New Kings Port & Western Power

Hi all,

A recent chance glance at eBay revealed an auction for a never-been-used, undecorated Athearn "Super F7" (with the large heavy weight) which I ended up winning at an excellent price.   The unit quickly arrived after purchase.  I was originally going to paint it Penn Central black but then decided my freelanced Kings Port & Western needed more road power.

I have a pair of F7's that I painted for the KP&W a long time ago and have since found that the paint color I used is no longer available.   I ran into this when looking for colors for the RS3 unit I recently added to the KP&W roster.  The old F7s are lighter than the new RS3.

My plan was to paint the loco shell the same blue as the RS3 but to experiment with orange stripe decals as  away of further decorating the engine instead of attempting to mask and paint a stripe myself.  Looking over MicroScale's catalog it seemed that their C&O passenger car  decal set might have the sort of stripes I was looking for so I purchased a set at my LHS to give it a try.  While at the store I also noticed an F7B shell for $4.00 which I purchased, thinking to make a matched consist with the new F7A.  
I have an Athearn Penn Central B unit and figured I could interchange the shells as I wished for each road.   

I started with the B unit and achieved decent results.  The orange stripe is more yellow than the stripe on my other KP&W F7s but I figured I could live with it.   I liked how easily the decal made adding a stripe compared to masking and painting.

I added the road name decals I had made by RailGraphics.

 

My attempt to add stripes to the F7A, however was a disaster.  The remaining stripes on the decal sheet immediately disintegrated on contact with the loco shell and had to be quickly wiped off.  A friend suggests the decal sheet may have been old, leading to the decals becoming fragile to the point of uselessness.

So, I went back to the drawing board and decided to mask and paint a stripe using a light color of orange I had on had used on my KP&W boxcar fleet.

 After the first application I realized that it was a poor match for the C&O decal stripe and wasn't anywhere near close the orange on the early F7s I custom painted years ago.  I'd have THREE different shades of orange striping on the layout.  I decided that was unacceptable and ended up re-doing the entire project, using the orange and blue I used on the RS3 unit.  Here is how the new F7 A&B consist came out.

Here is the new F7A&B consist in front of the older pair of F7A's along with the RS3.  There is now more uniformity among the fleet.  It has been suggested that the lighter units underwent some fading after being exposed to the elements, much like the Penn Central Red P's fading to pink or the Yellow on the PC FL9's fading to white.  I can go with that idea,  From now on, however, any additional KP&W locos will sport the blue and orange matching the new F7A&B consist and the RS3.

The F7A still need headlights, window glass, and horns.  These were not included in the box with the unit, which probably accounted, in part, for its low sales price. I  also plan to add some grab bars on the roof just behind the windshield.

So, that's the convoluted account of the Kings Port & Western's latest power.  The new F7 runs great, by the way!