Hi All,

I was looking at the newly announced Athearn Genesis HO scale F-3s lettered for ACL Purple & Silver. They are offering them as a single A unit and an A-B set. What would a prototypical consist be for a train of around 13 Budd cars? Would it be an A-B, A-B-A, or A-B-B? Should I go out and buy another Highliners B unit shell?

TIA!

-- Vince Wehnes (wehnes@gasliq.com), November 01, 2002

Answers

Vince - with few exceptions, the F units ACL used in passenger service were either F2s (built in 1946 and with a different appearance from the Athearn F3s) or FP7s, built in 1951-52 and longer than the Athearn units. However, if you want to apply your modeler's license a "little," and use these as ACL did its FP7s, then .... the FP7s were A units only, no Bs. A train of 13 cars could have been handled by two FP7s although that would have been stretching their capabilities. If you want to apply a more liberal dose of license and use the Fs as ACL did its F2s, then those came in both A and B units and often ran in A-B configuration - see for example the photo on page 87 of my ACL passenger service book. Since the F2s were 1350 hp versus 1500 for the FP7s, you would need 3 F2s to pull a train this long - I would use A-B-A. If you really want to be prototypical for a 13-car ACL Budd train, then you should use 2 or 3 E units (Lifelike's E6s and E7s will do fine) - the Fs were seldom used on the mainline all-lightweight trains.

-- Larry Goolsby (LGoolsby@aphsa.org), November 01, 2002.