From Intermountain
These locos were initially planned for the January/February time frame but have now been moved to April of 2016 as the website shows due to a couple of reasons. First, and most importantly, the initial announcement did not receive the needed reservation quantities to schedule the build. This delayed things by several months as we waited for production quantities to meet the minimum specified by our supplier. Secondly, as these were the first F7's announced in N Scale with sound, the F unit frame has to be redesigned to house the speaker and decoder. The update we received from the decoder manufacturer at the Portland NMRA show last weekend was that they are in the process of designing the decoder for a variety of our N Scale locomotives and once that is done, the design specs will be given to the manufacturer for designing the frame. We were told by both parties to expect that process to be complete in the next couple of months. Should that hold true, the April date would be very accurate. If design issues arise, they may be delayed further. Neither party felt there would be any problems in completing their part of the work.
