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It looks like my locomotive ranking would make a good timely appearance in this thread as well. With out further adoo, My locomotive manufacturor ranking. Note this ranking is soley my personal opinion based on experiences with these brands though my own personal modeling, membership in three model railroad clubs, and my custom painting business. My ranking of locomotive manufactures in according to performance and detail. 1. Proto 2000/1000. Very smooth running units. Very nice detail and lots of extra parts to configure each locomotive to match its real life counter part. DCC Ready 2. Athearn Genesis. Same as above. But come factory assembled. DCC Ready 3. Atlas. Very smooth running gear and molding. All engineering done in Austria by ROCO. Some models sub-contracted to KATO. Very nice painting and detailing. All models produced since 1994, DCC Ready. As of 2001, DCC equipped. 4. Spectrum. Very nice smooth running locomotives. Constantly upgrades line so a ready comparison is not easily given. Though consistently has smooth running and good detailing. Their steamers are the best in the Business. DCC ready 5. Kato. Best running mechanisms in the business. But I have yet to see a decent paint job come from these people. (Their SD90MAC-H being the one exception.) My ultimate locomotive would be a Kato Drive with a Proto 2000 shell DCC ready 6. Walthers Trainline. Smooth running locomotive with nice paint and detail. Ready to run. Engineered for Walthers by ROCO of Austria, and produced at Walthers plant in China under ROCO supervision. Not DCC ready but upgrading to is is easily achieved. 7. Athearn. Nice running locomotive with a rugged drive train and study instillation. My #1 recommendation for beginners. Nice detail and paint. Not DCC ready and conversion can be tricky if your not careful. Best bargain for detail, performance, and price. I would also like to mention the offerings by Stewart and Intermountain. I hear these are also quality brands but I have no first hand experience from which I can verify these claims. I hope you all have found this useful. Thank you, James R. Mitich
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