best locomotive under 100 $

[Texas Zepher]

caballorr

What Manufacturer  makes the best  diesel locomotive  for under  100 $ in HO scale ?   ATHEARN  ,  BACHMANN ,  ATLAS  and so on ?   Thanks in advance

I still never saw what you said you consider "best" to be?   Best puller, best looking, best running, best price, best sound, best generalization of all this......

I just got an ABA set of Stewart F3s with Kato drives for $99 on ebay.  That is hard to beat.  Three powered Stewarts will smoothly pull 65 cars up a 2% grade around a 36" radius curve.....

I just got a Hobby Town of Boston RS-3 for $30, it will pull a ton.

The Athearn Genesis F units can be found for under $100.  They are the best looking.  If you get the details right for the prototype.

Best unit per dollar spent - if one ignores the used market and goes just on list price.   I have to go with the Proto-1000.   They look OK and run very well.   For the $ I think they are the best deal.

The best sound I got for under $100 was a Proto-2000 U28B on clearance from Train World.   It has the first generation QSI sound processor in it.

So bottom line is when one gets into generalizing there are lots of options for under $100.   I say you can't go wrong with Atlas, Athearn Genesis (as long as you avoid the older units with MRC sound/electronics), Athearn RTR, Proto-2000, Proto-1000, Stewart, or Intermountain.  I can't speak to the Bachmann.  I have never run them seriously.    I have a couple that I loned to a friend to test drive.  He choose them as the one he prefered even over an Atlas.   So... for whatever it is worth.

 

[hdtvnut]

Here at central Florida shows, I am finding P2K E units new (old stock) for as low as $20, usually about $40. A few bucks more with dummy B units. Hal

[riogrande5761]

hdtvnut

Here at central Florida shows, I am finding P2K E units new (old stock) for as low as $20, usually about $40. A few bucks more with dummy B units. Hal

I recall talking to a small LHS owner in Indiana some years back.  He was lamenting how P2K had produced so much stock of those older E8's and some other P2K diesels and how they were literally being dumped for super cheap out on the market.  Those are probably among those production runs and there is still a small glut of them floating around at train shows.  I think LL P2K soon tightened up production on their diesel lines, and I think some of the loco's coming out shot up quite abit in price.  Among them were the first runs of the original P2K GP60's and SD60's IRRC.  Of course that was nothing compared to the price increase's we've seen since Walthers took over the P2k Line.

As an aside, I did purchase a P2K E8 in CB&Q.  They were nice engines at the time but mine came with the printing on the nose smeared and pretty ugly looking smear at that.  I returned it and still have no E units on my roster to this day.  My intention at that time was to model the hand-off of the CZ to the CB&Q in Denver.

The original post if I understand it correctly aimed at what can generally be had on todays market for under $100.  Yes, we can treasure hunt for deals and there certainly are a lot of better quality HQ HO diesels which can be found for under 100.  Very few of them are from recent production runs however.