Talk:EMD F7

36" dynamic brake fans
I'm guessing that this feature was only seen in those locomotives intended for operating in mountainous regiouns? Or were all of the Phase Is equipped with dynamic brakes? --Badger151 17:25, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


 * This was only if dynamic brakes were fitted. Mountain railroads, as a rule, always fitted dynamic brakes (though there are exceptions).  Some flatland railroads did so too, because they might still have grades on which dynamic braking was useful Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 17:53, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Good Article Review
This article is currently at Good Article Review. LuciferMorgan 18:17, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Delisted as a Good Article
This article has been delisted per consensus discussion at Good Article Review. The archived results of the discussion can be found at Good article review/Archive 18. --Jayron32| talk | contribs 05:39, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

F7 Rebuild Units
During production of the F7 locomotive EMD began to offer rebuild services for wrecked units at its LaGrange Plant. A number of the units rostered on the main F7 page are products of this rebuild program. These rebuilt F units were built from FTs, F3s and F7s. See http://community-2.webtv.net/ajkristopans/REPAIRJOBS/index.html for a listing of these units. The rebuild units include ACL 317, D&RGW 5481, KCS 78C, 32A, 59D, CGW 104B, UP 1464, 1464B, 1464C, 1465, 1466, 1466B, 1466C, GN 350A, 350B, 360A, 360B, 460C, 460D and NYC 2446. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SSW9389 (talk • contribs) 17:06, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

There are a couple of real oddities here - ACL 317 and DRGW 5481 were built as "empty shells" and ACL and DRGW "transplanted" the insides of athe wrecked FT's in their shops. These were the first two "wreck rebuilds" done. All later ones were shipped to LaGrange and all transplant/rebuild work was done there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.223.76.83 (talk) 00:19, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Cotton Belt FTA 921 was wrecked at Aurich, AR on November 29, 1949 and shipped to EMD for rebuilding in 1950. Cotton Belt 921 2nd has the look of an FT locomotive built on an F7 frame. It is speculated that this rebuilt locomotive is one of the EMD #7000-7004 undocumented repair orders. Cotton Belt 921 2nd is the oldest of the wreck rebuilds known and predates ACL 317 and DRGW 5481. A photo of Cotton Belt 921 2nd is in Steve Goen's Cotton Belt Color Pictorial pages 40-41. --SSW9389 10:10, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Cotton Belt four unit FT #920 was wrecked November 16, 1948 at Renault, Illinois. It hit a derailed Missouri Pacific freight. The resulting derailment and fire sent all four FTs to EMD LaGrange. The 920A, an FTA was repaired in kind and returned to service with an oval EMD builder's plate and new Black Widow paint. The 920D, an FTA was rebuilt on an F7 underframe and returned to service in black widow paint. The 920D got an EMD oval builder's plate. The repair was done on an undocumented EMD work order. --SSW9389 10:49, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Visible F's
Back a couple of years Railfan & Railroad magazine had an article about the "visible F's" ,- B units used by EMD for training/promotional purposes. Article did not go into much specifics, just that there were apparently 2 F3B's and 1 F7B. Further research has show that the following three are almost certainly the ones in question:

serial 5194 - Monon 64C 2nd

serial 8618 - Santa Fe 32A 2nd

serial 6631 - built as Santa Fe 32A 1st, returned to EMD (engine failure? fire?) rebuilt as F7B, years later sold to Santa Fe as 48A. This is apparently the mysterious B-unit shown in the publicity photos of F7 display units 1950A,B

Anybody care to comment on this??

Andre76.223.76.83 (talk) 00:14, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

infobox, ref
has C&NWRy drawings and spec sheets for their loco’s, that’s where added stuff (not all that much) comes from. Some existing stuff rearranged. I tried to fix up the refs, but couldn't make this work : Sammy D III (talk) 13:52, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on EMD F7. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20071013072033/http://locopage.railpage.org.au:80/preserved.html to http://locopage.railpage.org.au/preserved.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 00:20, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on EMD F7. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20091219133238/http://locopage.railpage.org.au:80/preserved.html to http://locopage.railpage.org.au/preserved.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 18:40, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

First F7s
Contrary to the Diesel Spotter's Guide the first F7 units may have been built in November 1948 for the Denver & Rio Grande Western. These were the D&RGW #5561-5564 ABBA set of F units. The EMD Product Data for January 1, 1959 shows these units as F7s built in November 1948. Railroad historian Don Strack has a page on these units, see http://utahrails.net/drgw/rg-f5.php and gives multiple details on the construction of these units by EMD. At this point the D&RGW 5561-5564 are listed on the F3 Wikipedia page. There is a 1953 photo showing the 5561 four unit set on George Elwood's Fallen Flags here http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/drgw/drgw5561ads.jpg The photo shows units that lack an external dynamic brake fans, and appears to be F3s. --SSW9389 18:13, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

EMD Test Unit 930
This test unit was built in March 1949 for the EMD Engineering Department. It was used for high altitude testing on Rio Grande's Soldier Summit line in Utah. After testing it was returned to EMD and repainted as a Burlington passenger F unit for display at the Chicago Railroad Fair. After the fair it was returned to EMD for refurbishment and painting before sale to the B&M in October 1949. The October 1949 date most sources cite as the build date is actually the sale date to B&M. See https://archives.nauer.org/archives/BRHSLIST/2012-11/msg00136.html. SSW9389 (talk) 11:54, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Operator manual
Regarding 's removal of the operator manual under WP:COPYVIOEL, I think the fair use provisions are certainly in play. There's no monetary value to an operator manual, nor is the F7 for sale. Furthermore, the manual was printed without a copyright notice prior to 1977, and might well be out of copyright even beyond the fair use claim. Even if all that fails, the article can still cite the manual, just not link to it, although that makes claim verification more difficult. Mackensen (talk) 03:53, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * It's worth mentioning that the resource in question was the the subject of cease-and-desist request from the copyright holder; which is discussed at http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/p/194242/2121229.aspx . I feel it would be best to not allow Wikipedia to be an index of infringing resources. since she's the expert on this kind of matter. Are pre-1977 manuals, internal documents (such as service manuals), diagrams, books that weren't printed with a copyright notice an automatic pass for free public distribution in entirety? Graywalls (talk) 04:05, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Interesting. It's hard to tell if Caterpillar was complaining on trademark or copyright grounds. I would note that the manuals are still there, regardless of the letter. That's not dispositive of course, but it would be inaccurate to describe the site as an index of infringing resources absent further information. Whether the service manuals have passed into the public domain is a difficult matter; my sense is maybe not, but that many editors have proceeded under the assumption that they have. That may be more of an issue on Commons than here. Mackensen (talk) 04:14, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * This has broader implications beyond the F7 so I've left a note at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains. Mackensen (talk) 04:20, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Please have a look at History and development of the 567 series General Motors locomotive engine. You could query within it for verification. If there were no copyright issues with full text, Google wouldn't restrict it like that. Hopefully we can come to a lasting conclusion. I think WP:Copyright_problems would be a better venue to entertain this, because individual Wiki projects aren't in position to weigh-in on copyright policies. Graywalls (talk) 04:27, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I have seen Google not offer full text for works which I know are in the public domain, such as federal works, so I don't regard that as dispositive one way or the other. If you'll forgive me, you're the one who is going round to individual articles and removing sources piecemeal, and directing people to various talk pages. You've also removed links to what you consider personal sites, though in some cases the individual wikiproject has determined that those personal sites have sufficient reputation to justify inclusion. It would be best, I think, if you open some centralized discussions on both points and gain some consensus for your positions. Mackensen (talk) 14:01, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * This isn't sufficient as for "some consensus"? Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_276 Graywalls (talk) 14:10, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Well, agrees with you, and that's not nothing, but no, I wouldn't have gone a mass-removal spree when one editor agreed with me and the other explicitly did not. You commingled two questions with very different policy postures: should these sites be linked to externally and should these sites be used as sources. No one there explicitly evaluated the credibility of utahrails.net as a source (who runs it, is it a wiki, is the information there reliable). The discussion wasn't well-attended. I don't disagree that there are numerous and significant sourcing problems within railroad articles, specifically trains, but there needs to be wider participation in these discussions. Mackensen (talk) 14:18, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Working on the copyright concerns. Let's see what the correct Wikimedia Foundations procedures when we're not absolutely certain. Do we lean on the side of cautious, or on the side of permissive? It seems that EMD service manuals, internal documents, drafts, etc would be "Unpublished anonymous and pseudonymous works, and works made for hire (corporate authorship)" copyrighted for 120 years according to https://copyright.cornell.edu/publicdomain#Footnote_2. Often time service and technical manuals on non-consumer products weren't freely available to purchase to just anyone, so these might not be able to claim "public domain". So going to WP:COPYLINK, then it would seem that this would be like linking to unauthorized duplication of lyrics. We should wait to see what Diannaa has to say. Graywalls (talk) 14:54, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, whether the operator manual is published or not is key to any question of public domain or fair use, as far as linking goes. However, given the presence of manuals in multiple libraries, we're not talking about a strictly internal document, so it's permissible as a source regardless of its copyright status. I would note that the first few pages (I won't link to them) include a price, a publishing location, and the notation "printed in the U.S.A", which certainly gives the appearance of a published work. Clarifying its status may be difficult. Mackensen (talk) 15:30, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

, Regarding the one site (not the utahrail.net) one, there's plenty of ambiguity about it that makes linking to that site questionable. Some of their .html accessed through their index reads "This document is posted with written permission from EMD" but not all of them. Within the same site, it's easily navigated to items of potential copyright concerns. For example, a complete PDF scanned of General Electric Co Locomotive Service Manual # GEK-30150 that is dated August, 1978. or, complete PDF scan of Amtrak Maintenance Training Manual For Superliner passenger Cars by Pullman Incorporated of Chicago, Illinois dated July 15, 1977. So, linking to this site would be like describing a video and citing to an index.html that includes some legit items alongside links to download a bunch of other likely infringing contents. Graywalls (talk) 16:09, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Perhaps so, but the discussion on the RSN was about linking to personal sites, not copyright concerns. Those are two separate issues, one of which was addressed inadequately, the other not at all. I don't think WP:COPYVIOEL contemplates blacklisting a site because it may have some infringing material on it, alongside non-infringing material, and that has nothing to do with the relative reliability of the self-published content on that site. Mackensen (talk) 18:22, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * , I think we're on a different understanding on the copyright issues. Since the RR-FF is not a usual website, but a repository of scanned files that are possibly infringing, a case could be made to blacklist it. I'm going to set copyright discussion aside until we have input who is more versed on this than I am.


 * On the matter of personal website, the contents in http://utahrails.net/ajkristopans is a mirror of now defunct WebTV personal web page of Andre Kristopans. Upon independently checking for what he's published, I didn't find anything other than being a commentator/guest editor to an open membership railfan organization, therefore the source doesn't clear as reliable source for a WP:SPS; and since it's a personal page, the general guidelines would suggest that it's an ELNO. In a very old discussion on Utahrails (and not including the mirroring courtesy for other fandom sites), [] seems to indicate maybe if it's confined to matters within UTAH related rails stuff. Graywalls (talk) 19:00, 17 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Yes, material published by Don Strack is probably usable, given Strack's other publications and general standing. That there is some unreliable self-published content doesn't negate that and we have to be careful about painting with too broad a brush. Regarding Fallen Flags, it's tricky. Railfans have a loose understanding of copyright, and there's a good deal of content there which is undoubtedly infringing. On the other hand, it's one of the few places where one can find otherwise reliable sources. There's a well-understood problem with long copyright terms and old materials falling out of circulation. Mackensen (talk) 19:36, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * , there's no support of using his materials for anything beyond UTAH related rails. But it's only based on one or two comments. There's been no consensus in support of acknowledging his page. We must also ask... if we have to use his stuff, does the stuff really need to be on here? Is it of interest to anyone but the special interest rail fans to have arduous details of whereabouts, chain of custody of specific rail car VIN? Also, the specific section I have referenced isn't published by him. It's a mirror of another "railfan" site hosted no his page. So it's like reader submitted articles in magazines and letter to the editor which generally prints the contributors' comments in verbatim. So it's like those contents in people dot ivyleagueschool dot edu/name/stuff.html You can't inherit reliability of the hosting domain. Graywalls (talk) 01:08, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

EMD Product Reference Data Card and original buyers section
It is my belief that the EMD Product Reference Data Card reference that User:SSW9389 has reintroduced is not an acceptable source for Wikipedia, as it violates WP:PRIMARY in that it has not been published. It is a primary source that other editors cannot verify as it is unpublished, yet it is being used to support a massive list which has no other sources. I attempted to discuss this issue on the user's talk page User talk:SSW9389 and at the reliable sources noticeboard but have been ignored in both places.

I believe this reference should be removed and either replaced by reliable secondary sources, or failing that the giant original buyers section to be removed or significantly reduced in size. I'm posting here to gather feedback from other editors, since it is clear this user will just revert me without engaging in discussion if I try to make the change again. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 19:55, 12 September 2021 (UTC)


 * I need to dig out McDonnell and a few others, but it should be possible to source the list from reliable secondary sources. The notes column should go; it's trivial by definition. Mackensen (talk) 23:21, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I also want to correct some misconceptions by just now. A road number isn't a "VIN"; it's issued by the owner and can change. Railway rosters, where they exist, always include road numbers. The comp here isn't a car, but probably an airplane. Airplanes do have such lists, see for example List of Boeing 747 operators. Mackensen (talk) 23:24, 10 July 2023 (UTC)


 * First of all, is the inclusion of such an exhaustive list of who bought what units encyclopedically WP:DUE? On a Ford vehicle model page, you don't see a list of which municipal fleet bought which VINs for example. What is the encyclopedic value of such information for trains? Also, it's been well over a year since this started to see challenge.. and nobody has added WP:RS. I believe the whole thing should stay off for now, at least until reliable sources back it up.
 * Semantics aside, I disagree it's encyclopedic to maintain a list of specific serial numbers. Encyclopedia should be a wealth of information, but not exhaustive. By the way, demanding I revert myself back for reverting you once was unnecessarily harsh, wouldn't you say so? Graywalls (talk) 23:35, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
 * You're edit-warring. Please reverse yourself isn't exactly a demand, but your revert is contrary to the letter and spirit of WP:BRD. You're not a new editor, you know this. Mackensen (talk) 23:44, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

, Also, if other publications haven't bothered to publish it, it's an indication of notice not taken, thus including such thing could be undue per WP:DUE. One could look up primary source specifications about just about anything be it cardboard boxes, soda cans, screws, but to include such exhaustive details would violate the general idea of due weight. Graywalls (talk) 23:40, 10 July 2023 (UTC)


 * It's simply wrong to state that other publications haven't bothered to publish it. One source that has published fairly complete roster information is Wilson. This is a reliable, modern source. There is widespread consensus that such rosters do not represent undue weight, although individual details may be trivial and should be removed. Mackensen (talk) 23:48, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
 * A second source is Preston Cook's article in Classic Trains, which is already cited for the overall number of units. . Mackensen (talk) 23:54, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm not strictly opposed to listing the original buyers of F7s. However such a list should be properly cited (and there are reliable publications for this information, it's just that your average editor doesn't bother citing their sources) and neatly organized without cruft such as "unit 1234 wrecked and retired in 1969". I have had limited editing time for a while now and this will be continuing for the foreseeable future - and with many things competing for my attention on Wikipedia this isn't something I have time to work on right now. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:04, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Note that featured article Providence and Worcester Railroad includes a properly-cited and well-organized locomotive roster. Done properly they can be encyclopedic. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:14, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm working on this but I'm away from my books for a few days. Mackensen (talk) 01:29, 12 July 2023 (UTC)