Review: 1.6" Scale F-Unit Diesel Locomotive
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- Опубликовано: 17 сен 2024
- Today we're reviewing a 1.6" scale F-Unit Diesel locomotive built by L & B Trains. This unit is an electric locomotive, painted in the Santa Fe War Bonnet scheme. Enjoy and thank you for watching The Steam Channel!
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It all depends on the purpose :
This would be a very nice loco and certainly good enough to pull kids around in an amusement park.
In that case it doesn't matter that it only resembles the prototype from a distance.
As a serious modeller I would give it a miss however.
I'm glad to have read this review from the Steam Channel. Others are posting similar thoughts as mine, i would rather build my own shell from scratch. Cannot get used to faux Mars light as well. Please do more reviews like this! It helps people to spend wisely on their hobby.
The top of the cab resembles more of an Alco FA unit
A brilliant piece of work that was built to provide pleasure to the owner and riders and I am sure it does that in spades!!! Don't mind the negatives Bill just enjoy it.
This is why ALCO PAs and EMD F7s shouldn't sleep together.
Bryan McKenzie best comment ever...😂😁
CLASSIC! LOL!
Some people have to much damn money
Lol
I was kinda thinking the same thing. lol
$13,500????? The price of a car but the precision/accuracy of a toy.
I agree, but try pricing RC jet airplanes with real miniature jet engines. Even a small one that’s not junk will cost $8-$10k. A 1/4 scale one is about and depending on the model, more than most top line cars, and even close to or more than a lot of houses, not junk houses either. Some of the engines themselves Te $10k alone.
DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY HO TRAINS I COULD GET WITH THAT MONEY?
The material alone to build something this large is most of that cost, thats like complaining about paying more for a better equipped car.
And there are people paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for RC airplanes. Not to mention those ugly as hell super cars that ain't nothing but a glorified penis extension.
That is so awesome my son would LOVE to ride on a train like that! I wish i could find a local place like that to go for train rides. A VERY VERY expensive hobby im sure!
Brings back memories. I had an HO scale train with the same colour scheme.
a locomotive that every driver wants to drive in his club VERY COMPLETE and practice traditional model thanks
very good and informative video i enjoyed this and the young lady knows her stuff
I know it's hard to make that but that shell sucks.
Agreed the body contours are way off. It is not like there are probably over 100,000 photos of Santa Fe F unit Warbonnets out there plus probably actual EMD Schematic Drawings available.
not that hard. If you can mold a 150' long yacht hull you can make a decent mold for a 7' long locomotive. It would be FAR better to mold a basic body then epoxy on the additional contours and details.
The cab contours are way off. What could have been a truly fantastic model was totally ruined by that one error. If this is an advertisement because you want to sell these, you have certainly lost me as a customer.
It’s a review...like many others on the channel. I’m not affiliated with the manufacturer.
You'd think they'd get the number board right. I've yet to see a F series locomotive where the "B" unit had a cab for crews to ride in and control from. "B" units have no cab, therefore they are designated "B" units. I think at some point Union Pacific changed some of their locos to "B" unit by plywood and paint over windows, but that was on Geeps. If I were shelling out 13 grand I want it to pretty much blow sunshine up my behind and make my toes curl.
Mike Lcml5c the number board layout had nothing to do with railroading...196 B was to mark the owner's military service.
For that price, it should come with full interior detailing. I would have also hidden the connection point behind an access panel for display purposes.
On the miniature railway I volunteer at we have 2 diesels (a Deltic and a Hymek) and both aren't scale models...they just do for a good run about with kids, much like this one. The steam locos we use are mostly scale representatives of the true form, but there's a Tinkerbell class called Jeff, which does most of the work.
If it's cheap and cheerful and kids love it, buy it. It's low maintenance and easy to run.
On a critical point:
The lady presenter is a bit wooden in her approach. She could interact with the loco and use a more animated voice....instead of sitting there like a plank and speaking in a rather monotone way.... (sorry Love, no offence, but that's my opinion).
On the whole. Great Channel.
I need to ride that Unit so bad that's so cool you got your own backyard Railroad to yourself
a beautiful model train and a beautiful young lady. nice combo.
the squareness of the body and windows makes it look like it had chuck norris face
Raymond Leggs I was thinking more of the magic school bus 😉
@@TheSteamChannel I was also thinkg that too lol. its just the windows make it look like the locomotive is giving you a thousand yard stare like chuck norris.
I agree that it would have been the same amount of effort to get the shell right as it was to produce this large scale Tri-ang doppelganger. There is a giant sh*t-load of technical info available for F-units.
What I like to know is how long did it take the lovely lady to remeber her lines as thats very indepth and a video worth watching
P arjacpar Ever heard of cue cards?
The L E D Mars lights looks awful.
Seriously HO and N scale Mars lights look better.
NJW1973 I Know! For that size you should be able to get an actual working mars light
No EMD F-series locomotive ever had a light setup like that. Usually it was nothing more than a light cluster on a sideways swivel and that was it. And some railroads put a red light in there to use when it was being pulled backward.
I like the older halogen like bulbs in the locos not the bright ugly led light
I think this a nice characature of the F... Nice lady.
perfect for a kid who doesnt care what kind of train hes riding on who wants to have fun
AMAZING,absolutely love it,and what a beautiful speaking voice the young lady has
Ha! At first, I didn't understand this train was designed to pull passengers in a park. I thought those batteries and motors were massive overkill! Once I saw it was made to actually carry human beings, it made a lot more sense! LOL
It looks like something you would buy at the toy store to give your 5 year old for Christmas.
Ich hab noch nie ne Modelleisenbahnerin mit Frosch im Hals gesehen. Danke!
That looks more like an ALCO profile then an EMD!
The larger scales are going to look a bit "off" compared to the scale trains (HO, N-Gauge, O-Scale etc.) G scale comes to mind. Even old Lionel wasn't to scale. Nothing wrong with that, different strokes for different folks. But hey, for those of us that are nuts about trains and wonder how it would affect a relationship, this gal is for you!!!
Scale can be off and not noticed, but when you get the shape off as badly as that, it just becomes a miscarriage.
.............. I think it's absolutely wonderful ....the best I've ever seen.... thank you for sharing this .....if only I won the lotto I'd buy a dozen of them.... God Bless America
Really cool video! Would be really cool to see a Baldwin Sharknose locomotive in this scale!
WOW!!!!! SOMEBODY OUT THERE READ MY MIND!!!!! I HAVE BEEN DREAMING ABOUT THAT FOR THE LAST THIRTY-FIVE YEARS!!!!! OH, THAT WOULD BE BEYOND AWESOME!!!!! I WANT ONE NOW!!!!!
WOW THAT THING NEEDS WORK
It’s huge ok do you expect everything to be perfect
Indominus Rex it being bigger allows more detail
@@Simplicity223 tons of people have built F units at this size that look fine
Ouch. Nice Toy! That is a very beautiful locomotive!
🚋 🚞
Sorry but for $13000 + I would expect the shell proportions to be correct. The nose and windscreen are way off. It has the look of an Alco FA with the squareness of the front instead of the classic round curves that gave it the bulldog moniker. NOT IMPRESSED.
I agree I wouldn't be paying $1300.00 let alone $13,000.000 + for something as pathetic looking as that and the sound effects were rubbish too. The Santa Fe decals on the nose and on the side were crooked, the ladder rungs on the nose were crooked, the horns were out of scale among many other things, the fuel tank was the wrong shape, and the shape was all wrong, with something as big as that if you can't get it even close to shape give it away, one word RUBBISH.
Stan Fishman That much, really? I wanted to get one for my 3 year old so he can ride around the local club tracks but I was expecting around a grand or two. Looks like I'll be buying used.
I agree, before I got this far down in the comments, I thought, "WTF" were these people thinking. That is a terrible rendition of an F Unit, and those trucks?
@Don Vito 😂😂😂
If you think you can do it better, then nobody is stopping you. Whining armchair experts.
Please for all the critics out there spreading their good cheer and who are enhancing the hobby with their stellar support and feedback; please share your work, completed projects and abilities here so we can enjoy.
Forget the batteries.... let's make a mini diesel engine and throw it in there
Back in the early 70s, one gentleman here in Florida coupled 3 single cylinder gas engines together to drive a generator that then powered the motors on the axles. He had a small pump that added Diesel fuel to the exhaust. Problem with most Diesel engine models is weight and size vs output. Think about 2 times as heavy just for a twin cylinder over a gasoline engine. As an example, a 10HP Carrol Stream single weighs in at 106 lbs. While a gasoline engine of the same output weighs in at 55 lbs. And at nearly 4 times the price to over 10 times the price. I had a test bed which used a 10 HP Techumseh engine to drive two 24VDC 50Amp generators. As the generators were rewired to be self exciting, they would put out anywhere from 0 volts to 110 volts DC depending on engine speed. I installed a voltage limiting circuit to keep the voltage under 36 volts. Fed to the two 24 V .55 HP motors on the axles, they had a big problem with wheel spin at starting. But could get it up to better than 15 MPH when they got it moving. For those that want to scale that out, that is 120 scale MPH.
Hmmm..... It could work on a larger scale if size and weight is the problem....
I grew up with a local farmer who had a 1/4 scale railroad around the property. He had a Volkswagen Rabbit diesel coupled to a hydraulic pump. Has worked great since 1995, these days that train running to the pumpkin patch is keeping the farm alive.
That would be 15” gauge- much, much bigger.
@@gravelydon7072 use a hotbox truck diesel engine, already has the generator on it
This seems a lot squarer than an F-unit should be. The flatness of the roof and squareness of the nose reminded me more of an Alco than F-unit.
That is because it is. An F-unit has a curved roof. The windshield glass openings in the cab were curved. And the nose was curved. Back in the early 70s we made 1.5/1.6" F-units the hard way at Koster's Miniature Railroad Supplies. They were all steel bodies. The nose was made by taking a sheet of 16ga steel and cutting, hammering, and welding it on a wood block. It had the correct curvature. If you ordered it with a Mars light, it had a true oscillating headlight. Pain to make but something to see at night. The grills on the side were made by stretching copper coated steel wire so that they could be open behind them. They took a lot of liberties on this model so that they could have a bigger interior and to make it easier to do the fiberglass work.
If you want to see what ours looked like, see ibls.org/files/Companies/KostersMiniatureRailroadSupplies/Kosters_Miniature_Railroad_Supplies_Catalog_6B.pdf $4500 per unit back then is equal to about $18K today. I'm in that catalog by the way.
Just had a look at that catalogue from 1978 - very impressive! Although $4500 would've been an eye-watering amount of money in those days. A very good model of the GP-7.
I think you would have been surprised how many we built even at that price. The Clinchfield GP-7 resulted in a sale to the same owner of a Clinchfield F-7 as an example.
The rake of the windshield is wrong, but the nose actually looks pretty good. It looks like someone applied a straight Warbonnet decal to the nose, whereas on the real article, the "whiskers" coming off the Santa Fe cross followed the contour of the hood much better. I think the decal is doing the nose and major injustice here...if it were an HO gauge model, I'd say to use a decal softener on the decal before it adheres to the paint and some tweezers to manipulate the whiskers!
And P.S. on the Santa Fe, passenger F A units didn't have steam generator so the B units carried them :-p
I love the new intro as much I like this Chanel
I love that intro
It's an F flat. Lmao!!! 😂
This is an amazing set up you have Just think if your friends came round what fun they would have
With all due respect, the proportions of that shell are so far off. If that was delivered to me I'd send it back!! For the money these sell for, they should have a steel or aluminum shell. Horrible...
hey I saw one at a garage sale one time & it was a battery operated loco but it was ALL aluminum body & boy did I wish I had the cash to get it!
I know it's a year later, but this is what I came to say! The top is way too flat, the contours of the nose not right, and it has painted-on windows for Pete's sake! When you can get better proportions and details in N scale, it doesn't say much.
Yeah, I could go for steel shell.
Nice looking model and train
TWO AMAZING MACHINES!!!
BIG POINTS ! I have only the GILS - GAUGE 0 - SILVER GILS TRAIN . GREETINGS ! F.E. GERMANY
The lack of transparent window panels would look hokey even in the smaller scales, not to speak of something this big. The general public might be impressed, but not a seasoned model railroader.. This is for amusement park rides; Key Models this ain't!
Amusement parks and city live steamer clubs - a seasoned model railroader, aware of these clubs, would not be surprised at the lack of precision modeling. But these are not toys.
Quit carping. Hey it's for fun. Enjoy the ride.
You said that right 2027850. Its just for fun.
this is exactly what I want but in the r160 form from the NYC subway!
To all you purists: Quit complaining. So it's not to scale or strictly a real model. I'm impressed by someone's building skills and everything else be damned. This is fun ride for someone.
Wow. Real nice
The company that has manufactured this wants people to buy it so those people who want to buy one have to right to say if it is worth the money they are asking. This is well made however the body is wrong. Bryan McKenzie sums it up perfectly, it looks like the result of an F unit and a PA sleeping together. Get it to look right and I would love to buy one and drive one on my property.
Just Superb!!!! I love this train!
Nice review!
The quality of the fabrication is very sub par for what I could see. Looks like someone who never welded before did the welds.
Awesome and beautiful! when the woman loves trains!!
Greeting from Mexico!
Perfect to a point,the wind shield is not like a real one,that a point missing.
Nice video and fun to watch. Take care now.
I love trains and this is cool
Awesome
The locomotive looks nice and the settings too.
Livery is not pronounced "LI very", it's "Liver y". Having grown up with Santa Fe passenger trains, this is a poor representative of the classic F-7 locomotive, especially with the technology available today. The sound is that of an F-7, however. Very impressive!
iv'e always loved the f series diesel locomotives!, Great video!
Very cool.
awesome video. very cool.
That's awesome
Enjoyed the video and l have subscribe to your channel.
This is so COOL!!
I thought it was kinda cool until I saw the ride-on seats and heard the hokey sound effects. I'd be embarrassed to own one of these even if I could afford it.
Captain Black
Lol! A Boss amplifier. As someone who is also into car audio, apparently this guy buys cheap, then sells high. There is no way that amplifier is 200 watts. No matter what the box it came in says, or what it says on the amp!
I love this and want one in my yard !
I'm okay with the body, not a fan of the window stickers though. That makes it look cheap.
The Mars light is not to my liking
Ouch. Thats a truly nasty body. Why would you do that when the level of finish on scale models can be absolutely accurate? You would look like an idiot bringing one of those to a track meet
Gee I wonder why the number of people getting into this hobby is steadily declining. Elitism and assholes.
@@97marqedman he is right though. For something that costs so much the least you'd expect is a replica of the engine it is supposed to be, not a bodyshell that is completely off proportion. An HO scale model would look better
could they not even get the basic contours of the body right? that's like the whole appeal of the f unit and they screwed it up
Embarrassingly bad.
99 percent of the comment section is people saying bad stuff about the f unit. and it looks more like an aloco and at 4:45 the locomotive looks like they edited it in.
Crazy Kaboose the engine is no peach, I’ll give you that. And it certainly has garnered a lot of negative attention for not looking anything like an F-Unit...that’s a problem for the manufacturer of the unit not this channel. But, if you honestly think I edited the engine into the video...you may be an idiot.
$13.5k is very reasonable. I wish I had a few acres of land so I could build a layout. Walt Disney had something similar on his personal property.
We’ll have to disagree that 13.5 is reasonable for the quality level of this unit. Checkout the Museum Trains F7 review we just posted. This is a park engine for kids compared to that.
It's a slow day here, so I've read some of the comments. Since it appears this is for those park railroads where the kiddies and their parents take a ride, what child and/or parent knows the difference. They're just there to have some fun. Sure, the 'experts' can pick it apart, and I'm certainly no expert, but I stand by my comment regarding children and parents not knowing the first thing about how this engine should look. They don't care. They just wanna have fun.
The castings of the trucks is as rough as guts. The detail is very poor and at $13.500 is totally over priced.
How is 13 dollars 50 cents over priced?
@@Zanderreaper idiot it’s 13 grand and 500 dollars.
@@KiiXii i was pointing out that he misspelled 13,000
@@Zanderreaper LOL1 Perfect. :)
When I win the lottery I'm calling you
I love smell oil rugs and real black diesel smoke and sound. I want to old forklift's diesel engine with electric generator powered fit in model 1/5 scale train.
It's so nice to see females enjoying things like this. We boys now full grown men have always dominated the toy buying and enjoying market but I think it's even cooler and sexier that women enjoy the same things men have a longing for.
Seeing a lot of comments about the lack of precision in the modeling. These trains are designed to be ridden by people; they are not going to be "model" precise. Neither are the cars, which passengers ride, as well. These clubs often meet in city parks where the clubs have been allowed to lay track. Take a look at some of these clubs, here on RUclips. Those who are complaining might learn something.
Awesome...
It looks like a 12/1 scale model of a cheap toy made in China that runs on two AA batteries and pulls three or four two axel freight cars on an oval of black all-plastic track.
sums my childhood in a nutshell although i did have. a nice lionel set lol
Superb
Very cool video
That looks Cool!
That's badass and her knowing so much about it is hot as hell I love a smart woman
I need one of these for my yard.
I’m not a big train fan but I think it looks ok. I don’t know much about US trains but I guess this is just a big boys toy to ride on and not a scale model.
While people are entitled to their opinions, I see no good reason to put something down simply because it is not to their liking. Constructive criticism is one thing but offering sarcastic idiotic remarks is another.
This locomotive looks beautiful. The advertising is very well done. The proportions of this locomotive, while not prototypical, are still very nicely done. Anything can be done better. Perhaps those offering such dumb remarks think they can do better? Let us know when you complete a better version.
Overall, the locomotive is beautiful. Well constructed and obviously powerful. As one poster stated, it is generally designed to pull kids around. Who, likely could car less, about perfection versus just having fun. As for using an attractive women to help promote the locomotive, that has been done many upon many times over for hundreds of years now.
I applaud the company and those involved for having taken a step to make something really beautiful looking and functional. The fact it is done in Santa Fe livery makes it all that much more better. 👈👈👈
Beautiful
If they cannot be bothered to apply the nose transfer properly, what other compromises is there???
I think scale model railroads are cool and all, but $13,000?! You can by a pretty decent full scale car for that and you can drive it in a lot more places. Plus, you can even drive it in the rain and not get wet.
Ridgerunner2112 That’s actually cheaper in this hobby..I wouldn’t pay 13.5k for this...but when you start getting into steam it can be a lot more. A casting kit alone might run 10-15k for the chassis...a boiler will run at least $4,350 and could be as much as $9,000. It’s not a cheap hobby.
@@TheSteamChannel Thanks for the info. I had seen a video about a week ago on a different channel of a large scale working steam locomotive and I was curious what the price tag on something like that would be. Up until about a week ago, I didn't even know working large scale steam locomotive engines were a thing. I guess that and the price tag left me a bit underwhelmed with this electric locomotive. Whether it's steam or electric, It's still a very interesting and unique hobby. However, I think it is especially great that there are folks maintaining and operating the scale actual steam locomotives.
Love the vid, not so impressed with the windows and body of the engine. Keep up the great work with the vids!
Nice Video. Greetings from Berlin
This was state-of-the-art technology back in 1939 1940 I believe this engine brought in the technology of diesel locomotives
love it!!
nice..
nice locomotive.....Greetings
Invest in a wireless lapel mike. Audio is the most important element in video.
Audio is the most important thing in a video for a blind person. You see, in a video, the video image is the most important thing.
If audio was the most important thing, video wouldn't have killed the radio star.
Makes me want to give a crack at building a 1.6" scale GE U18b. (I live near Pickens RR and they just look so quirky)
Im really like it!!!
fantasic!