Interesting to see a thread about F unit vs. F unit with not one, not two, not three, but *four* names that a decade ago were not associated with F units at all: Genesis, Broadway Limited, Intermountain, Proto 2000.
Until the Intermountain (initially a shell kit only) was released in 1999 the Stewart F unit was hands down the first choice. Shells were vastly better than anybody else's and the drives were Kato, or clones thereof. The shells were also available in a number of phases from F2 to F9.
Today:
Genesis Athearn - the fabulous Highliners shell. You aren't going to beat it in terms of accuracy. The latest releases are including more detail too - if you have an earlier run you may have to add things like m.u. hoses, nose lifts, some grabs, etc depending on what version you are modeling. The Genesis F drive is still probably Athearn's best drive, with the new gearboxes and the Roco motor. And thos fabulous Blomberg sideframes. Now 23-24 year old tooling and nobody has touched them.
Walthers Proto 2000 - they did a pretty decent job on the shell, the windshields aren't right but nobody else (except Highliners) ever got it right. The nose is much better than other attempts, still Highliners is the one to be equalled but not beaten in that department. Walthers has added more small detail, probably that has motivated Athearn to up the detail on theirs. They are nice units with the new improved drives, but I don't own one so I can't give a full report on performance. My Walthers Empire Builder is pulled by an ABA set of Genesis F units.
Intermountain - again vastly improved over their earlier runs. IMO their drive sits too high. Sideframes.... so-so, delrin. I had a very early one, but sold it. I've looked more closely at the FP7 than their other recent F units. I passed on the FP due to a) lack of desperate need for an FP7, b) rumors of a possible Athearn project and c) the ability to kitbash the shell from Highliners.
Broadway - it has the same buttons, bells, and whistles you'll find on the others but at a much lower level of quality and refinement. At 3 feet it's harder to tell the difference but I like to get a lot closer. BLI's drives are ok, but probably of the four I'd rank it 4th. In fact of the 4 I'd rank BLI 4th in every category.
Sound: BLI and Proto use QSI sound systems. Their 567 sound to me is all white noise, any actual engine sounds are drowned in the hiss. Not sure what the Intermountain uses. Genesis uses the MRC sound system which IMO has an ok *idle* sound for an F unit, but the decoders are flakey and once you come off idle, it's just white noise.
IMO the only diesel sound system that sounds like an F unit is Tsunami's 567 decoder. I actually have a Genesis F7A with one in it - the only loco I have with sound in it that didn't come with it and the only time I deliberately set out to put sound on board. To really make it work you have to set it so the sound can be controlled separately with the throttle, independent of the speed. So I can notch the prime mover up as the loco slowly crawls forward and have it in Run8 but moving slowly... or drop to idle or near idle at speed for coasting. It sounds cool but it's a lot of work to operate. Great for show, but the sound - nice as it is - and the effort gets old fast. I will probably build up an ABBA set with Tsunamis as sort of a "show off" warbonnet consist, and use them when I want the effect. I have several other sets without sound and they'll stay that way.
Currently no plans to put sound in anything else. I'd love to have a really good double sound unit for an E6/E7, but nothing out there comes close. Tsunami's is a 16-cyl; I need a 12-cyl and two of them independent of each other to approximate the sound of an E7. Currently I don't know if Tsunami has any plans to do more distinct variants. They are currently listing their 567 decoder as correct for an F3, F7, or GP7 (probably BL2 also) and it is. They also list it as correct for a GP9 and GP18 (close but no cigar), and switchers (not even close) and E units (ditto). I hope that since Soundtraxx has come up with a much improved technology for sound, that they will expand it to include the variations rather than stand pat.
Andy
