Posted 04 March 2017 - 07:54 AM
A lot of steam lovers despised the F-units because they were perceived as the diesel locomotives that vanquished steam. Way back when I was young, I sort of felt that way about them. Today, though, I realize how really timeless their design was/is. No locomotive, before or since, has equaled their clean, "smooth" look. And, of course, while their horsepower and tractive effort was meager compared to today's locomotives, their fuel and combustion efficiency for the power they generated were, like it or not, a huge improvement over steam locomotives. A testament to the good prime mover design was that the basic EMD 2-cycle Roots blower design that the F's 567 prime mover pioneered lasted all the way up to the last couple years in US locomotives, and is still sold overseas in markets where Tier 4 is not yet in effect.
As far as modeling goes, there are a lot of good F's out there, and many were modeled quite nicely back when modeling was pretty crude in MSTS. They have stood the test of time well, just like the prototypes.