If you were going to pick a train that had the lowest/easiest maintenence, and rock stable dependibility, long term realiability, what would you chose?
I'm looking at HO specifically
Mehano?
Athearn? (RTR)
Atlas Trainman?
Walthers Trainline?
Bachmann?
Bowser?
Any specific models?
I am not looking for most features, most detailed, or most accurate. I just want reliable.
This train will run non attended for about 8 hours a week for a non-profit. The layout is already there and built. It just needs a little TLC as no one is taking care of it. I do realize there is track cleaning and lubing every 24 hours of run time.
I'm hesitant on Bachmann. My steam driveline gears always wore out. Bachmann is a great value, but they have maintenance issues in the long term.)
Don - Specializing in layout DC->DCC conversions
Modeling C&O transition era and steel industries There's Nothing Like Big Steam!
Kato!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Old early Mantua's. That is what display train runners always said. They could not kill them. (And they tried)
Modern Bachmann diesels are quiet and reliable.
Julian
Modeling Pre-WP merger UP (1974-81)
For reliable and smooth running, Atlas, Kato, Athearn Genesis, and Bowser are very good for diesels. My only experience with post-Walthers Proto engines is one of their E-7 passenger diesels, and it's great!
I've had good luck with BLI steam engines, but I also have several Bachmann Spectrum engines that have served reliably for years.
Have to agree with the previous posters, but will add........
- get locos that have easy access, meaning the shells are fairly simple to remove.
- steamers will tend to be significantly more difficult to keep in service as opposed to decent diesels
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
mobilman44 - steamers will tend to be significantly more difficult to keep in service as opposed to decent diesels
Model imitates real life!
Is Meneho steam? Thats a name even after 40 years in the hobby I'm not very familiar with. It's a fringe brand?
Agree, Athearn Genesis, RTR and yes bullet proof blue box locos, Atlas, Bowser, and KATO. I've heard LL Proto 2000 are not so bullet proof - Joe Fuegate has mentioned lots of maintenence issues over time with them. Not sure about post Walthers P2K - although they seem to be better quality and twice the price.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
Don't overlook parts availability. Based on personal experience, Kato, Atlas and Bowser all have online parts and fast shipping.
Mehano is gone and Walthers is pretty bad.
Jim
Steam or diesel? For steam, our local hobby shop owner has been using Mehano (IHC) engines for his display. He says they last for about 3 years of everyday use, without any maintenance. When they fail, he just buys another one. You can still find them at reasonable prices. If you want to purchase new, Bachmann and Mantua are pretty robust for steam. And I recommend locos with 3 drivers (e.g., 0-6-0 or 2-6-0) and a tender for reliable operation. For diesel, Bachmanns (new ones) are pretty solid for the price.
I would avoid locos above 100$, they are not really more reliable than the ones in the 70$-100$ range. They also tend to be fragile.
One thing to consider is theft: don't go for an expensive engine (Kato, for example...) if no one is keeping an eye on it. And go for DC of course.
Simon
I have a couple of Kato HO NW2 switchers I've converted to HOn3. They ae solid, reliable, and smooth runners, even after I've hacked them.
With Walthers/P2K, looks for the newer runs over the last few years that replaced the troublesome P2K Athearn-clone trucks with new trucks that have very nice and robust helical gear drives. I have some F7s that are great running locos and haven't given me any trouble in 5 years and lots of miles.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
My choices.
Atlas/Kato
Atlas
Atlas/Trainmam
Athearn BB
Athearn RTR
Kato
Life Like Proto 2000.
Walthers Proto 1000 and Proto 2000.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
One more note about Bachmann. I have 3 generations of GP30 and F unit in my posession. The original ones were pretty bad with pancake drives and clip-on shells. The 90s Plus/Spectrum were a whole lot better - the F units had 2 screws securing the chassis and a dual-flywheel drive that's pretty quiet, while the GP30 still had a clip on shell, but improved a lot with a dual flywheel drive. The modern F and GP have 4 screw chassis and better paint and graphic details and improved plastics used on the detail parts. The F units no longer have one singular numberboard and light assembly. The most recent ones I have bought are DC converted to DCC, but they come from the factory with isolated motors and separate wires going to the trucks.
I compare this to my Athearn RTR F7 of the same price, and I have to say I'm not impressed. The brand new athearn looks really dated, and I still have to isolate the motor from the frame. If I had to do it again, I'd buy another Bachmann in its place.
At this point in time, I'd put Bachmann above Athearn RTR at that price level. They have really improved as a brand.
Hi.
I am running HO diesels and find the following are very reliable and with excellent drive units:
Atlas Trainman
Intermountain
If you will be running DCC equip the above with ESU LokSound or LokPilot decoders and they will run like a Swiss watch.
All the best.
Reinhard
Joe F
For just plain reliability and maintainability you can't beat late model (plastic side frames, gold motor) Athearn Blue Box, followed by Athearn RTR. The only thing with the Blue Boxes is to replace the contact wipers with thin stranded wire.
They are well designed, the parts are readiy available, common between many models, and easy to take apart and replace. With a few drops of oil they run forever. We have some on the museum layout that are 30+ years old.
Blue Box and RTR also share many parts.
The one weak spot on the Blue Boxes is the sintered wheels that collect dirt. They can be cleaned once in a while or replaced with RTR wheels.
I don't know of any steam that is as durable or reliable as Athearn diesels. Mehano and older Mantua come close.
Trix.
Unfortunately very few models available. Have two Mikados (NYC, PRR), one GG1 and one Big Boy. All bought on Ebay.
Easy to open, all die-cast design, brass gears, high quality either coreless or brush motors...and above all, they run perfectly. You can grab them in your hand, will not loose detail parts - they are not highly detailed like e.g. Intermountain Cab Forward, but good enough.
Expensive but every cent worth!
Hrvoje
Diesel: Atlas, Stewart/Bowser, Proto 2000 - Not particularly impressed with Athearn RTR
Steam: Trix & BLI
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
I am no expert here but I do know about trains that I have bought and run for long perios of time without issues.
Bachmann have some really good locos - if you want to buy a low cost but relaible loco.
I bought really expensive trains from Broadway Imports and Intermountain that failed on the reliabilty front. I am not saying these locos are not good - just saying that in my opinion they didn't last the distance. Mostly, they are very attactive on the cosmetic front but I want a loco that will run and run.
This is just my opinion. I have only been doing model railroading for 3+ years so other opinions may have more weight. However, I do not have a favorite manufacturer so I might be seen as more imapartial as a newbie.
I love the cheapo Bachmann trains I bought as they just keep going - clean track or not.
Chris.
Loco Guy - is a state of mind - not an affinity to locomotives.
Sit back and enjoy your track...
fieryturboI compare this to my Athearn RTR F7 of the same price, and I have to say I'm not impressed. The brand new athearn looks really dated, and I still have to isolate the motor from the frame. If I had to do it again, I'd buy another Bachmann in its place.
The Athearn RTR F7 is a bad example to put forward because it is probably Athearns oldest diesel, tooled in the 1950's IIRC and a poor representative of the Athearn RTR line. Thats the thing about Athearn RTR is it includes a broad range from the old crude F7 at one end of the spectrum to the relatively recently tooled and highly detailed SD45T-2 and even more recently tooled SD40 - just this year Athearn began selling some of it's older, more toy-like models under the Round House name which helps to set them into a different category.
It' not hard for Bachmann to beat the venerable (Globe) Athearn RTR F7, and that isn't saying much because the Bachmann F7, while more crisply molded, is pretty far down the ladder interms of F shell fidelity to the prototype. For F units, most brands are more toy-like in appearance and I personally feel the only F's worth buying based appearance are (in order of worst to best): Stewart/Bowser, Walthers P2K, Intermountain, and tops are Athearn Genesis. I can't comment on BLI but they haven't made very many of them.
Yes, the drives have improved significantly by all reports but again, the broad comparison to brands simply can't be made by comparing only one model. Athearn RTR shells, as a rule (barring the Globe F7) have a greader fidelity to the prototype vs. Bachmann. I doubt I will ever buy a Bachmann because the outward appearance of the models have too many flaws or are too crude in some areas.
Yes, I realize this topic is about running qualities for sure, but would you run a bar of soap with a super amazing drive? Ludicrous comparison of course, but the point being that a models appearance and level of fidelity is a major part of our reason for buying a model. I waited to buy the retooled Athearn SP SD40 for the new SD40R because of the prototypical detailing, even though the old SD40 was a very decent looking model. Re: Bachmann, I've read too many critical reviews of the appearance of some of Bachmanns diesels pointing out some obvious flaws that for a descriminating modeler, they probably won't work. Thats not say Bachmann won't work for a lot of people due to a less accurate outward appearance, but I'm am saying "a good drive alone, doth not a overall better model make."
You aren't impressed because you don't need tunnel motors, SD45's, SD40's, or even GP40-2's by way of example. When people are selective about which models in a line they are willing to consider, and say, eliminate some of the best from a line-up because they are not interested in that era or road name, it certainly does not mean those models cease to exist, nor influence the favorable comparison of a brand to others.
I will argue if you take Athearn RTR as a whole, and include ALL of the diesels over the life of the product run, they have some dogs during the first 4 or 5 years of production due to poor QAQC, but after that have made significant improvments in the overall line so they compare favorably.
Re: Proto 2000 - I will point out again, that Joe Fugate of Coos Bay SP fame, has reported Life Like Proto 2000 diesels did not hold up over lots of running sessions in terms of reliability and require lots of maintenence. So while those drives seemed to overall run better than their contemporary Athearn blue box counterpart drives, they didn't hold up in the long term with lots of operation. After Walthers took over the P2K line, they have made some major changes so they should be considered separately and probably don't have the same overall chassis issues.
Re: Stewart/Bowser - I've read Bowser and Interountain (BTW) have had some serious issues with weak motors in recent runs - the core reason for this topic running qualities. Both Bowser and Intermountain have been called out for this issue. I cite the below topic as only the most recent example of many I have read - so just adding that to the conversation:
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?3,3913144
I would go for mantua and mehano. Mantua just can't be killed, and are very easy to maintain. I've gotten ones that have been in storage for over 30 years, and a little cleaning was all they needed. Although I don't have any personal experience with mehano, I have heard good things about them, and they are relatively low cost.
-Peter. Mantua collector, 3D printing enthusiast, Korail modeler.
riogrande5761Re: Proto 2000 - I will point out again, that Joe Fugate of Coos Bay SP fame, has reported Life Like Proto 2000 diesels did not hold up over lots of running sessions in terms of reliability and require lots of maintenence.
Jim,I ran two LL P2K GP9s during the week of the country fair for two hours a day with no issues. My Atlas and Athearn BB ran the other hours.
Having seen how some modelers run their engines makes me wonder what was the real cause. I also know many modelers look down their noses at P2K locomotives like they are trainset Bachman,Tyco or older BB..
For all out constant running, not my choice for power BTW, is Mantua. This is the loco of choice for Northlanz. I had asked them some years ago, why not Stewart/ kato, Proto or Atlas, thier diesels run on DC loops or simple reversing track powered by banks of MRC. They are bought in bulk and are fairly inexpenive for the thousands of continuous operation on the display. Not sure if this is the type of engine you are looking for. All other replys of the Atlas, Proto, even Athearn BB are more my choice. My findings would be the Stewart/ Kato (not readily available these days, but many still out there). A club member kept his ABBA F7s on the Conway Scenic HO layout for constant running of the display. They were the most reliable engines ever run on the layout. Would buy spare drives for any repair/ replacement of any unit that would start to fail. Thousands of hours of continuous running before any gear noise or issues. I feel that any Atlas GP or proto would perform the same.
Modeling B&O- Chessie Bob K. www.ssmrc.org
Also, since this is an unattended layout and I can only assume it's not overly large, I would stick with four axle diesels and 40-50 foot cars. Athearn RTR or Atlas Trainman would probably be the best balance between reliability and price.
BRAKIE riogrande5761 Re: Proto 2000 - I will point out again, that Joe Fugate of Coos Bay SP fame, has reported Life Like Proto 2000 diesels did not hold up over lots of running sessions in terms of reliability and require lots of maintenence. Jim,I ran two LL P2K GP9s during the week of the country fair for two hours a day with no issues. My Atlas and Athearn BB ran the other hours. Having seen how some modelers run their engines makes me wonder what was the real cause. I also know many modelers look down their noses at P2K locomotives like they are trainset Bachman,Tyco or older BB..
riogrande5761 Re: Proto 2000 - I will point out again, that Joe Fugate of Coos Bay SP fame, has reported Life Like Proto 2000 diesels did not hold up over lots of running sessions in terms of reliability and require lots of maintenence.
Don't shoot the messenger, take it up with Joe (at MRH Magazine) he seems to be a very long-term experience runner. And to be fair, Joe was reporting his experiences with long-term running of LL P2K diesels, like regular use over years of running, which is a different situation than two weeks. I mentioned it because it really seems relevant to the OP's question.
Remember the guy at the Chicago Museum of Science & Industry train layout who used to post on Atlas forums. Now that guy did ultimate stress testing and he could tell you what held up and what didn't! Those trains ran day in and day out at the museum.
Mantua or Mehano for steam. They're dead simple to work on, and seem to run forever.
For diesels, I'd go with Athearn or Bachmann, simply because they offer replacement parts. I've had good experiences with Walthers engines lasting seemingly forever too, but I don't know what their parts department is like.
While I agree with what most have said, I would limit the choices to any thing Kato or Atlas China. On both of these the variations model to model are less and well used models measure in the standard variation of the newer models. Just remember lemons grow anywhere.
Rather than planning on continuous cleaning the track, I would use a little graphite. If you do a google search you will find instructions on how to apply it. A little is all that is needed. People who regularly do shows highly recommend it.
www.llxlocomotives.com
So many trains, so little time,
riogrande5761tstageDiesel: Atlas, Stewart/Bowser, Proto 2000 - Not particularly impressed with Athearn RTR You aren't impressed because you don't need tunnel motors, SD45's, SD40's, or even GP40-2's by way of example. When people are selective about which models in a line they are willing to consider, and say, eliminate some of the best from a line-up because they are not interested in that era or road name, it certainly does not mean those models cease to exist, nor influence the favorable comparison of a brand to others. I will argue if you take Athearn RTR as a whole, and include ALL of the diesels over the life of the product run, they have some dogs during the first 4 or 5 years of production due to poor QAQC, but after that have made significant improvments in the overall line so they compare favorably. Re: Proto 2000 - I will point out again, that Joe Fugate of Coos Bay SP fame, has reported Life Like Proto 2000 diesels did not hold up over lots of running sessions in terms of reliability and require lots of maintenence. So while those drives seemed to overall run better than their contemporary Athearn blue box counterpart drives, they didn't hold up in the long term with lots of operation. After Walthers took over the P2K line, they have made some major changes so they should be considered separately and probably don't have the same overall chassis issues. Re: Stewart/Bowser - I've read Bowser and Interountain (BTW) have had some serious issues with weak motors in recent runs - the core reason for this topic running qualities. Both Bowser and Intermountain have been called out for this issue. I cite the below topic as only the most recent example of many I have read - so just adding that to the conversation:
tstageDiesel: Atlas, Stewart/Bowser, Proto 2000 - Not particularly impressed with Athearn RTR
My only experience with Athearn RTR is with their RS3s. I have two and neither one is particularly smooth because of poor pickup.
As far as the others:
Tom
tstage My only experience with Athearn RTR is with their RS3s. I have two and neither one is particularly smooth because of poor pickup. As far as the others: Proto 2000 - I have an older S1, H10-44s, F3A, and GP38-2. Each are very solid runners. The only one that has been so-so for me is the SW-8. Stewart - I have a VO-660, VO-1000, and an FT A-B. Very smooth and dependable units Atlas - I have an HH660 and a MP15DC - Like the Stewart they are very smooth and both would reliably chug along if left for a few hours. Tom
I've not heard very good things about the Athearn RTR RS3 either. I think the "take-away" from this topic is that sometimes you can't rely on a brand alone, since in Athearn's case there is variablity within the RTR line - some pretty good, some spotty or not so good.
Atlas generally is a sure bet for their engines, pretty much all excellent.
The Stewart/Kato F drive is one sweet purring kitty!
My first true loco is an Athearn SD45 and love the reliability. The brand depends a lot less on the type of loco you're looking to run. Since you want to run one continually, why not call a train musuem that has a live display to ask what they use?
One of my first, if not first Athearn diesels was also the SD45. Wabac when I was 14, and living in northern California of 1973, I wanted a Southern Pacific SD45 for Christmas; these were bread and butter diesels passing through my home town of Davis California and on to Sacramento and over Donner pass. My mother, ever manipulative (even to this day at age 83) was trying to teach me to hold my fork the right way and holding the SD45 hostage as an incentive. I did get it for Christmas, it was the old blue box fat nose SD45 in bloody nose red and gray but I was pleased. Over time I noticed the nose did't look right and later learned the nose and hood were cast wider than the real thing to accomodate the early motors.
The RTR SD45 of today is based on the Rail Power Products shell, which is scale width and looks better than the old blue box shell. The RPP shell is/was crude by todays tooling standards, but Athearn did quite a bit of upgrading in the area's that are most noticable, such as the cab, nose, roof etc. The long hood still maintains the RPP door latch detail but over with all the prototypical features added by Athearn, the RTR SD45's looks pretty good - correct snow plow, gyra light package, and much more. Maybe some day they will retool it like they did the SD40R (below) and it will be a truly awsome model: