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Jonathan, [#welcome]to the forum! The one thing I've learned this past year since I returned to MRR is you get what you pay for, that is, in most cases. My first purchase was a "set" of inexpensive cars made by Life-Like. When I received them (UPS) I found they were junk. This put me off Life-Like, thinking that if this is any indication of their quality then I wasn't going to waste any more money on Life-Like products. Reading the posts on this and other forums I guess I got what I paid for. Less money = less quality. There are many modelers that like Life-Like especially their Proto 2000 series (P2K). If you are going with ready-to-run (RTR), you will need to decide how much detail and quality you're willing to pay for. Plastic vs metal grab irons, plastic vs metal wheels, plastic vs metal couplers. BTW, Kadee couplers are rated the number one coupler by several of the "poll" posts that I have read. I have presented many questions in answer to your question but there are a lot of things to consider when buying locos and rolling stock other than the manufacture. The big questions being "How prototypical do you want your trains to be?" And the second question is "How deep are your pockets?" You need to consider how much rework you are willing to do once you have put out the money for than "RTR" car. IMHO RTR really stands for Ready-To-Rebuild. You buy a piece of RTR rolling stock then before putting it on your layout you replace plastic wheel sets with metal and change the plastic couplers to Kadee's, then weather it... Don't get wrapped up with name brand, buy it if you like it, rework it if you want, but in any case Enjoy the hobby!
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