i had a question ,yes just one .i want a diesel loco ,thats strong ,all wheel pick up ,dc/dcc ,and quiet .mainly i want to know who has the reputation for building strong,quiet ,good runners .looking for a company thats also price competive. yeah i dont ask for much .
kato, bachmann spectrum, atlas many others but those are the main ones.
probably athearn BB ones as well, though i think (as far as i can tell from other posts on the forums) they are DC, though perhaps DCC Ready - and not made anymore (get them used from train shows, LHS, etc).
Pick up an out-of-production Lifelike P2K at Trainworld or M.B. Klein. If you aren’t fussy about road name, or you happen to like the ones they have, you can get some really fine engines for 30 or 40 dollars. You’ll have to add a decoder, but most are plug-equipped. These are all new-in-the-box.
Stewart is my suggestion. Not produced in the same numbers as some of the bigger players, but strong, quiet runners. Stewart was bought out by Bowser not quite a year ago.
HD
Can’t go wrong with any of the newer Atlas diesels. silver series if you don’t want DCC and Gold series if you do. If you want a loco that atlas doesn’t make then the above suggested manuf. should work.
Bob DeWoody
The best engines out there are Kato, Atlas and P2K. All of the newer models from those comapies are DCC ready. They dont have a decoder, but you can just plug one in and off you go. Stewart are good too, but they have a small selection and may not make what you are looking for. As mentioned, go to www.trainworld.com and you can get awesome deals on these engines.
Athearn BB are still produced, though in much smaller numbers. They have no DCC provision and require that you isolate the motor and lights from the frame, otherwise you will just keep smoking decoders. Athearn BB engines run forever, but compared to Kato, Atlas and P2K they are noisy, have poor detail and dont pull very much. And they are about the same price as the Atlas, Kato and P2K providing you order from trainworld. But if you are at a train show and find a BB engine cheap, go ahead and get it. With a little maintainance it will outlive you.