Test Track
HO — In 1945, General Motors’ Electro-Motive Division (EMD) took its ground-breaking FT, first offered in 1939, and began to deliver a post-war version, labeled the F3. In a way, it was just an upgrade of the FT, but the changes were significant. The manufacturer took the 1,350-hp 567B prime mover and upgrad- ed it to 1,500 hp, increasing the horses of an A-B-B-A set from 5,400 to 6,000. The sides and roofs of these machines told the rest of the story. The F3 produc- tion commenced in July 1945 and continued until 1949, and the FT’s four portholes were re- placed by three on the F3 Phase I along with wire grilles on the sides. EMD built Phase I exam- ple F3s from 1945 to May 1947. The Early Phase II F3s found
the cab-equipped A-units giv- ing up their center porthole, and screen wire now covered the area between the two remain- ing portholes. This production
Walthers:
F3 Santa Fe Long Bonnet Diesel Locomotives
boards becoming a standard, though the smaller version re- mained a production option for railroads to select. EMD pro- duced its early Phase II F3s from June through December 1947. Late Phase II examples, con- structed from January through July 1948, saw the tall fan shrouds replaced with a lower version on the unit’s roof. Phase III commenced in July 1948, and chicken wire grilles disappeared between the portholes, while the air-intake filters gained louvers.
This production variation last- ed until September 1948, when the F3 Phase IV showed up and stayed in production until Febru- ary 1949; this last phase looked almost identical to the coming F7, though the dynamic brake grilles on the roof remained the same. Railroad Model Craftsman’s sample Long Bonnets — road numbers 16LABC through 21LABC — started life as Phase I F3 units and would later go through the shops to be “mod- ernized.” Santa Fe almost never found a locomotive it couldn’t im- prove in its shops. In the road’s 16-class of locomotives, the first six A-B-B-A sets had their side “chicken wire” grilles replaced with vertical stainless steel grilles, and their center portholes removed, but the tall fan shrouds remained along with the dynam- ic brake grilles just behind the horns. Santa Fe’s shop forces did this alteration in the early 1950s. In 1946, the six sets featured
A-units sporting Warbonnet paint jobs, with the red Warbonnet lengthened out to just past the center porthole. Beginning with set 22LABC, the Warbonnet’s shape was altered back to more like what appeared on early Amos ‘n’ Andy diesels and the road’s
88 RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
PRODUCT REVIEW
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