Whats the differnce between Regular Atlas loco’s and the Atlas Master series?
After 5 hours and no replies, I’ll give you some generic advice, since I don’t own any Atlas locos and can’t speak from experience.
Generally speaking, you pay a price premium over the regular model, but you get better details, higher quality parts, and sometimes a better motor / gearing. DCC compatibility may differ as well.
Atlas has three different lines for locomotives, currently.
Master Gold is their top quality stuff, with a huge amount of scale metal and plastic details, as well as full DCC and sound (QSI?).
Master Silver is the same as Gold, but is only DCC ready and has weights in place of speakers. I have a Silver series 8-40B, and it is easily my best diesel (compared to Genesis, Proto 2000, Kato, etc).
Trainman uses the same chassis as the Master diesels, but the detail is very basic (about the same as Proto 1000). The Genset has more separate details, but it’s still very generic.
I have 5 Atlas locos. 2 Silver Series, 2 Trainman, and 1 Trainman Plus (NRE Genset)
They all are very smooth running and quiet. The Genset is a good loco, but lacks some details. The Trainman locos also lack details like grab irons and more detailed fans.
The Trainman locos can be easily be converted to DCC.
Everybody wants to beat around the bush but I’ll give you a direct answer: fifty to seventy -five iron me!
What does that mean? Why are some Cadillacs more expensive than Buicks when they are built on the same body?; why are some Buicks more expensive than Chevrolets when they too are built on the same body? Just as automobiles are built to fill a particular niche of ownership so too are products in model railroading. You will ultimately get what you pay for!
Hmm… good question - which probably is complicated by when any given Atlas HO loco was produced.
The Atlas yellow box loco’s were “regular” in their time, ran smoothly, had limited detail and were not DCC ready. They were only marginally better than the current Atlas Trainman line which is a line with a good smooth running chassis but few details, molded on grab irons or no separate grab irons applied etc.
Atlas red box (regular line) are generally DCC ready or friendly, more detailed loco’s.
-here is a description from my regular red box GP40:
Features:
- Realistic die-cast underframe
- Five-pole skewed armature motor with dual flywheels for optimum performance at all speeds
- Directional lighting
- Factory-equipped with AccuMate® knuckle couplers
- DCC ready
- Detailed cab interior with crew
- Separately-installed scale windshield wipers, metal grab irons and fine scale handrails
- Movable drop steps
- Walkway safety tread
- Coupler cut bars
- Multiple unit hoses and trainline hoses
Atlas Master Silver series (I have two) are same as regular but equipped with a decoder.
-here is a description of their GP40’s from my silver series run:
Features:
- Realistic die-cast underframe
- Five-pole skewed armature motor with dual flywheels for optimum performance at all speeds
- Directional lighting
- Factory-equipped with AccuMate® knuckle couplers
- Detailed cab interior with crew
- Separately-installed scale windshield wipers, metal grab irons and fine scale ha
You could ask this over in the Atlas HO forum and maybe get some more answers.
In fact, I believe that some of the Trainman line actually are older “regular” Atlas products, like the N scale iron ore car.
Except for the models produced by Roco in the 70s & early 80s and the Alco “S” units, all Atlas models share the same drive trains, Older units (from '88 onward) have the Kato drive and later in the '90s they have the Chinese-made Kato-clone drive (which is just as good as the original Kato). The differences are in the detail level and electronic features or lack thereof.
Posting there mainly seems to start arguements…
When you say “regular” Atlas Loco’s are you talking about older ones? The Master series of loco’s hasn’t been around that long, maybe 5 or 6 years I’m guessing. Silver is your plug and play DCC friendly loco and the Gold is the same loco but with sound. The regular ones I think your talking about are basically Silver series loco’s before the Silver series was around. An example, I have a few GP40-2’s that are around 6 years old in GO Transit colours. They came in the basic black Atlas box as well as red boxes. I just recently picked up 3 Atlas Ontario Northland GP40-2’s in the Silver series packaging and guess what, they are the same locomotive. Unless it’s a old loco, from what I can tell the Atlas black packaging loco’s are DCC friendly as well. Some red one’s are and some not. I’ve installed decoders in dozens of them and they are a simple plug and play setup, just like the Silver series. I just recently did a few C424’s that were plug and play and a few older GP40-2’s that were not. Detail wise the basic black packaging, Silver series and Gold series are the same, the Trainman line is the lesser detailed line but it is clearly marked Trainman.