Atlas wins hands down! Smooth stuff! Athearn RTR is hit or miss, but when you get a good one, they're great. Easy to kibash too! You can get Life Like/ Wathers Proto 2000 locos on ebay for cheap too. I got a Walthers(Walthers are newer runs) BN GP20 DCC/Sound for $120.
- Luke
Modeling the Southern Pacific in the 1960's-1980's
As far as the drive train is concerned, Atlas locos are the best. I'm not sure if the Atlas Trainman GP38 is still under $100, but it has the same mechanism as the more expensive Atlas Classic and Master series locos.
Some of the new Bachmann locos have a decent drive train too, but I don't know how good the decoder equipped locos will run if you want to use DCC. I know the Digitrax DCC system doesn't like some Bachmann decoders.
Athearn is hit and miss. I have four RTR GP35s that run okay. I also have a bunch of RTR RS-3s, and some run good while others run poorly.
It all depends on what level of detail you want. I have had no problem with Bachmann's diesels so far, and they are smooth runners, but not as smooth as Atlas. Atlas is the all around best for diesels, and Arthern is best for detail, but the drive is sometimes noisy.
What Manufacturer makes the best diesel locomotive for under 100 $ in HO scale ? ATHEARN , BACHMANN , ATLAS and so on ? Thanks in advance
~ Tim .
To see photos of my HO scale / 1/64 scale layout and diorama photos base in the present day . http://www.flickr.com/photos/icr140/