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James, I am only talking about steam locomotives. I think that one has to decide which criteria one is going to give the most weight in a comparison. While I don't own a lot of brass, many of my friends do. I think many people buy brass for different reasons than one might buy a BLI/P2k/Spectrum loco. One reason is that they need a specific, obscure model that will never be mass produced in large quantities in plastic (consider the plight of the narrow guage modeler). In this case, often limited run brass is the only game in town. Another reason is that people like to collect brass, like one might collect coins or stamps. Most of these guys never run the locos, so DCC, sound and running chacteristics are irrelevant to them. I still think that most modern brass locos have the best detail available. In the example of the cab forwards: Look at any of Overland's cab forwards and compare the detail of BLI. BLI is is good, but not as detailed as Overland. The Spectrum Shays and my P2K engines have finer detail than the BLI (but not as good as brass), so I rate the BLI good in this catregory. As for running I haven't seen any of the recent offerings from Overland run, but I know the BLI stuff runs well. Old brass (with certain exceptions) runs notoriously poorly out of the box... My Spectrum and P2K stuff runs smoother than the BLI, so on running I rate BLI very good, maybe not best. However when you look at value (presuming you want sound and DCC), I think BLI wins. With most new brass starting at over $1000.00, $250.00 for a DCC, sound equipped loco that runs very well and sounds/looks good is a sweet deal...P2k and Spectrum are less expensive but when you add in the cost of decoders and sound they come out more expensive than BLI offerings. I don't have a huge amount of hours on my stuff, so I'm not sure how I would change these rankings after running for 10 years. I didn't include brass in my rankings because it is so variable, and mostly out of my price range. As a modeler, I value running and detail slightly above overall value, so my rankings look like this: 1. P 2K runs great, excellent detail 2. Spectrum Shays, run great, excellent detail 3. BLI: Run well, Look good...clearly biggest bang for the buck 4. Spectrum consolidations, look good run well and at $50.00 online...what a deal!! The only problem with the current golden age of plastic is that we need more variety. I fear that most obscure stuff will never be done in plastic because the interest and sales will not be high enough to support a large run. I have to say that as my modeling interests become more carefully defined (and obscure), I am being forced to take brass more seriously because of the relatively small selection of plastic steam available. As a modeler, I am having more trouble justifying a NW 2-8-8-2 on a Western central valley and Sierra foothill line. Hopefully some of the manufacturers will help out here soon. Until then, I am using the mass produced plastic to stand in for as much stuff as possible. Just my 2 cents, Guy
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