Has anyone ever used Micro Trains?


Thebrickfig

Thebrickfig

Member
I was looking around and found some very nice-looking cars from Micro Trains and was wondering if anyone else has had experience with Micro Trains.
blueline3532_0__10212.jpg
 
Micro Trains is considered the Cadillac of N scale. Nearly every piece of N scale rolling stock is measured against their products.
While Kato may be very good as far as locomotives, they don't offer much in the way of North American rolling stock. Unless you're wanting to do a famous name passenger train, then Kato is certainly worth a look.
 
True, also I suppose any brand rolling stock will work. Not sure about couplers though, is there some compatability chart for these or do most people just replace them? I too am curious there. With my Kato stuff most of the non HST stuff seems to have a standard knuckle coupler but would be good to know what works with it. (All the HSTs have their own unique couplers designed for that specific train)
 
The vast majority of my rolling stock (1920s-early 1950s) is Micro-Trains (coal hoppers, wood box cars) I have a liking for Atlas steel box cars - their paint color/texture just meshes with the way I weather/rust them. Micro-trains are great for doing the faded look of weathered wood box cars.

I have a number of Atlas coal hoppers as well.

I have about five Bachmann silver series coal hoppers.

(For weathering steel hoppers, Micro-Trains, Atlas and Bachmann all do well.)

A few odd Athearns among my steam era cars.

Probably like the Athearns the least.

And a few Bachmann “train set” cars that were my first weathering practice pieces. I let a few of them tag along on my trains.

I have about fifteen modern Bethgon coalporters, pretty evenly divided between Athearn and Kato.

In addition to the other positives given about Micro-trains, they also couple closer together than other rolling stock brands. As (or if) you gravitate to more attention realism, that becomes more important.

The only characteristic drawback I know for Micro-trains is the “slinky effect” their spring-loaded couplers have. You can google it. It bothers some folks greatly, others aren’t upset over it, and there are remedies.

If you’re into rolling stock of specific railroads and eras, the secondary market (E-bay, Foobsack, etc.) might be your best bet to get what you’re looking for, regardless of brand.
 
Micro-Trains is really good stuff in my opinion. I buy their trucks with couplers in bulk as well. A bit more expensive than some, but good detail, you don't have to fuss with couplers and alignments.
 
dgrafix said:
True, also I suppose any brand rolling stock will work. Not sure about couplers though, is there some compatability chart for these or do most people just replace them? I too am curious there. With my Kato stuff most of the non HST stuff seems to have a standard knuckle coupler but would be good to know what works with it. (All the HSTs have their own unique couplers designed for that specific train)
Click to expand...
I have found that the Kato couplers need just a bit of trimming on the hook to work well with Micro-Trains. A couple of other modelers found the same thing. I thing there are one or two youtube videos on how to trim.
 
Thebrickfig said:
I was looking around and found some very nice-looking cars from Micro Trains and was wondering if anyone else has had experience with Micro Trains.View attachment 171358
Click to expand...
I agree with the others. When I was purchasing MicroTrains in the 1980s they were a sub brand of "Kadee". The brothers had some sort of argument and split the product line. But, In my opinion even though I have not technically been an N-scale person for decades now, they are one if not the best N-scale manufacturer.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.



Back
Top