I didn’t pick one, because I have several from different manufacturers that are the best for that prototype locomotive. P2K Heritage Steam, BLI, and Spectrum are all excellent locos of CERTAIN protypes.
This is a very open topic and better is whatever you think is better. This is your opinion. You decide the terms. You can say any scale, I just had enough room for those choices.
ICMR
Happy Railroading.[swg][swg]
I’d like to see comments or a poll on which specific type of loco is better. For example, who makes the best RS11 Proto or Atlas.
Not enough choices.
ScaleCraft, Lobaugh, All-Nation, not in any particular order.
I didn’t vote,all I own now are P2K units, they male specific engines for my road.They are diffently detailed better then others of same model,gp-9,sw-1200,etc. I’ll wait to see if the new rs-3 offering from Athearn/Roundhouse has a better motor,or atleast on par with Atlas’s rs-3. The roundhouse version is more correct bodywise than Atlas.
The point is, …who knows!!! Find one person on this forum who has sampled 20 of each type of loco, at random, from each manufacturer in a given 5-year period, and who has tested them in a standardized series of tests.
Nope, the question will generate nothing more than anecdotal information for you. Next to worthless.
The list has BLI on it. This stands for Broadway Limited Incorporated.
Vote for BLI if you like them best.
This comes up about once a week and is of no particular value. First, manufacturers rarely make the same unit so you are comparing apples and oranges. Second, people are voting by brand name which acually is irrelevant because -Lifelike doesn’t make anything, it is all made overseas. Same for most of Atlas as well as many others. Some make steam , like Bachmann, while others make mostly diesel like Athearn. Athearn steamers were not made by them (the new ones). Bachmann US does not make anything, it is made by Kader who also makes stuff for others. This could go on and on, but the point is as always, ya pays yer money and takes yer choice. Now, if the question were phrased "who makes the best FP-40 or SD-45 or xxx then the question would have an answer. The other point would be that modelers working on a budget cannot always afford the latest “whiz bang” but that doesn’t mean they don’t have just as much or more fun with their trains
well in what why are the engines best?? I am fairly new to model railroading and have only bought about 4 locos. Last november i started a ho 4x8 using 20 year old equepment, what a nightmare!! the origanal engines where tyco. they needed a little work (and still do!). but i replaced most of the old brass track with atlas. the layout was torn up in march. but by then i had bought 1 atlas, 1 athearn, 1 walthers,1 life-like. they all ran good. now i am starting a railroad. it is a 4x8 n scale. going to have a good yard and a few mainline routes. i am 13 so it will be a challenge but it will be fun because i love trains. i think the real way to decide wich company is best is how they hold up over time. about 3 weeks ago i bought a n scale atlas ran it on my freinds layout. ran asome. but also if the engine can pull a good amount of rolling stock it is a good engine. [^] Tim
I went with Kato N because I own a few of these and have never had any problem out of them at all. As a matter of fact, if Kato produced everything I wanted my entire collection would be made up of Kato. My second favorite is Atlas followed by the better Life Likes and Spectrum.
Tracklayer
It sorta depends on a lot of different things. I only have 3 locomotives: An Athearn, a P2K, and Stewart. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. The decision also changes as you start narrowing the field on whether you’re talking steam or whether you are talking diesel. Then you can throw in detailing, operation, accuracy to the prototype, reliability, etc. I have to agree that the inquiry is too open ended…
Tom
I don’t know.
ScaleCraft and Lobaugh are heavy, balanced (they did that when they designed them), run for ever on the original gears and even motors (open frame K&D), track exquisitely, are a sight to behold.
All-Nation dismals are die-cast (I saw a thread on onother forum about imported die-cast dismals…why?) and they run superbly.
Plus, they’re the right scale.
You asked.
My 65-year-old ScaleCrafts run like thay ran after break-in, gears, drivers, motors.
Only thing not original is paint.
Try that with plastic.