which brand dcc/sound locos do you buy?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
41

50% more DCC/sound locos? Meaning sales are 60% DCC and sound to 40% DCC ready?

I would easily expect that at this point in the game.

That is actually in line with informal surveys regarding DCC use vs DC in both N and HO.

I full well expect manufacturers to do what makes the most sense in terms of their sales numbers.

What Broadway will never know is how many sales they lost not offering DC locomotives.

Athearn, Walthers, even relatively new Rapido do not seem ready to give up on DC/DCC ready models. Maybe their research tells them they will loose sales if they do?

I would just like to see one thing - DCC, or DCC/sound models built to be easily backwards compatible - unplug the DCC and install a jumper plug.

Sheldon

42

I am a diesel only guy now, when I did steam it was Westside Models and dc only.

Now I only buy 4 axle Athearn Genesis until Scale Trains comes out with 4 axle locomotives or an accurate SD45 in Wisconsin Central. All locomotives are purchased dcc ready and I install the ESU sound decoders.

As for houses. I doubt the 70’s were the last of quality homes built. What an elitist, inaccurate opinion. Define it as your opinion and it’s better but still snobby. Our 1st home 1800 sq. ft. was a well built quality stick built home in 1980. Our 2nd home built in 2019 while costing 20 times more then the 1st home is craftsmanship that needs to be seen not written about. There is now and there was quality craftsmanship in every decade. As there was crap, basically like trains, in housing you get what you pay for.

Tom in Wisconsin

43

The trend seems to be towards all locos having a 21 pin plug greenboard and speaker installed, with either a 21 pin DCC ready board plugged in or a 21 pin sound decoder. I assume that all hardwired DCC/Sound decoders will slowly fade away from the OEM market.

I would hope that the DCC Ready plug allows the loco to perform normally on DC. As you know, some of the LL P2K locos in the early days ran slow compared to others due to the configuration of the board and the lighting, and constantly changing the lightboards.

If everything is the same with the exception of the what gets plugged into the board, a decoder or not, I w

44

When I first started looking at houses in NE Florida, it was 2 weeks after Hurricane Irma. Driving around St Augustine, it was striking to see the older homes so damaged by the winds. Going to the next town north, Ponte Vedra, had newer homes, mostly built after 2010. The only homes there that I saw with significant damage was due to something else, like a tree, falling on them. The newer houses were a better quality when it came to construction.

I bought a house built in 2017, and I would challenge anyone to find the quality of it lacking. It also came in a neighborhood that has an HOA, which I wanted to keep the riff raff in check. It is also worth twice what I paid for it in 2018, so I think I made the right decision for my family.

45

I said “modest housing” and there are always exceptions. I will happy to explain my opinion when I have more time.

Quality can be defined in a number of different ways, just as with model trains.

Sheldon

46

Construction “quality”.

Today, and for the last 20-30 years, we build the structural part of the house better than we ever have in the history of light frame construction, no question. Almost to the point of over building.

We make them more resistant to severe weather, better insulated, etc., there is no question about that.

But many of the finishes we use today, interior and exterior, are cheap, and not designed to last more than 20-25 years at best.

Vinyl siding, Vinyl windows, light weight pressed masonite doors, thinner, lighter, composite material trim and moldings, flooring products that are “disposable” after 15 years, particle board cabinets, noisy cold stamped steel tubs, or fiberglass tubs, the list goes on.

Are there better products out there? sure, and lots of people choose to use them. But builders constructing entry level or first step up housing don’t use them.

These houses guarantee that the home improvement business in such neighborhoods will be booming in 15 years when this stuff starts wearing out.

Now, as you go up in price, many consumers demand better, and many higher end homes are built with very nice finishes - but not always, or not universally in all catagories of products.

For those who don’t know, I restore houses for a living. A few examples:

The top two pictures are from my own home, recently sold after restoring it 25 years ago, appearing on HGTV and winning several awa

47

I clicked on this “loco brand” thread expecting to see Sheldon promoting Bachmann products and instead Im greeted with pictures of houses.

I dont know why I expect threads to stay on topic anymore lol

Charles

48

Converstations go where they go.

I already gave my standard answer about limiting your choices based on long ago reputations, and occasional duds.

Not one brand has a perfect track record. And not one brand is likely to make every loco you want.

So it makes more sense to judge each product on its own merits and take the best from all of them, depending on your likes, needs and modeling interests.

So, after 20 years of dramatic improvement, tomorrow Bachmann (or Athearn, if your are an Athearn hater) comes out with that one loco you really want for your roster.

All your friends buy them and are happy, you talk to a 100 guys on this forum and only one has a problem that Bachmann (or Athearn) takes care of.

You’re not going to buy one because that GS4 you bought 35 years ago had the axles come out of the drivers and the pancake motor burned up? (Or, your Athearn Mikado, made for them by a company about to go out of business had a cracked gear they could not get parts for?)

Your loss.

The one that makes me laugh is when someone says they only buy KATO in HO. KATO has not made enough different HO locos anytime recently to even be on my buying radar, partly because I model 1954.

Yes, I have a lot of Bachmann steam, and I have passed on a lot of other Bachmann products. I have a lot of Proto2000, a fair amount of Intermountain, Genesis, some BLI, a few pieces of brass, and a list of others.

I don’t have any MTH, ScaleTrains, Stewart/Bowser, my only Walthers offering is one set of their Proto F units.

And again, none of my locos have DCC…

Sheldon

49

Sheldon, please forgive my stupidity. I missed your comment of “modest houses”.

I am sorry

Tom

50

No worries.

51

I like the Bachmann sound value, you can’t beat the price. I only paid $60 for S4 at a B&M. Best runners are a pair of Atlas HH660. Stewart’s can be hit or miss, have two, the VO1000 is noisey and the VO600 tends to derail at one place no other engine dose. Have a Proto S1 that runs sweet and 7 Proto steam, all run well. Have a MTH which dose not fit my era but came with my operating system, it dose run well but the automatic couplers are a bit of a joke.

52

I’ve bought mostly DC locos over the years. Very early on, I learned to wire in simple DCC decoders, and then I stepped up to sound decoders. Sound didn’t become common until I’d already started in DCC, but now I prefer to buy my engines with sound already installed.

I’m not fussy about manufacturers. I don’t typically repaint engines, so I only look for the lines I want. I have subways and trolleys, too, so that limits my choices. Lifelike made a couple of my geeps, and Walthers took over that line, as they did with my R17 subways. Trolleys came from Bowser and Bachmann. I still have old geeps and F-units from the 1950s, most of which I’ve converted to dummies or sound dummies.

I would never get an MTH engine with a DCS decoder, but other than that, I will look at anything.

53

I got locos from all sorts of manufacturers. I dont limit myself to certain manufacturers, but rather buy from whoever makes the models I need.

I model the ATSF 1954 and PRR 1946, so whoever makes models that suit that era has my money.

Unlike many PRR models, ATSF steam tends to be very uncommon in non-brass, with only BLI making the 4-8-4, 2-10-2, and finally the 2-8-2. Therefore, much of my ATSF fleet is brass, which require decoders, paint, springs, can motors and sometimes new gearboxes. These force me to work with my models, which I enjoy. And they end up looking nice enough:

Unlike others, I DO have some MTH locos (a USRA 2-8-2, two K4s, a GS-4, and an F7 Im about to part with). I bought them because they were cheaper than the competition, and suited my needs. The K4s were bought for around $150 each, which is $100 under BLIs. The 2-8-2 was had for $130, and F7 had for $120. The GS-4 Id argue is the better than its competition.

Having limited DCC functionality doesnt bother me. The look good enough, got amazing mechanisms, and sound great. Drawbar pull on the other hand is quite poor.

These days, there really arent any manufacturers I would outright avoid for any reason besides high pricing. All make satisfactory models IMO.

Cheers,

Charles

54

[quote user=“Doughless”]

ATLANTIC CENTRAL

SeeYou190

My old employer had very strict rules where the term “legacy” was to be applied to a product in current production.

Earlier, if the cylinder head capscrew threads in the engine block were SAE sized, and not metric, it was a legacy engine platform.

This caused some concern among customers, because our 60 liter engines had 3/4" Fine Thread on the cylinder head capscrews, thus it was a legacy engine, and that would not fly.

The rules were changed and became so complicated that most of it seemed self-contradictory.

So, I just stopped using the word “legacy” when describing our products.

-Kevin

I see it as just another pointless euphemism to water down the facts and confuse definitions.

I have heard it used by Canadians regarding old/historic houses? As if it is a government sanctioned term?

The US architectural/historic preservation community does not use it. We are rather proud of the fact that our old houses are “old”, and some are “historic”.

We don’t need a euphemism for it. The big blue house I just sold is now 120 years “old”, and still doing very well, with its original slate roof and all.

My new spot is not “new”, but not all that old yet at only 57.

Sheldon

I don’t know what they do in Canada, but the technology of building houses hasn’t really changed

55

I met a pocket and wrist watch restorer 20 years ago who opined that the last good movements were made in the late 60’s. Since then, even the best movements have been a matter of compromise and the bottom line.

56

[quote user=“selector”]

Doughless

ATLANTIC CENTRAL

SeeYou190

My old employer had very strict rules where the term “legacy” was to be applied to a product in current production.

Earlier, if the cylinder head capscrew threads in the engine block were SAE sized, and not metric, it was a legacy engine platform.

This caused some concern among customers, because our 60 liter engines had 3/4" Fine Thread on the cylinder head capscrews, thus it was a legacy engine, and that would not fly.

The rules were changed and became so complicated that most of it seemed self-contradictory.

So, I just stopped using the word “legacy” when describing our products.

-Kevin

I see it as just another pointless euphemism to water down the facts and confuse definitions.

I have heard it used by Canadians regarding old/historic houses? As if it is a government sanctioned term?

The US architectural/historic preservation community does not use it. We are rather proud of the fact that our old houses are “old”, and some are “historic”.

We don’t need a euphemism for it. The big blue house I just sold is now 120 years “old”, and still doing very well, with its original slate roof and all.

My new spot is not “new”, but not all that old yet at only 57.

Sheldon

57

Sheldon and all–

Sorry if my statements were confusing:

I was told 55% dcc and increasing, with 45% plain dc units, and decreasing.

On some items orders were so low that there are literally 52 units or so of each separate item number (dc or dcc, doesn’t matter, that is the minimum order), but on the items where there were larger numbers of pre-orders, the split is about 55% fully featured dcc, all the time, and increasing.

I cannot speak for BLI; the manufacturer I was able to ask just has a different outlook, and presumably, different buyers.

As for BLI, they made a marketing decision; I guess it worked since they are still around, I just am being very cautious about ordering any more items from them since the last steam engine required $120 worth of repairs (or would have waited several months for repair at BLI in their queue). I also was warned that if BLI did my repair, it could easily result in a second separate repair, so I opted to pay another repair service to fix everything that is wrong with the P3 engines right up front (to save time so that my son actually had a usable steam engine). The upgraded engine is indeed excellent, but who really wants to spend $340 to have a steam engine fail and then turn around and spend $120 more to fix it so it is “right”? (This is the same reason that LGB went bankrupt; their much more expensive large scale 2-8-2 was a miserable failure of design engineering and durability, requiring too many trips back to them for repair of failed gears). I’m not implying the BLI might go bankrupt, so don’t read that into this post.

And yes, I am fully fully aware that is much more than the average engine price that Sheldon shelled out for his steam power.

John

58

John, so I was close in my understanding of what you said about percentages. And again it does match the informal info we have on how many people are using DCC vs DC.

Which is interesting because it suggests the DC crowd is still buying locos, and/or the DCC crowd is buying DCC ready to install their own decoders. Likely a mix of both.

I’m sure BLI is doing “OK”, but watching their business model all these years they often seemed cash strapped. Maybe not?

But if other manufacturers are still selling even 35% or 40% DC locomotives, That would imply that BLI might have missed a 40% increase in volume?

John, understand this, I have some locos that I spent $250, $350 or a little more on. But I also have lots of locos, steam and diesel, that I only spent $100, or even only $60 to purchase them.

And most of my “trains” are pulled by 3 and 4 unit diesel lashups or two steam locos. Even at only $100 each, that’s $300 or $400 at the front of a train, times 30 trains.

And many of them were purchased 20 years ago, or 15 years ago, or 10 years ago.

In fact, in the last 10 years I have only purchased about 10 locos, and I have nearly everything I want and need for the new layout.

Another point about the cost of my roster, out of 140 powered units, only 5 were purchased with DCC and sound, which has been removed.

About 15-20 were purchased with DCC, no sound, which has been removed.

The rest were DC (or DCC ready), so they had lower starting msrp pricing to begin with.

Sheldon

59

There’s no doubt it is grammatically incorrect, o

60

When buying sound, I tend to consider the decoder. I prefer ESU, then Tsunami. I have inherited and bought some QSI-equipped locos and they are prima donnas – difficult to reset and don’t play nicely with the Sprog. Luckily I have spares now (thank you Ed!!!) and that helps. I inhereted a QSI-equipped BLI steamer and I find it needs to be reset once or twice a year. I bought a couple cheap MRCs and they were trash – they just don’t work. Avoid, avoid, avoid.

I have to speak out in favor of Bachmann Sound Value – I have a couple and I love them. Biggest problem is they don’t pull much. My 2-6-0 wobbles a bit but for $99 that’s okay. Had an Alco FA-FB-FB-FA set (3x sound, one silent), they didn’t always play well together but were a great set. (Sadly, they were in an A-line box stolen from my car.) Love my GG1 but can’t do much with it.

Favorite sound loco is my Rivarossi U25C. ESU, robust build, great sound, heavy and HUGE pulling power. What a shame the prototype is so ugly.

I have some ESU-equipped Bowsers and they look great but the detail is a bit delicate. Several Athearn Genesis locos – again very delicate but man, do they sweat the details to get 'em right. (Disclaimer: A friend works for Athearn.)

I have one Atlas loco (no sound) and it’s a bit light but a real trooper. Blue-box Proto 2000 E units are also a favorite of mine. Thank goodness for them, they allow me to run realistic NYC trains (2 locos and 16+ cars) on our 2% grades!

Aaron