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Spacemouse, I share your frustration with poor running locos. I'm sure that I'm going to take some flack for this, but here goes: The stuff that you have that doesn't run well is basically old steamer technology and inexpensive at that . These locos are the reason that I consider this to be the golden age of plastic steam. The IHC/MDC stuff just doesn't run well (will it creep reliably?) when compared to the recent Spectrum, BLI and P2K stuff. There are lots of reasons for this, poor pick up, drive train design etc..... but the bottom line is the technology has been passed by. The poor running characteristics are made worse by the short wheel bases and smaller size of your locos. Converting these to DCC in hopes of better running disregards one of the rules of DCC conversion: A loco must run well analog to be a good DCC runner. Your options are to back date some of the newer plastic (Spectrum 2-6-0 comes to mind ), spend a lot of time trying to fix up the IHC stuff, buy older brass and do some work on it to make it run well. None of these are appealing options but they all can be done. If you want to keep the IHC/MDC, fit them with all wheel pick up in the tender at least. If you buy old brass, get some guys who know the brass locos from the era you are looking at. There are some sweet runners out there and some real dogs as well. Most will require some work to run well and to convert to DCC. Hopefully you can find some painted models. One advantage of brass is that it will most likely look even better than what you have now in terms of proto accuracy and detail. Personally, I would try to backdate the current Spectrum and other offerings. At least you are getting a good mechanism and an easy conversion to DCC. My 2 cents,
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