Super Chief Motive power question

[GP40X]

Well, I was finally able to acquire a complete first release Kato Super Chief set by picking up 106-6003 set C today.  I had originally picked up set A a few years ago for the Regal Crest and the Diner to build an 80's era Santa Fe business train but put that project on the back burner because the Bachmann Big Dome detail makes me ill (after damaging two of them trying to upgrade the details).  I was able to get a set B in December for a good price and then set C today.

Now I need to pickup motive power.  I know that the SuperChief ran mainly F7's and updated Late F3's in the 50's.  I was wondering if Santa Fe ever ran them together on the Super Chief.  I may have a long wait for getting Late F3's and F7's as I refuse to pay "Collector" or "Rare" prices for them (paying over $300.00 for a pair of used locomotives is ridicules).  I did get one F7 today NIB for $70.00 at the show.

Also did the early "Chickenwire" single headlight F3's pull the Super Chief and if so when.

Thanks in Advance
Bill

[CBQ Fan]

You would have found F3 & F7 units all mixed together. That is one of the reasons they updated the appearance of older units. Typically you never find a mix of Alco units with EMD units. F units wouldn’t be matched with E units.  Santa Fe wanted to keep like manufacturers together and the E’s did not work well where the F units excelled, aka the mountains. 

[jagged ben]

Also did the early "Chickenwire" single headlight F3's pull the Super Chief and if so when.

Thanks in Advance
Bill

Does this shed light on that?    By single headlight I'm assuming you mean the lenses inside the housings, not the total number of lights.

You can glean a fair bit of info by searching Railpictures for Super Chief.

[superchief]

Bill,
    Anything was possible but for the 50's Santa Fe started out with passenger FT with higher gearing, these were quickly replaced by the early f3 and then they were upgraded to the later version. This was all in the mid 40's and by the 1951 upgrade the train was all newer f7's. F7's became the standard and any older units were sent to the lower level passenger trains or sent back in exchange with EMD for newer units. The f7 were normally ran it four unit set ABBA and numbered ###LABC and started in the 300 range. Remember the Super Chief was the railroads premier train and it always got the best and latest power. This train was the pride of the entire railroad, notes from President John Reed was as he walked into the office the first thing he asked before good morning was spoken was "where is #17/ 18 and is it on time" if all was good the morning greetings commenced if not he wanted to know where and why she was late, and it was not a good start to the morning.
 
Hope this helps.  if you were at the Plano show today so was I, I saw the C set of cars in the middle of the layout room and were priced at $80, it is not a bad price at all as these were $99 new and have not been run in some time.
                                                    Gordon Bliss / Santa Fe / All the way

[jagged ben]

This might shed a bit of light, too.

[Point353]

Single headlight F3's at Pasadena: http://old.atsfrr.org/resources/funits/gfx/p28f1.jpg

[GP40X]

Bill,
    Anything was possible but for the 50's Santa Fe started out with passenger FT with higher gearing, these were quickly replaced by the early f3 and then they were upgraded to the later version. This was all in the mid 40's and by the 1951 upgrade the train was all newer f7's. F7's became the standard and any older units were sent to the lower level passenger trains or sent back in exchange with EMD for newer units. The f7 were normally ran it four unit set ABBA and numbered ###LABC and started in the 300 range. Remember the Super Chief was the railroads premier train and it always got the best and latest power. This train was the pride of the entire railroad, notes from President John Reed was as he walked into the office the first thing he asked before good morning was spoken was "where is #17/ 18 and is it on time" if all was good the morning greetings commenced if not he wanted to know where and why she was late, and it was not a good start to the morning.
 
Hope this helps.  if you were at the Plano show today so was I, I saw the C set of cars in the middle of the layout room and were priced at $80, it is not a bad price at all as these were $99 new and have not been run in some time.
                                                    Gordon Bliss / Santa Fe / All the way

Thanks Gordon.  Wife had a medical issue so I did not get to set up with North TX T-Trak this time but my daughter came over to watch my wife so I was able to go for a few hours.  I picked up the set C from Brad's (he had two).  I also picked up a 176-2122 #40 new A unit.  One down, 3 to go.  Looking forward to running it on the N-Crowd layout in May.

Thanks again,
Bill Belsher
North TX T-Trak

[superchief]

Hey Bill,
    IM me when you are planning on traveling down to Houston, See if we can get you out to the layout so you can travel from Chicago to Los Angeles on the Santa Fe-All the Way.
                                                                                                       Gordon Bliss

[GP40X]

Hey Bill,
    IM me when you are planning on traveling down to Houston, See if we can get you out to the layout so you can travel from Chicago to Los Angeles on the Santa Fe-All the Way.
                                                                                                       Gordon Bliss

Sounds good, I will.  Did a little more research on Santa Fe F7's last night.  Thanks for the pointers.

[thomasjmdavis]

Bill,
One of the most useful references on F units I know of is available free on the web- courtesy of the Santa Fe Railway Historical and Modeling Society=

http://old.atsfrr.org/resources/funits/index.htm


The short answer to your question on F3s is that ATSF was among the first purchasers, beginning in 1946 when they bought 4 ABBA sets.  Those first A units originally had 1 headlight.  By mid 1948, they had 2. Kato mistakenly gave its first release steam generators on the A units and small numberboards (as you see on the current F2 production).  Later releases corrected this (ATSF did not use steam generators in their F unit As).  In the 1950s, ATSF continued updating units- replacing the screened over sections with louvers and grills.  This is represented by the Kato "late" F3s- not late production, but rather "later in life".  You can accurately model the first 4 ABBA sets (16, 17, 18, 19) as Phase 1 (brand new), Phase 2 (late 40s) or that odd mid 1950s "high fan with stainless grills" look of the late model Katos. By 1960 or so, some had a mix of high and low fans, and in the end, the only apparent difference between an F3 and F7 would have been that the latter had dynamic brake fans, while the F3s had the 2 vent slots in the roof.