good engine or bad

[cacole]

Look on the bottom of the engines and see if there is a manufacturer's name or country of origin. You don't indicate if these are steam or diesel engines, so I am assuming they are diesel. If the brand name is Tyco, they are from cheap Christmas train sets and will never run well, no matter what you do to them because half the wheels are plastic and usually only the back wheels are powered. Older Bachmann is only slightly better. Athearn does not put their name on products, but you can tell if they are Athearn by the hand rails -- if they are unpainted metal, they are Athearn. With a little cleaning and lubrication, Athearn can be made to run well, albeit noisy. I doubt if you have any other brand except possibly a really old Rivarossi or Lima, both of which are poor runners because the motor is usually mounted right on the rear truck and the front wheels are not driven at all. If the bottom is labeled "made in" and a European country (Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Italy, etc.) they are Rivarossi or Lima. Roco is another possibility, but I have had no experience with their engines. They will have either the name Roco on them or will be marked as made in Austria.

[dehusman]

A mark of a "good" engine is the electric motor is in the center of the engine and connected to the trucks (wheel assemblies) by drive shafts. Poor engines will often have the motor integral with the truck.
Better engines have a metal frame (for weight) and poorer engines plastic.

Better cars have the couplers attatched to the cars (not the trucks) and more of the details (grab irons, ladders, brake gear underneath, roofwalk, etc) as separate stand apart pieces.

Good beginner kits are Athearn, MDC, Accurail, Bowser, Walthers. A little more involved kits are Red caboose, Life Like Proto 2000, Branchline and Intermountain. The really high end kits are Westerfield, Sunshine and several others.

Use nickel silver track (silver colored rails) not brass track. Atlas, Walthers and Shinohara are quality brands. MRC makes good power packs. The ones that come with train sets are good for running lights in buildings, but are pretty poor for powering trains.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

thank for the site. i have a HO track

[Anonymous]

We should have some more infor from you. What scale?

A local hobby shop for starters is a good starting point. I'm HO and there are hundreds & hundreds of accessories, 15 different loco manufacturers and many-many rolling stock manufacturers.

Take a trip to www.walthers.com the largest distributor of model rr products. The walthers catalog for HO products is over 1,000 pages.

www.greatesthobby.com

[Anonymous]

i bought a couple of differant engines &cars at a kraft closing out sale becuse i thought that this would be a great hobby to get into. where could i find out if i got a good or bad engine. where do you go or what should you look for when you are purchasing a engine or cars.