Looking for a quality MTH steam engine

[anjdevil2]

 On the flip side, make sure your BATTERIES are charged!!!

I work with MTH every Saturday.  When they run they are great and when they break, it's a nightmare.  I won't give any advice, cause I just don't care for 'em and have several reasons that I will not poison you with.  All I'll say is pound for pound, dollar for dollar, I'll take the Lionel EVERY time.   That's my preference working with both products.

[willpick]

Boy did you just open a can of worms!. You'll probably get some good advice, some will react in horror at you thinking about MTH, etc.  That said,  the quality of MTH is similar to Lionel. All MTH engines will run quite well in conventional. Since you didn't specify what your minimum curves are, I'll keep my reccomendations to Railking steam.

Any of the recent(last2-3 years) offerings are pretty decent units. You have a choice of 2-8-0's, 4-6-4's 0-8-0's, 0-6-0's, even some 4-8-2's and 4-8-4's. All will run on O31, and all are priced between 300-400$.  I suggest that you go to the MTH website www.mthtrains.com and go to the catalog section, and see what you like. You can also use the search function (on the webpage at the top) to find specific types of steam engines(like a 4-6-4).

Hope this helps you find what you are looking for. I've got 4 railking steamers, and they all run well.

[ordiei]

Hey all,

 Have been looking to expand my Lionel railroad with an MTH steam engine.  What do you all suggest?  From what I've seen, most MTH engines really smoke like the devil--which I like.  I'm not really partial to one railroad over another--just want something that has nice detail and will interact with my Lionel stuff (Not looking to go to DCS controllers--yet)  The train show was just in Anaheim and I saw the Erie 2-8-8-8-2 triplex.  That was an awesome engine--but it requires O-72 curves.  Haven't really thought about how big of a radius I'd consider.  Let me know your thoughts.

 
Thanks everyone in advance.

Ordiei