There are 4 big boys from different manufactures ,athearn,trix, PCM, Rivarossi.
Which one is the best?
Can we do a list with prons and cons between them?
Railroad wrote: There are 4 big boys from different manufactures ,athearn,trix, PCM, Rivarossi.Which one is the best?Can we do a list with prons and cons between them?
PCM. Period.
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Any of the ones that I don't have....and can't pay for anyway.
Adding and sifting through all that I have read, it would be a toss-up between the PCM and Trix, then the Rivarossi, and lastly the Athearn...but only because of that (gag) wretched MRC dulliance decoder. Apparently the Athearn is a good runner and looks good.
Rivarossi is new on the block again, but the bets are that it will be a fine locomotive.
From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet
R. T. POTEET wrote:Bachmann, of course; we all know that Bachmann makes the best of everything.Heh!! Heh!! Heh!! Heh! That should cause a few bladders to pop around here this afternoon!! Heh!! Heh!! Heh!! Heh!!
RT, before you think that you might be pot stirring here, let's not get too carried away with knocking Bachmann here. There are countless threads on this and other forums that the Bachmann Spectrum line has some excellent performers. I have a Shay with their Sound and DCC, a 2-6-6-2 and a couple other of their steamers. They run beautifully and look nice. And their pricing isn't bad either.
Nope. My bladder isn't popping.
ALCo's the original and still the best.
In HO scale, non-brass; Bowser.
Mastiffdog wrote: R. T. POTEET wrote:Bachmann, of course; we all know that Bachmann makes the best of everything.Heh!! Heh!! Heh!! Heh! That should cause a few bladders to pop around here this afternoon!! Heh!! Heh!! Heh!! Heh!! RT, before you think that you might be pot stirring here, let's not get too carried away with knocking Bachmann here. There are countless threads on this and other forums that the Bachmann Spectrum line has some excellent performers. I have a Shay with their Sound and DCC, a 2-6-6-2 and a couple other of their steamers. They run beautifully and look nice. And their pricing isn't bad either. Nope. My bladder isn't popping.
I would second the remarks supporting the Spectrum line, I have a couple of 2-6-6-2's and have had no problems with them at all, now on the other hand I have an Athearn 2-8-2 - well enough said, it ran for a short time, not a long time.
Have you heard the Trix Big Boy with sound? Whistle duration is fixed on long, long short long, which sucks. The Athearn doesn't have the best sound either, but atleast the whistle is somewhat playable. Even the Loksound equipped PCM comes with a completely wrong whistle, and at medium to high speeds the the chuff sounds so "synced" it's a disgrace.
As far as running and detail goes, I'd rate them like this:
Trix
PCM
Athearn
Rivarossi
The absolutely best HO scale Big Boy ever was the early Tenshodo that Bob Darwin rebuilt and redetailed almost half a century ago. IIRC, he even had several lost wax details made to order, which later found their way into either Kemtron or Cal-Scale's commercial line.
Granted it was analog DC, but there was still plenty of room for a decoder and sound system. OTOH, the mechanics of the beast have yet to be approached, never mind equalled. (Roller weight transfer for lead/trailing truck centering, and an active front engine centering mechanism. The only other Big Boys that had similar systems were the original 25 - 1:1 scale.)
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)