When I originally brought my railroad into operating service in 2015, I had to make an era choice. Although I had considerable 1950s equipment, almost all of it was DC-analog. Further, much of the 1950s locomotive fleet would require hard-wiring of decoders. Time use was critical. Contrasting to the 1950s fleet was the 1980s fleet which benefitted from waves of then-recent Athearn six-axle EMD locomotives which were “DCC Ready.” They had “mother boards” that allowed a quick installation of a nine-pin DCC decoder. Combined with lots of 1980s era-supporting rolling stock, the decision was easy to go with the more modern era.
Now that I have a decade of operations and nearly one hundred operating sessions under my belt, I decided the time had arrived to fulfill the dream of 1950s operations. Aiding that back-dating choice has been further development of the required locomotive fleet including models of locomotive classes found in abundance on the Cascade Line.
In the 1950s, the Northern District of the Southern Pacific utilized lots of EMD F7 locomotives. This familiar “covered wagon” of the early diesel era was well-suited to operations on the mountain grades and winter climates found on the Northern District--the Donner and Shasta-Cascade Routes. My study of 1950s SP Operating Division locomotive assignments affirms the F7 assignments. Per Joe Strapac’s Southern Pacific Historic Diesels Volume 10 (SPHD Vol.10), SP’s massive F7 fleet came in several flavors. The casual observer may dismiss them as all looking the same, but that Strapac volume provides quite a bit of detail describing visual changes that occurred over time in the various production orders.
Personally, with a mis-read/misinterpreted “factoid” concerning specific production classes of SP’s F7s, I found myself stalled as I chased after what I thought were the spotting features of two classes (production orders) that dominated the Northern District locomotive assignments—the DF-6 and DF-7 classes. Fortunately, I spotted a clearance sale by Walthers of a run of Proto F7s and decided to make a fleet purchase. As I began digging into details and loco numbers, I finally recognized that my fleet purchase was exactly what was needed—those Walthers Proto F7 models were exactly configured as DF-6 and DF-7 class units. The major spotting features were: 36-inch dynamic brake fan, early slatted-style side intake grill, “widow’s peak” roof overhang on unit rear ends, curved door corners for the cab doors on the sides, and pilot plows. The eighteen units I purchased will become six three-unit locomotives—the most common locomotive lash-up of the mid-to-late 1950s. These units will be the core of my road freight fleet.
I purchased the Walthers F7s as DCC-ready. Walthers equipped DCC units with ESU Loksound decoders. My standard uses SoundTraxx sound decoders rather than ESU. Fortunately, once one removes the shell on the Walthers models, one has a very easy installation of a SoundTraxx 21-pin decoder. My choice has been Economi decoders for fleet use with Scale Sound Systems speaker/enclosures. This is a relatively economical combination that sounds great!
Sound decoder installation in Walthers Proto F7A chassis. The foreground is the DCC-ready chassis. The rear unit has a SoundTraxx Economi decoder plugged into the mother board and a Scale Sound Systems speaker replacing the original speaker enclosure (weight) seen to the right. Scale Sound Systems also supplied the two-wire harness and plug that allowed a direct plug-in connection of the speaker into a receptacle on the mother board.
The most difficult part of the decoder installation has been removing the shell from the chassis of the F7A units. The shells for the F7B boosters have slipped right off, but the A-units have been a challenge. I think one can safely call this challenge a “Chinese puzzle.”
Working to remove the shell from the chassis of an F7A locomotive. The white styrene strips are holding the shell latches away from the chassis notches. The Xacto chisel blade at the rear is ensuring rear-of-shell clearance.
Shell removal actually begins with coupler removal. That is quite common for locomotive models. It also sets me up for replacing couplers with real Kadee couplers. I have used Kadee couplers for my entire “serious” time in the model railroad hobby—since my teen years. Besides supporting a good Oregon company, I found as many others have that Kadee couplers just work. I replace the front coupler on the A-units with a Kadee 148 “whisker” coupler, my defacto standard. The rear couplers, including both ends of the B-units, call for short-shank couplers—a Kadee 143 coupler. I found I needed to trim the rear of the draft gear box to clear the locomotive trucks. A good flush-cutting nipper made short work of the required shortening. I also found I needed to run a rattail file through the coupler shank hole and polish the top of the shank with a flat file. A production line makes short work of this.
Trimming KD-143 draft gear box rears and assembling couplers for F-unit installation.
I found setting up the Economi decoders to be very simple. Indeed, rather than using DecoderPro (a computer program that makes many decoder settings easy), I could make just a few decoder configuration variable settings to make the Economi decoders “sing” to my tune. Most of the default settings of an Economi diesel sound decoder are for an EMD F-unit. Besides setting the four-digit loco address, the two most important settings are a low master volume setting and settings for the Mars light (the upper headlight housing on an SP F-unit). I spend far more time trying to break into an F7A unit (remove the shell) than it takes me to do the decoder settings!
As I develop this F7 fleet, I will renumber most of the units for unique locomotive numbers. Several of the F7A-units will get train numbers in the number boards rather than the (extra) locomotive number. That will be another visual reminder, that my era shift will also bring a traffic management shift, as well—back to Time-Table and Train Order operations!
In spite of frustrations with breaking into the F7A units for decoder and speaker installation, this is an exciting time for me and my railroad.
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