# Engines?



## The Kid Inside (Feb 29, 2020)

I'm starting basically new in this hobby. I've been looking at Locomotives. I know nothing of the different brands of locomotives. Quality? What are the top brands? With my mostly ignorant knowledge of trains in general the ones that seem to appeal to me are the GP9, GP38, GP40, SD75l, and I really like the SD90MAC! It looks massive, and super powerful.

Are there any challenges to physically running any if these models? Do the larger engines require a wider turning radius?

Thanks for any help,

Bailey


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## bigdodgetrain (Jun 12, 2015)

it will help if you state what size you intend to get into.

O
HO
S
N
Z

to name a few.


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## The Kid Inside (Feb 29, 2020)

bigdodgetrain said:


> it will help if you state what size you intend to get into.
> 
> O
> HO
> ...


Yes, of course. Lol

I'll be running HO scale.


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## Old_Hobo (Feb 20, 2014)

Larger engines with 3 axle trucks usually need a larger radius than engines with 2 axle trucks.....

Most manufacturers today make reliable locomotives.....you shouldn‘t have any trouble with whatever make you chose....


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## mesenteria (Oct 29, 2015)

Also, those three-axle trucks under the really large scale models are more likely to derail on trackage that isn't even across the rails, or not super-elevated properly (where the outside rail on curves is slightly elevated as the prototype does). If there are dips here and there more than about 1.5 mm along a 3-5" stretch, you might find an axle lifting out of the gauge and you'll get a derailment. The smaller, older, less powerful, two-axle diesels from the first and second generation are more likely to be more forgiving of the quality of track-laying a newcomer is more likely to produce. Maybe not, but also possibly. Just be aware going in.


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## J.Albert1949 (Feb 3, 2018)

If you want the modern, long, 6-axle diesels, they'll probably run best on a 22" minimum radius.

If you're happy with diesels from the 1950's-1980's (both 4 and 6 axle), you can get by with an 18" minimum radius.

I was away from the models for 40 years (while running the big engines), and came back to a model railroad world much changed from when I was younger.

I found that dcc control and the smaller-sized diesels work fine for me, on a 4x8 layout with an L-shaped extension (google "Black River Junction").

Your important decisions:

Do you want DC, or do you want dcc (I'd recommend dcc)?
If you choose dcc, do you want sound or non-sound (I found dcc WITHOUT sound works just fine for me)?
Will you buy from a local hobby shop, or online hobby shops, or perhaps new-old-stock or used from a source like ebay?
I've bought "a mix" of a few new, some used, a lot of new-old-stock from ebay. Just about all the engines I've acquired are "DC/dcc ready", which means they come out-of-the-box for DC, but have a connecting plug to plug in a dcc decoder.

I've found that Atlas locos are generally top-shelf out-of-the-box. Smooth and quiet.

I've come to really like older (Lifelike) Proto2000 engines from the late 90's/early 2000 era. Again, smooth and quiet, sometimes need their gear cases cleaned out and new wheelsets to replace the old, cracked gears (cheap and not too difficult).

Walthers Proto 2000 (they bought Lifelike) is good stuff, but pricey.

Bowser makes excellent locos, but the selection is a bit limited, and they're pricey unless you search for one on ebay (I got a few "cheap" that way).

For some reason, the only Athearn loco I tried (RTR SD40) seems to be a clunker -- noisy. At some point I'll try to get it performing better, but I have no interest in trying any more of their stuff).

I haven't tried any other mfrs. except for a Rivarossi U25c that I got for a good price. Very nice engine, made after Hornby acquired Rivarossi, I wish they'd put out some more product.

Finally, if you're starting out, an important decision will be which track you go with.
I found that Kato Unitrack does "all that I need". Works well and is easy to re-configure and adjust (which I found that I've needed to do more than once).


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## The Kid Inside (Feb 29, 2020)

Thank you for all this great information.


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## DonR (Oct 18, 2012)

The quality of HO locomotives made in the last 15 or so years is quite
good. There seems to be very little difference between brands. There
will be the rare 'lemon' but basically you won't go wrong buying which ever
model that pleases you. 

Price is no indicator of quality either. The innards of today's locos
are pretty much the same. If you want a highly detailed loco you'll
pay much more...and that's about it.

However, if you buy a used loco, all bets are off. Some are very
well maintained and smooth operating, others may not have had
proper maintenance and suffer various mechanical problems.
It's always the best advice, try before you buy.

Don


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

So there's one big decision you want to make before you jump in, and that's how realistic you want to be. The locos that interest you cover some 50 years of history, and I can't think of a real railroad that fostered all those models at the same time. Of course, you're free to model anything you like, or just run whatever interests you, or invent a plausible justification for an ahistorical situation. That's what I do: my layout is set in the mid-50's and the New Haven scrapped it's last steamer in 1953. Since I like steam, my railroad exists in a world where booming freight and passenger requirements led the New Haven to reactivate some steam because they couldn't acquire new diesels fast enough. Anyone boorish enough to try to tell me that by the time the McGinnis paint scheme was introduced, the NH didn't have steam locomotives any more doesn't get invited back.

Anyway, point is before you run off and buy a bunch of locos and rolling stock that don't fit innthe same era historically, make sure you're OK with that.


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## The Kid Inside (Feb 29, 2020)

CTValleyRR said:


> So there's one big decision you want to make before you jump in, and that's how realistic you want to be. The locos that interest you cover some 50 years of history, and I can't think of a real railroad that fostered all those models at the same time. Of course, you're free to model anything you like, or just run whatever interests you, or invent a plausible justification for an ahistorical situation. That's what I do: my layout is set in the mid-50's and the New Haven scrapped it's last steamer in 1953. Since I like steam, my railroad exists in a world where booming freight and passenger requirements led the New Haven to reactivate some steam because they couldn't acquire new diesels fast enough. Anyone boorish enough to try to tell me that by the time the McGinnis paint scheme was introduced, the NH didn't have steam locomotives any more doesn't get invited back.
> 
> Anyway, point is before you run off and buy a bunch of locos and rolling stock that don't fit innthe same era historically, make sure you're OK with that.


Thank you so much for your response. Im really just learning about the history of trains. I want my layout to be 60-80ish era. I'll choose locos built during this period.


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

Don't forget that locos tend to hang around for 20-30 years or more. A loco first built in 1990 would be inappropriate on your layout, but one built in the late 1950's wouldn't be, especially if you model the earlier end of that period.

Note that 20 years is a pretty long span. People who want to be very accurate historically generally pick a span of a few years, or sometimes even an exact date. Mine is early summer, sometime between 1956 and 57.

When and if you start placing road vehicles, a narrow time frame becomes much more important (people who would never dream of challenging your loco selection will nit-pick your choice of road vehicles to death!


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## cv_acr (Oct 28, 2011)

CTValleyRR said:


> Don't forget that locos tend to hang around for 20-30 years or more. A loco first built in 1990 would be inappropriate on your layout, but one built in the late 1950's wouldn't be, especially if you model the earlier end of that period.


An additional thing is figuring out when railroads adopted or replaced certain paint/colour schemes. So a locomotive built in 1955 might still be operating in 1985 but not in the colours it was first delivered in. (And conversely you obviously wouldn't want to model it in 1960 wearing colours that weren't introduced until 1970.)

And of course, some railroad names wouldn't exist at all yet at certain points in time, due to company rebranding/renaming, or large corporate mergers. (e.g. Conrail (Consolidated Rail Corporation) was created out of a merger of several eastern railroads in 1976. Amtrak was created to nationalize passenger service around the same time. Burlington Northern was created out of several western railroads in 1970.)

I see a Canadian flag on the OP's profile, so for some local flavour, Canadian National made a bold change to their image in 1961, introducing their modern "noodle" logo and red/black/grey locomotive colours, replacing the old olive green and yellow colours and maple leaf logo. Canadian Pacific replaced their old maroon and grey colours with the bold red "CP Rail" rebranding in late 1968. You would have seen a long period of overlap when the new schemes came in, with older equipment being gradually shopped and repainted over the next decade or so, but by about 1980 there was little trace of the old colours left on locomotives on either railroad. My club models CP in the 1970s because it's the "transition period" from the old to new colours.

There would have been freight cars around with the old logos still though - bringing up another point: for freight cars built before July 1974 their legal service life in unrestricted "interchange" service (meaning they could be exchanged between railroads - which is how loads move across the country from one railroad to another) is 40 years from build date. After July 1974, the service life is 50 years, but that won't affect you if you're interested in the 1980s since cars in that category will only be about 5-10 years old yet for you.


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## The Kid Inside (Feb 29, 2020)

Lol, love it!


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## Eilif (Nov 6, 2017)

A note about choosing a wide era. If your layout is small you can always keep more than one set of road vehicles that you can swap in for operating or photography. However, that might be tougher to maintain if your layout grows larger.

I'm building and collecting 80's to 90's Chicago area. My plan is to generally stick with the 80s which necessitates a good bit of 70s rolling stock and some older. However, a set of more modern vehicles could easily update it to the 90s or even beyond.


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

cv_acr said:


> An additional thing is figuring out when railroads adopted or replaced certain paint/colour schemes. So a locomotive built in 1955 might still be operating in 1985 but not in the colours it was first delivered in. (And conversely you obviously wouldn't want to model it in 1960 wearing colours that weren't introduced until 1970.)
> 
> And of course, some railroad names wouldn't exist at all yet at certain points in time, due to company rebranding/renaming, or large corporate mergers. (e.g. Conrail (Consolidated Rail Corporation) was created out of a merger of several eastern railroads in 1976. Amtrak was created to nationalize passenger service around the same time. Burlington Northern was created out of several western railroads in 1970.)
> 
> ...


Good points! I alluded to this issue in the first paragraph of my post #9 -- setting the layout in the years I did allows me to use the McGinnis paint scheme, which hadn't been introduced yet when the New Haven decommissioned its last steam locos. Ultimately, I decided to be historically accurate with the paint (which was applied to new acquisitions, but retrofitted very slowly; some locos never got it before the Penn Central merger). It was the presence of steam that I decided to fudge, because the alternate history was more plausible.


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## The Kid Inside (Feb 29, 2020)

Eilif said:


> A note about choosing a wide era. If your layout is small you can always keep more than one set of road vehicles that you can swap in for operating or photography. However, that might be tougher to maintain if your layout grows larger.
> 
> I'm building and collecting 80's to 90's Chicago area. My plan is to generally stick with the 80s which necessitates a good bit of 70s rolling stock and some older. However, a set of more modern vehicles could easily update it to the 90s or even beyond.


I think I'll do exactly this.


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## Bonz85 (Sep 16, 2019)

A major factor is how much do you want to spend. You can spend 20-40 bucks on a older Athearn locomotive or 200 plus for new locomotives. There is a pretty large range on what you can spend.


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

Bonz85 said:


> A major factor is how much do you want to spend. You can spend 20-40 bucks on a older Athearn locomotive or 200 plus for new locomotives. There is a pretty large range on what you can spend.


No argument, but depending on the loco, there also might be a very large range in performance and detail as well. That matters to some.


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## Bonz85 (Sep 16, 2019)

CTValleyRR said:


> No argument, but depending on the loco, there also might be a very large range in performance and detail as well. That matters to some.


You certainly get what you pay for but if someone doesn't want to spend the money for higher end equipment they will have to deal with the lower quality.


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

Bonz85 said:


> You certainly get what you pay for but if someone doesn't want to spend the money for higher end equipment they will have to deal with the lower quality.


Hence my comment "that matters to some".


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## Bonz85 (Sep 16, 2019)

CTValleyRR said:


> Hence my comment "that matters to some".


Details are going to have to not matter as much if you don't want to spend 200 bucks on a single locomotive. Hence my comment "how much do you want to spend"


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## Lee Willis (Jan 1, 2014)

You're lucky you are doing HO. In O-Gauge, the top premium locos from Lionel now list price at $2500. Competitors to Lonel have roughly the same prices (and quality). Those loco can be worth it (I've got a bunch) but the prices make you think hard each time you decide to buy.


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