner is the best F unit shell, but I will take an Intermountain any day as well.
The other thing I like about Genesis and Intermountain is the drives are very compatible, both in operation and shell swaping.
So most of my F units are those two brands, about 20 units all together.
Sheldon
It makes sense they would be. As I recall, Intermountain made the shell before they had a chassis, so I think it was designed to fit actually a Stewart chassis wasn't it? And the Highliner shell was also designed to fit the Stewart chassis since it was pretty much THE major chassis of the day from the late 1980's going forward and made by KATO to boot!
So the Stewart/KATO chassis having been the defacto chassis for the Highliner/Lubliner shell, which was bought up by Athearn and became the Genesis F unit, then Intermountain produced their shell without a chassis at first, and it also fit the KATO F chassis so people could buy the shell and use it until Intermountain had their own, it's actually a good thing things evolved that way because it means we have 3 different brands of F units which can essentially swap chassis with little effort - I think it would only be the clips or the method of fastening them on that may vary?
I personally don't own any Intermountain F units but some day I may get some - but mainly I'm a 1970's and 1980's modeler and only have a few F's for a little bit of 1960's running for fun (Genesis F9ABBBA set, Genesis F3 ABBA plus a F9m (F3 wreck rebuild) and a single Genesis F7A) pretty much all D&RGW CZ passenger power of the mid/late 1960's. Also 10 Stewart F7s as well - the 4-stripe D&RGW loco's - not as fancy as the Genesis version but pretty nice still.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
riogrande5761 It makes sense they would be. As I recall, Intermountain made the shell before they had a chassis, so I think it was designed to fit actually a Stewart chassis wasn't it? And the Highliner shell was also designed to fit the Stewart chassis since it was pretty much THE major chassis of the day from the late 1980's going forward and made by KATO to boot! So the Stewart/KATO chassis having been the defacto chassis for the Highliner/Lubliner shell, which was bought up by Athearn and became the Genesis F unit, then Intermountain produced their shell without a chassis at first, and it also fit the KATO F chassis so people could buy the shell and use it until Intermountain had their own, it's actually a good thing things evolved that way because it means we have 3 different brands of F units which can essentially swap chassis with little effort - I think it would only be the clips or the method of fastening them on that may vary? I personally don't own any Intermountain F units but some day I may get some - but mainly I'm a 1970's and 1980's modeler and only have a few F's for a little bit of 1960's running for fun (Genesis F9ABBBA set, Genesis F3 ABBA plus a F9m (F3 wreck rebuild) and a single Genesis F7A) pretty much all D&RGW CZ passenger power of the mid/late 1960's. Also 10 Stewart F7s as well - the 4-stripe D&RGW loco's - not as fancy as the Genesis version but pretty nice still.
Yes, that is pretty much how it evolved. The Kato/Stewart drive was a great drive, but like I said, I just could not get into the lack of the seperate detail parts at the prices they were asking.
And of course Bowser has changed the drive, added the details, but I have plenty of the other two brands now.
I have C&O, B&O and Western Maryland versions as well as those lettered ATLANTIC CENTRAL.
Thinking about getting just a few more for the ATLANTIC CENTRAL, most likely Intermountain - still available undecorated.......
But again, regarding the recent Athearn/Roundhouse RTR version, it costs half what any Genesis or Intermountain F unit costs - it apeals to a different crowd - and it still holds up pretty good for that purpose.
If they retooled it, they would havew to charge more.......
When it first came out, the Stewart was THE best F hands down, but after the Genesis and Intermountain came out, they beat out Stewarts shell yes with all the details although the Stewart drive was, on the average still probably the most bullet proof - from what I've read some have had problems here and their with a few of the early Genesis drives for example (back around 2002 or so).
My Stewart F7's I'm keeping as freight units and I'll probably weather them up some as they appeared in the mi-1960's. The one thing I don't like as much about them is the mold parting line on the sides of the nose - of course if you have a shell that you paint, you can take care of that with a little sanding and detail up the shell to look nice like Jim Six did with some of his in his B&O examples back in the day. The Kadee close couple kits work well with them too between the B ends.
All my cab unit diesels, Proto E units, FA's and PA's, various brands of F units, are all close coupled with working diaphragms - I model that era when they where all realtively new and generally would have still had the diaphragms.
Cab diesels or passenger cars, working and touching diaphragms is something I am really big on.
My passenger cars, when coupled to the front of a diesel, the passenger car diaphragm rides on the buffer, just like the real thing.
I pay attention to freight car spacing as well - cars with poorly positioned couple pockets often get short shank couplers to get closer to a scale coupling distance.
In my view, close coupling is one of the things that separates model trains from "toy" trains......