I am considering to to buy one but want to hear from anyone who already owns it? How does it perform? Any complains, breakages? For $500 street price it is quite an investment 
I just noticed yesterday that it’s marked down from $750 to $599. I don’t know anything about it, but from what I saw, it looks like you need to an additional $100 worth of accessories to make it work right. Too rich for my wallet.
From what I read about the original one, it operates magnetically so every container that you want to pick up must have a steel plate inside.
Nope, you dont need to buy anything else to make it work right. The only issue it has is that with North American 40 foot + containers you have to rotate them 90 degrees when you move it through the uprights…
David B
http://www.walthers.com/exec/search?manu=322&split=30&start=150
My bad![:I] I guess the other stuff they have listed is to make the base larger and add more containers.(oops!)
The $750 is the MSRP but you can get it for less pretty much anywhere. The orginal version has been discounted more than usual because there is now a version w/US markings on it but is as far as I know the same.
In looking at this product, I think they missed the boat as far as the price point is concerned.
The big problem is that this is basically a DCC device, but they built it with a proprietary controller. So, they have to sell an entire DCC system with it. That system can’t connect to anything else, so you can’t use it to “upgrade” your DC system to DCC, and you can’t connect it to your existing DCC system, either.
If I’d been doing their engineering, I would have made two versions. The first would have been what they’ve got now, but the second would come without the DCC system hardware, and without the fancy controller. Instead, you’d get the addresses and function codes on a piece of paper, and you could program your own DCC system to run it from a standard throttle. This option should be a couple of hundred dollars cheaper at the MSRP level.
Oh, and I’d be willing to bet that they didn’t re-invent DCC, even for the system that they’ve got. Inside this thing is probably one of the standard systems, most likely Lenz since both are made in Germany. If so, they could even offer the fancy controller as an option, with the appropriate plugs and jacks to connect it to your command bus.
At $750, this is a very expensive item. It’s also more “toy” than most MR stuff. Sure, it would be cool to have, but how many times are you going to load and unload containers before it gets very, very tiresome? I could see this on a club layout, where everyone gets a turn to unload a container train. Even there, though, it wouldn’t surprise me if most guys avoided “container duty” after the first time through the rotation. (“Sorry, Ed, I’ve voluteered to clean out the coffee maker tonight.”)