I wish they had tried a little harder for accuracy.

As I understand it, it's a rules violation to paint the couplers today, as it hides cracks. In addition, the photo on the right doesn't show the as-delivered, single-note Westinghouse E2 air horns they came with...........

Or were you being facetious? (Well, so was I.)

Really ? - thats about the most obtrusive application of ditch-lights on the front of a historically painted EMD cab that I have seen. They severely interrupt the historical paint scheme and the classic line of the EMD cab design. Down on the anti-climber like the RDG FP7's would be better.

That's the way the ditchlights were applied by CDOT. Just stuck on top of the HEP appendage, and not "blended" in any way.

Howard P.

I was assuming (hoping?) Overmod was being sarcastic.

I'm glad to see the side by side view as I kept flipping back and forth and now I see why this looks like a Lionel toy (with no disrespect intended to the toymaker; they probably were more accurate than this). Was it that hard to look at a photo and notice how wide the oval is, continuing well under the number box?

Steve

No, it's not hard to see that, but Santa Fe didn't have ditchlights or HEP connections to worry about either. I would imagine the "oval" would have been difficult to replicate in full scale on the CDOT units. It is very easy to pick these units apart, but totally unnecessary. Galveston's intentions have been made clear. They have been preserved, albeit in the "wrong wrapper". In my opinion, innacurate paint is better than hacking up a unit to resemble something it never was, a Santa Fe F unit.

Here's the correct wrapper!

This nitpicking about paint on a diesel locomotive is nothing short of ridiculous. It's a diesel locomotive. Strip all of the paint off of two railroad's F7s and what are you left with? Two identical locomotives. It's not like we're taking a Nickel Plate Berk and painting it up to be a Santa Fe Berk. I do believe it's a little more forgivable to paint a diesel locomotive into another railroad's colors because after all, they were mass produced.

Obviously, you didn't look at the picture of this horrible recreation, placed next to the photo of a REAL Santa Fe F7. They are hardly identical locomotives.

The real shame is, most of the mechanical modifications, that would make for a more accurate "stand in," could have been done with minimal effort.

Absolutely, positively identical? Of course not. A pretty freakin' good job, considering what there is to work with and what various laws now mandate? Hell, yes.



I put in a call to them. They expect you Monday morning. Bring your tools, your checkbook, your credit card, and the marker light lenses, Mars light mechanisms, and the porthole windows and frames from EMD.

...and don't forget to bring the stainless steel for the side panels.

OK, but once I put that standard EMD F unit pilot in the car, I may have to make a second trip for the other stuff. ;-)

Here's some youtube vids of the restored units.

Unveil- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjSmuf8YGB4

Enroute to Galveston- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pwxj-IZ4DgU

What would be the purpose of mounting the horns forward of the windshield?

As a one-time Santa Fe employee, I applaud the Galveston group for their "tribute" paint jobs. And since the first photos were taken, some of the artistic discrepancies have been remedied. It's rather like San Francisco Muni and their "tribute" PCC streetcars. I always like seeing Muni 1061, the Pacific Electric tribute car. It's a single-ended all-electric St. Louis-built unit. PE PCCs were a unique double-ended configuration with center doors, air-electric, no standee windows and built by Pullman, but I still like seeing the tribute Red Car on the streets of San Francisco.

It looks to me like they have set out to create a new image for the locomotive by giving it freelance features that conjure up the appearance of the rugged functionality of a modern freight locomotive.