Have been looking to expand my Lionel railroad with an MTH steam engine. What do you all suggest? From what I’ve seen, most MTH engines really smoke like the devil–which I like. I’m not really partial to one railroad over another–just want something that has nice detail and will interact with my Lionel stuff (Not looking to go to DCS controllers–yet[;)]) The train show was just in Anaheim and I saw the Erie 2-8-8-8-2 triplex. That was an awesome engine–but it requires O-72 curves. Haven’t really thought about how big of a radius I’d consider. Let me know your thoughts.
Boy did you just open a can of worms![:)]. You’ll probably get some good advice, some will react in horror at you thinking about MTH, etc. That said, the quality of MTH is similar to Lionel. All MTH engines will run quite well in conventional. Since you didn’t specify what your minimum curves are, I’ll keep my reccomendations to Railking steam.
Any of the recent(last2-3 years) offerings are pretty decent units. You have a choice of 2-8-0’s, 4-6-4’s 0-8-0’s, 0-6-0’s, even some 4-8-2’s and 4-8-4’s. All will run on O31, and all are priced between 300-400$. I suggest that you go to the MTH website www.mthtrains.com and go to the catalog section, and see what you like. You can also use the search function (on the webpage at the top) to find specific types of steam engines(like a 4-6-4).
Hope this helps you find what you are looking for. I’ve got 4 railking steamers, and they all run well.
On the flip side, make sure your BATTERIES are charged!!!
I work with MTH every Saturday. When they run they are great and when they break, it’s a nightmare. I won’t give any advice, cause I just don’t care for 'em and have several reasons that I will not poison you with. All I’ll say is pound for pound, dollar for dollar, I’ll take the Lionel EVERY time. That’s my preference working with both products.
I have 3 used ones for sale right now. Blue comet 263E Tin Plate, Climax Steam Engine and 260E Tin Plate, black/green w/ brass trim, never opened. Contact me at Jskve@aol.com if interested. Jake
I have heard about the MTH battery trouble–that worries me. I’m not a big fan of putting an engine on the track, firing up the voltage with the engine in neutral, and leaving it there for 14+ hours. I agree that Lionel makes quality items–it’s just that I saw a few MTH engines at the train show and was just absolutely blown away by their smoke production. I think Lionel’s engines have that capability, but none that I have can. I have the Canadian Pacific Diesel (which is fan driven) but it still doesn’t hold a candle to what I saw last Saturday.
Side note: Any other way to charge the battery on MTH engines other than the way I described?
Yes, many MTH locomotives have a power jack on the bottom, that MTH sells an external charger to plug into while off track. I don’t know if MTH has resolved it’s weak battery problems, it was just SOME, and seemed to be mainly Proto Sound 1 (PS1) locomotives, that said I currently have a PS1 2-6-0 and a PS2 2-8-0 that are out of service, with suspected battery problems (power up, lights and smoke, NO sound or movement) plus a PS 2 F-3 that does not behave well at all, runs when it wants to, and is very difficult to get to reverse.
MTH smoke units are generally very prolific smokers, but if run in a small room can quickly become annoying, some do have smoke volume control. I have many more Lionels than MTH. I have many more problems with MTH than Lionel.
Good Luck with whatever you buy, and Enjoy the Hobby,
I have a Railking 280 with Locosound. No battery to fuss with but it has speed control and smokes like crazy. It came in a RTR set with 031 railtrax, It runs fine on my fastrack layout. Justtrains has complete sets for $205.00 or engine only for $135.00 My only complaint is the horn and whistle only work with the chuff system on. Mark
If you are looking for steam engines, why not give Weaver a look. i just recently strayed from solely Lionel, to adding a Weaver locomotive. After experiencing it, I think there will be more to follow. The detail is outstanding and I could not be happier with its operation, easily as smooth as any of my Lionels. Another plus is that you can get lots of them equipped with Lionel railsounds and TMCC should you choose to go automated at a later date, you would be staying “in system”. Personally, and it is only a personal opinion, i would not take a MTH locomotive if it was given to me. This based not just on the horror stories of all the issues a simple dead battery can cause, but on treatment by MTH at train shows when I actually had an interest in their product.
I have some postwar as well as MTH, I’ve had Lionel and I can honestly say you’ll get a dog no matter what you buy sometimes. I have 4 MTH loco,s 3 I’m selling as they don’t fit the logging layout and they are all flawless. The MTH Shay is an animal! Runs across all types of switches, etc, etc with no problems. The MTH climax did not like the big switch Atlas makes, otherwise I"d never get rid of it. Jake
MTH engines do smoke better than any other, and most of them look great, but other than that I can’t think of anything else thats good to say about them. Just MY opinion, others will disagree.
MdainSD … What steps do you go through to turn a weaver into command control. I’ve been interested in weaver but really like command control and all I have is running in the tmcc/lionel environment.
Eric, No steps at all, they come that way from Weaver. Not just with TMCC but also with K-line cruise module. Im not sure how many models come that way but a bunch do. The description n the catalog doesnt really say enough, but if its listed with "sound’ check close and it may have TMCC and cruise.
LOL, WEAVER, not williams. I dont kow but the railsounds version is probably differnt as the years progress. I know the ones I have are NOT RS5, but they are also a few years old.
K Line also offered some locomotives with factory installed TMCC.
The Pacific in the pic below has factory TMCC, the passenger cars are K Line also, the Streamliners are Aluminum with detailed interiors and passengers. (except the Diner on the left, second level down, that is an Aluminum Lionel, from the City of Denver Set)
The top four Steamers on the right are all Big Boys, the top one is a Lionel Standard O Scale size, the one below it is a Lionel LionMaster, the third one down is an MTH Rail King, with a K Line below that. The K Line BB is Factory TMCC also, but it is really built to S Scale proportions, with O Gauge running gear, it is a very detailed and good looking Locomotive, but it’s out of scale proportions really stand out when near other O Gauge locomotives, especially other Big Boys. I Believe this is the tooling that Lionel is using for thier New American Flyer Big Boy release, if so the AF guys will be getting a Very Handsome Big Boy offering in thier scale. To give another perspective on how out of scale it is, that is a Lionel LionMaster Challenger below it, and it is even smaller than a semi-scale Challenger.
Yes the three Greyhounds are all LionMasters, although the JLC scale versions are on my “I’m Gonna get me one of those someday” list, with the economy the way it is, hours at work have been way down. Right now, I’m just working on paying the mortgage, and haven’t “invested” in many Locomotives lately. The two Grey and silver are identical, but I got a good deal on the second one and couldn’t pass it up.
After Lionel Dumped the HO line, I put together a Full collection of their HO Challengers with a couple of the 3980’s ( which surprizingly happen to be my Favorite Locomotives)
I consider my Trains an “Investment”, but rather one in my Sanity, rather than Financial, though there are those who question my Sanity, BECAUSE of my collection,
interesting. I have the JLC greyhound and it is about my favorite loco. the hard part was finding the aux tender for it. Ive been tol only a handful of those were made.
I Really Hope to add the JLC Challengers to my collection someday. I have seen both the Black (3985) and the Greyhound(3977) sell on evilbay for $800-900 recently, GREAT time to buy, but right now, it’s just not the prudent thing to do.But WOW, was I TEMPTED.
Do you know if they offered a Grey and Silver JLC Challenger (I have never seen or heard of one) or were the Silver Greyhounds just in the LionMaster Line?
