Question on Florida East Coast's F3A and B

[fecfan]

Hi everyone

I am Matthias, from Germany and I try to model the FEC in the 50th.
So I have a specific question on the F3s of the FEC, and one of the guys from a german forum on american modelrailroads adviced me to ask here, so here I am and hope you can help me.

Can anyone tell me the specific building phase of the FEC F3s for the A- and the B-Units that EMD delivered to the FEC?
My task is I am trying to model them from Athearn BlueBox F7s I bought some time ago, and as they run pretty well I purchased a Highliner A-Shell kit and a B-Shell kit. In the Seth Branson-books I couldn't find anything about the building phases except for a variety of photos that will sure help me.

So far, I'm sorry for my English, it has been quite a while since I had to write English texts at school, and even back then I wasn't good at it...

Thanks for your answers
Matthias

[icghogger]

Welcome to the Detailer, Matthias!

Do you know the date the FEC F units were built? I might be able to help pin down which phase, if I can get a good build date.

[kcs1967]

Try looking in one of these photo archives

www.rr-fallenflags.org/fec/fec.html your best source

www.railpictures.net/showphotos.php but it shows now f7 for FEC

www.rrpicturearchives.net/modelListRR.aspx?id=FEC only one or two shots

try google and yahoo for images

also try ebay search for fec anc florida east coast.

this should get you on track

[feCsx]

Matthias, glad to see someone else modeling the FEC. I don't know much about the F-units, but I did find some info in a Diesel Era Magazine (November/December 1991 Volume 2 Number 6 issue) that I had.

The F3's (501-508 A-units, and 551-554 B-units) were ordered from EMD in 1949 and were phase IV F3's. It said EMD referred to these as F5's. They were built on EMD order E913.

If I find any other info I'll post it for you. I would try to find a copy of that Diesel Era Magazine if you can, it has some great photos of the FEC E and F units in the 50's and 60's. and it helped me greatly in modeling my FEC E-units. I ordered the copy I have a few years ago directly from the publisher, Withers Publishing. Try searching the Internet to see if they are still around (or even find an old copy on e-bay or something). Please post some pics of your work when you can. I always enjoy looking at other FEC models.

Hope that helps!

Andy

[fecfan]

Hi
At first, thanks to everyone, I think this will help at least for the moment.
If I can get them I'll try these Diesel Era Magazines. Andy, do you have both issues dealing with the FEC? And would you recommend them as useful?

I hope I can show you some pictures some time. These will be my first real projects on detailing, so we'll see were it gets. As far as colouring goes, I've really a headache, it won't be easy but I really really like that fancy red and yellow colour sheme. But perhaps, if I succeed, I can turn over to some of the Proto models I have (already in apropriate colours) and overdo them a little, so they will better fit their prototypes (Unbelievably they made a BL2 with completely wrong headligths...).

I red Andy's post about the E9. I like it very much, too, it is really really nice. It's distressing that you didn't attend this short passenger train contest. I think you might really had a good chance. The FEC's strike condition passenger trains are unbeatable with their E-Unit - one coach - one lounge observation-setup :-)
If you still want to see something I made, you can go to the german american modelrailroads forum. I postet some pictures of my mostly still plywood-topped layout there. You can find it at www.us-modellbahnen.de/forum/index.htm

Good night everyone.
Matthias

[kcs1967]

Matthais I checked that link out, and wow great stuff going on there.

[feCsx]

Mathias, sorry for taking a month to reply, I've been busy!
Get BOTH magazines if you can. They have excellent photos of FEC units (red and yellow in the first issue, blue in the second). Your correct about the difficulty of painting their fancy scheme, but is certainly is worth it. It is one of the best color schemes ever in my opinion. I've only painted one E6 in the red and yellow colors, and it was the simplified scheme without the bottom red stripe. It wasn't too bad, but took some time to get the curves even on the front. I'll post some photos of it soon. Also, there are some great looking things on the link you posted, thanks for sharing. You have an excellent start to your layout. Please add some more photos of your work as you go.

Andy

[kcs1967]

Andy and Mathias

You both likely have one or some of these already, but I stumbled on this today and thought either of you might be interested. E8/9 FEC PK2 the price is right, I love my 2 KCS versions.

valleymodeltrains.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=21_398&products_id=9290