No Brainer Best N Scale Brands


railfan

railfan

junk collector
What are the best N scale locomotives, passenger coaches, and rolling stock manufacturers? Kato seems good from my minimal research. Even some Bachmann seems ok to start with.

I am looking for strong opinions from model railroaders with years of experience.....or even anyone who is confident about the quality of their favorite equipments brand(s). No worries......there is no test or gotcha questions. Just casual, fun discussion.

When beginning a new interest or hobby I at least make some attempt to avoid the most obvious pitfals and common mistakes and get good equipment if/when possible. :)
 
EMD E and F series locos

Just to add....my favorite locomotives are the bullnose or "bulldog" nose EMD E and F series streamlined locomotives made from 1939 into the early 1960's. (we are talking N scale here in the N scale section :p).

Like this:
 
Atlas & Kato are deemed to be the best as far as I'm aware, with Athearn not bad. Bachmann seems to have a bit of a bad name but I think this is from the past.
 
Thanks for the feedback Pete. That mirrors what I have found myself. If you have a favorite vendor(s)......I would interested in hearing about that too. I see that tower hobbies and amazon.com both have bachmann. There must be hundreds or thousands of model train vendors. :)


Mike
 
For me, Atlas and Kato for diesel engines since I do not do steam era trains. Bachmann makes some of the best steam in their high end line from what I read on the forums.

I mostly buy rolling stock that does not have lots of detail as it just tends to break off and why pay for small details that can't really be seen.
So most of my rolling stock is, Atlas, Bachmann, Athearn, with some Microtrains and Fox Valley. Though some is bought because a certain company is the only one that makes what I am looking for.
Then I will change out wheels, trucks or couplers as needed.
 
I'll concur with Ken, Atlas is definitely lacking in the steam department. Kato have a few, not sure about Athearn, and Bachmann make a decent amount.

Which manufacturer you favour will also be influenced by the location you're modelling. Atlas is entirely American AFAIK, same with Athearn. Kato does American and also a lot of Japanese stuff, being a Japanese company. If you want to model the UK (especially steam) then get ready to buy almost nothing but Graham Farish, which are owned by Bachmann. A word of warning here though, because when Bachmann took over production was moved to China but with all their existing tooling. This means buying a "new" Graham Farish loco could mean buying old stock that was made somewhat recently but from 20yr old tooling that isn't up to today's standards. They also have a thing for tender drives in their steam locos. Their new new models are apparently much better though. For non-UK European stuff I have no idea where you would look.

Finally, if you want to model Australian then there is no one manufacturer. A lot of the stuff you see in shops here are kits made by small companies running on Atlas or Kato mechanisms. Aust-N-Rail have a nice range.
 
That is great location specific information Pete. Really appreciate that and will check the links. This gives me a lot of ideas. :)
 
Take as much time as possible to learn as much as possible is the way to go. There are many who just rush in to it because they have the "I just have to get it now!" syndrome.
 
From my experience Atlas engines are not as powerful as Athearn engines. KATO engines are decent. I have not had any problems with any make. I still have old Life-Like engines that run well. Ideally you just buy the engine that you like the most, and put it on. When I go to the store, I just look for the engines that I like or think look cool, and run those.
 
For my needs..

Locomotives: Atlas..

Freight cars: Atlas,Athearn,Micro Trains,Fox Valley Models,Intermountain,Exactrail and Red Caboose.`I have some older Roundhouse cars..

If I was going to model passenger trains I seem to favor Kato.
 
Thank you, Nucular, Brakie, Ken and Pete! Please post any thoughts, pics, videos anytime.....and I'll try to visit any threads you have. :)

Mike
 
Random Thoughts Department

I have great respect for those who like to accurately model certain railroads during certain periods and enjoy seeing that. Mine will be more of a patchwork of different stuff.

Will likely begin on a 30" x 80" slab door. I want a nice size switching yard, three perimeter loops of track with many switches, a couple of industries, a couple small towns, some mountains with a tiny mountain town, and some tunnels.

The main long freight train will be double container cars as many as I can fit, plus many tank cars and box cars. Will also need a passenger train. Don't care if I use mixed period EMD F and E series locos with my modern double container cars.............unless and until of course the N scale police pull my train over to cite me for breach of rules of order and micro rail etiquette. :eek::D
 
Kato for me is the best for sure having consistently excellent quality. Atlas is not bad but the Chicom manufacturing is inconsistent. Sometimes Atlas locos are smooth and quiet sometimes they are as loud as Bachmann. Athearn is Very good I have quite a few of their F45's and FP45's and they are heavy and well built and will pull quite a large consist. I've got probably 70-75 engines and IMHO Kato is THE standart in N scale. I have heard that Tomix is good as well but they are hard to come by in the U.S. and don't do any North American prototype stuff.
 
Excellent! Thanks for the link!

The problem with Atlas is they seem to think everyone's modeling modern trains. Which is bizarre, as most of the polls show that almost half of the model railroaders prefer transition era!
Why cut out half of the market? Build some of the bigger steam, and double your sales!
So, from what a store owner said, Bachmann has some issues with the connector that connects the drivers. It's cheap plastic, and will begin to split very shortly. so, as he puts it, you'll be very unhappy with how your Bachmann engine runs.
Which is terrible for me, because most of the steam power Maine Central uses, the only current manufacturers are Model Power and Bachmann.:mad:
 
OCN guy, which connector do you mean?........internal electrical connector is what it sounds like.......but also thought you could maybe mean coupler between two locomotives.

Maybe someone knows about other companies that make steam locomotives. Surely there must be others.

For me it's diesel/electrics. These were the ones pulling trains when I was five years old riding regularly between KC and St Louis, MO. in 1960. We went down stairs under the huge KC union station to board the train and saw big beautiful EMD E units idling in wait for us. What a lucky kid I was. The diesel aroma and engine noise......there is nothing else like that! :)
 
I can't say I've been super impressed with Kato engines so far. I briefly had a GS4 and found it to be terrible. Only one axle on this engine is driven and the rest are powered by the driving rods, which is fine for the prototype but for the model it meant no crawl ability whatsoever. It had traction tires mounted at the rear, and because the rear trucks didn't actually bear any weight it had a tendency to hop around a lot in turns, even very wide ones, and this was made worse by pulling heavy trains. Granted this was used, but even after oiling it the performance was still poor.

More recently I got some Kato F7s and they run fine, apart from the fact that they make an almost deafening whine even at very mild speeds.

OnTheRightTrack is on the right track (sorry) with Atlas. I purchased two identical locos of different road numbers, one was fantastic and the other was extremely noisy with off-coloured ditch lights. I got another motor off Atlas and it still wasn't the same. One thing Atlas does have going for them though is the design of their mechanisms. They are by far the least complex to disassemble and work on.

Athearn has been fantastic for me so far. I have three EMD F45s and although one is mildly quieter than the others, they otherwise run perfectly in sync and will happily run in a lashup with zero issues or the need to stuff about with speed tables. The only downside is that they can be a real PITA to get the shell off of and the light bar design on this model in particular is not fantastic. For pulling power these things cannot be matched, they are absolute machines. One of them will pull with ease what two of my other trains struggle with. This is to be expected though, because the cowl body allows for a whole lot more weight compared to the standard hood unit.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.



Back
Top