SANTA FE MODELER

Volume 14 Number 3
Third Quarter, 1991
THE FREIGHT LOCOMOTIVES
Continued

On early units, the nose herald was a separate bronze plate with the herald painted on in blue which was then bolted to the nose door. On later units, the herald appears to have a much lighter background (see the modeling notes for additional details). The as delivered paint scheme featured a red separating stripe between the blue and yellow colors. As units were repainted in company shops the red striping was at first maintained on the nose of A-units forward of the cab doors and was finally deleted completely, undoubtedly a cost saving measure. A-units carried the "Santa Fe" name on the carbody under the portholes and above the side number boards, but B-units did not carry the "Santa Fe" name.

Members may examine their reprints of EMD's styling diagrams included with this issue for comprehensive painting and lettering instructions for the as-built locomotives (also for F-3's and F-7's). EMD donated aperture cards of these original blueprints to the Santa Fe Modelers Organization and their courtesy is greatly appreciated. In the early 1950's, at least in late 1951 and early 1952, the Santa Fe experimented with a simplified paint scheme for its F-units that featured a solid blue carbody with a passenger style nose emblem and a yellow nose stripe. A fair number of FT's were repainted in this manner, from single A-units assigned as road switchers to complete A-BB-A lashups. Fortunately, the Santa Fe decided against adopting this rather drab scheme and resumed painting its F-units in the full blue/yellow scheme although it did retain the passenger-style nose emblem and did away with the catwhisker emblem. Units that had received the simplified scheme were fairly quickly repainted with full yellow markings. Bunits received the "Santa Fe" name below the portholes as on the A-units.

Over the years the Santa Fe added extra grab irons, wrecking lugs, and radio antennas the FT's which cluttered up their original smooth lines while giving them a distinctly Santa Fe appearance. By the mid-1950's the FT's were showing their age and the railroad began trading in some of the early high mileage units on new locomotives. 100LAB plus 180A (ex-lOOC) were the first to go, these units being traded in on four new GP-9's in February 1957. Early technology brake, throttle, and electrical systems made the FT's unattractive for a major rebuild, so their days were numbered. More would have been traded in on new GP-9's had a recession not delayed such a trade in at that time

By 1960 EMD was offering attractive trade-in programs to replace four worn out FT's with three new GP-20's, then GP-30's and GP-35's, so the FT's were traded in large numbers, giving up their still-useful Blomberg trucks for use under the new locomotives. All of the Santa Fe's GP-20, 30 and 35's originally rode on traded-in FT trucks. The FT carbodies were cut up for scrap and not one Santa Fe FT survived scrapping.

Brand new FT A-B-B-A set 100LA and 101LA pass through Nelson Arizona on what has to be one of their first trips after delivery in January 1941. Shortly 101LA would be renumbered to 100BC. Look closely inside the headlight housing for a multiple-bulb unit. Very shortly after delivery this was discarded in favor of a single bulb design. Note also the nose badge which contrasts with other photos made at the same date. The reason for the contrast is due simply to the angle of light reflection and has nothing to do with color differences in this example.

In their early years the FT's were normally run as pure locomotive sets with the individual units operating together as one locomotive. By the mid- 1950s, individual units of different numbers began operating together and by the 1960's, it would have been relatively rare to find units with the same number in a lashup.

Into the 1960's the last survivors of the FT fleet were concentrated in Clovis to Argentine service so they would be near their Cleburne shops maintenance point to run out their last miles, many being arranged in A-B-B-B-A sets.

Page 11 Volume14 number 3, Third Quarter, 1991 Santa Fe Modeler Transcribed in altered format for the Web by Russell L. Crump

By the end of 1965 they were all gone. Eleven A-B-B-A sets of FT's were converted to passenger gearing and steam generators. These units will be covered in the passenger locomotive section of this article.

FTA 405 (ex-143C) was one of a number of single unit FT road-swicher conversions with footboards front and rear and a steam locomotive type headlight at the rear on the roof. She carried full blue and yellow markings with the red stripe deleted completly but still with the "catwhisker" nose emblem at Bakersfield in May 1951. -Stan Kisler

HO scale FT models of varying quality have been available from time to time in brass over the past 30 years or so. The first brass FT model was probably the old Pacific Fast Mail/ Tenshodo FT imported from Japan in the late 1950's. The model was available factory painted in Santa Fe freight or passenger colors in A-B sets. It suffered from a very poorly contoured stamped nose and very crude detailing (by today's standards). Most of these have been relegated to collections these days and are seldom found in use on layouts. The next brass FT model was imported by Hallmark around 1970. These were made by KTM in Japan and featured a lost-wax casting nose that had very good contours. These came as a powered A/dummy B set and were available with side number boards per Santa Fe practice (or without per many other roads). These models ran well, but were very noisy as was the case with virtually all brass diesel models in those days. It was an era of brass spur gear drive trains with loose tolerances and big, noisy open frame motors.

FT 160LAC was southbound with a short freight south of Ardmore, Oklahoma in August 1956. 160 had been in passenger service a few years earlier and was regeared, reconfigured to A-B-A and repainted for freight service. The booster unit retains its steam generator, presence of which is betrayed by the vent on the roof (note also the fifth porthole for the hostler control station). The lead unit here is actually 160C, a small 'C' being visible just below the nose herald. -Gordon Bassett Collection

A subsequent early 1970's run by Hallmark had a slightly different gear train and was a little quieter in operation. I have several of these old Hallmark FT's that date from 1970 that have been in service on my layout longer than many of the prototype FT's were in service on the Santa Fe! They are noisy, but they still look and run very good.

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FT 173 at Argentine in June 1959 shows the addition of wrecking lugs on the nose and a flat plate radio antenna at the left rear on the roof (typical of the installation found on most FT''). Grab irons above the windshield will appear in a few months. None of the Santa Fe's FT's were equipped with nose MU connections. Note the early D/B housing on the center B-unit of this lashup.

Page 12 Volume 14 Number 3, Third Quarter 1991 Santa Fe Modeler Transcribed in altered form for the web by Russell Crump

Text & pictures continued on Page 14

Added to the WWW 04-22-96
Updated 08-11-2002