Who makes the best trains?
Depends on what you’re looking for.
For detail, features, and price, K-line can’t be beat. For simplicity and good running, postwar Lionel trains are the best out there. New Lionel tops everyone in variety, features, and the name. MTH makes the best starter sets.
Brio.
Really, tho, Ben pretty much nailed it.
I would add a couple of things to his list.
Simplicity & good running: add Williams to Lionel PW
Scale fidelity: Atlas, Weaver, 3rd Rail
I think we hit them all!
I make nice trains out of Legos, but I don’t want to toot my horn as being the best. There is a company called Kohs that makes nice trains.
KitchenAid Why KitchenAid. Used to stir up things. I am beginning to think MTH has passed Lionel except in price.
I’d have to say MTH, but not on everything
K-Lines product quality has gone up exponentially in the past 2-3 years. They are very affordable and have all the guts like command controll from Lionel, so you don’t have to mess around with another companys CC system. I think my favorite thing about K-Line is their rolling stock, and in particular, their tank cars. I got a BN through the membership and that car is top notch.
Lionel is overpriced. I think they make a very good product, but I think they have become the Abercrombie and Fitch of the industry, you know you are paying a little extra just for the name. Their engines are very nice (the scale ones) and tney have good electronics, sound, CC, etc.
Weaver has a very large product offering, especially for their brass items, which are really limited to them and 3rd rail. What I like about them is that they will come out with a product, and put it in a wide variety of road names. I think their VO-1000 might have 10 different ones. Lionel and MTH limit themselves to 2 or 3, which I think is a drawback to those two companies
Atlas has the best track in my opinion. Highly detailed locomotives, lots of road names, but still a rather small product line compared to Lionel and MTH. The one engine I have purchaced from them has a quirky sound board and isn’t as smooth as other trains I have from other manufacturers.
Williams, cannot beat it for price and durability. Like the saying goes, they really are nearly bulletproof. Decent detail and you can run them without worrying about them breaking if they derail.
3rd Rail, Don’t know much about them but they do make very nice engines. They have Lionel electronics which is good, but they are quite pricy.
MTH, great detail and quality in their engines, Proto Sound 2 is eccelent, their DCC comand controll can be used to run lionel engines so you don’t loose on the investment (I don’t know whether or not Lionel CC does the same for MTH), the
Williams makes the best trains by far. www.williamstrains.com