and he notes -
The "Enhorning Bros." were not brothers at all but father and son,
namely Arthur (the father) and John (the son). The F unit was John's
idea. He was a tool designer for a steel casting company (Bettendorf
if I recall correctly) and knew people at EMD. When the War ended GM
began producing F2s to replace FTs as their primary freight loco and
John proposed a desk-top model as a give away for locomotive buyers.
Ed is correct on the selection of scale and EMD did fund the tooling
but it took so long to produce that by the time the dies were finally
done EMD had F-9s on the drawing board. So the Enhorning F units are
really F2d carbodies masquerading as F7/F9 units.
When the first run was finally made the carbody hump appeared. It has
variously been attributed to the use of scrap plastic, poor location
of the central sprue or inadequate cooling during the molding
process. (AF had the same problem in their 1946/47 plastic cars and
they solved the problem with some retooling and the use of Bakelite
instead of styrene).
Needless to say EMD was not happy with the results and canceled the
production order turning to Athearn for the display model in H0. That
left Enhorning with a pile of F unit shells and is the reason they
appear in S. Had they been successful with EMD, we may have seen only
display models instead of operating units.
I recall meeting John and Arthur at the NESGA convention in Nashua in
1968. John told me that they had licked the hump problem near the end
the first run but the molding company refused to ramake the order
stating that the hump (or distortion as he called it) was a design
flaw. I don't believe there was a second run until Charlie Sanderfeld
took over the dies. That would explain why some of the Enhorning
produced units have no distortion.
There were several iterations of drives from a Rube Goldberg affair
with an open frame motor (K&D I believe) with a plethora of gears to
the final truck mounted can. Most of them ran like coffee grinders!
Arthur ran a decal company for many years before his death and I seem
to recall Pete Jugle saying that the widow had a barn full of diesel
parts for sale. I think Howard Sandusky may have purchased most of
it. I know Al Hall at the Hobby Shop in St Albans had a pile of stuff.
Interesting bit of history...
Raleigh in balmy Maine, or is it Maine with balmy Raleigh!
At 01:10 PM 11/2/2008, ed_loizeaux wrote:
>"Thomas Baker" wrote:
> > 6. Inside the front cover is an advertisement from Enhorning, at
>that time in Chicago. The ad lists the variety of F7 diesels
>available in about 28 road names. Did this outfit sell very many?
>
>Hi Tom....."S"peaking as one of the gray heads, I can relate an
>interesting tale regarding the Enhorning Bros. and their F-unit
>endeavors. This might not be the total story, but I think it
>represents a goodly chunk of the history. It all started when EMD
>was looking for some promotional gifts for their F-unit customers.
>They had sort of decided on a static display model that could be
>placed on a desk or maybe a shelf. HO was too small to be
>impressive. O scale was considered too large for the typical space
>available. So S, with it's perfect size, became the choice.
>
>Somehow, EMD and Enhorning got connected and started talking.
>Enhorning realized that if EMD financed the body/floor/trucks
>molds/tooling, the major cost elements would already be paid for.
>This EMD display model was unpowered. Thus, the Enhornings would
>only have to add a motor, gears, etc. none of which required much, if
>any, tooling. Enhorning got the EMD contract and the project got
>started. How many of the static display models were actually
>produced and sold to EMD is unknown -- at least to me.
>
>I think there were two generations of operating S scale diesels from
>Enhorning. The first had brass -- or was it aluminum -- wheels which
>suffered from arcing, pitting, poor electrical contact, and probably
>a few other things as well. I seem to remember nobody was impressed
>much with the running qualities after a period of time. Also, due to
>the mold design, the cooling of the molten plastic caused warpage in
>the roof of the F-unit just behind the cab. Thus the
>phrase "Enhorning Hump" came into popular use to describe the upward
>bulge that resulted. I suppose EMD didn't care about the bulge, but
>the rivet counting modelers sure noticed it.
>
>The second generation of F-units was announced at about the time I
>entered S scale. I was thrilled with the NYC lightning stripe paint
>scheme in their advertisements. Reminded me of the Hobbytown ads in
>HO. Loved those lightning stripes!! Anyway, if I remember
>correctly, the new generation was to have a better motor, better
>wheels, better this and better that. And so I sent in a deposit and
>waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. Waiting was part of
>the S scale game way back in the '60s just like it is today. Month
>after month, the ads implied it was only going to be a short while
>more.
>
>Eventually, I tired of waiting and took matters into my own hands. I
>telephoned them. Now this was back in the days when long distance
>phone calls cost serious money. No such thing as the "300-minute
>plan" back then. So I called Enhorning in Michigan all the way from
>the Los Angeles area where I lived at the time. One of the Enhorning
>brothers actually answered the phone and we embarked on a discussion
>of what was happening with the F-unit project.
>
>He summarized it neatly for me by saying (paraphrased): "It is all
>done except for the magnet." I asked, "What magnet?" He then went
>into a long dissertation about how they were going to make their own
>motors and were experimenting with iron particles (dust) and were
>thinking of compressing them in a mold to form a magnet for the
>motor. The experiments were taking longer than expected, but
>everything else was completed. I asked why they didn't just buy a
>motor instead of making their own. He replied that commercial motors
>were "not good enough" or something similar. And so the waiting game
>was to continue for an indefinite time until the magnetic dust
>experiments were concluded.
>
>After some cogitation, I wrote to Enhorning and asked that they send
>me all the plastic parts they had (which they did) and then I started
>looking around for something to power them with. Jon Beveridge -- or
>was it Locomotive Workshop -- came upon the scene back then with
>power units and that solved the problem. Total elapsed time to get
>an F-unit back then was well over three or four years -- forgot the
>exact time frame, but there was no such thing as instant
>gratification. None at all!!
>
>I also remember writing a letter to Frank Titman suggesting that
>running ads that unrealistically promised an F-unit were not doing S
>scale any favors since, in reality, it was going to be years away if
>at all. I felt being honest about the situation was better and,
>apparently, Frank agreed because the Enhorning ads were discontinued
>at about that time. To the best of my knowledge, the so-called
>second generation of powered Enhorning diesels never made it to
>market. I would still be waiting for an F-unit today except for Tom
>Marsh, Jim Kindraka, Don Thompson and Ron Bashista all of whom have
>brought us F-units in one form or another over the years.
>
>Cheers...Ed L.
>
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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