TT scale trains and models

not to start a here we go again topic as i know this is just folly. my question is if a major manufacturer was to put out a line of american prototype equipment, what manufacturer would you prefer? doesnt have to be an american company. my choice being kato. reason being from n scale experience that thier locos ran much better and looked nicer than either atlas or athearn.i had thee sd70macs one from each manufaturer and the kato loco took evev the tightest radius curves without slowing down at all. the atlas loco slowed down noticably, while the athearn damn near stopped. this was also notiable with other locos with the katos breezing right thru.again just folly, but my curiosity gets the best of me sometimes.

jmass wrote:not to start a here we go again topic as i know this is just folly. my question is if a major manufacturer was to put out a line of american prototype equipment, what manufacturer would you prefer? doesnt have to be an american company. my choice being kato. reason being from n scale experience that thier locos ran much better and looked nicer than either atlas or athearn.i had thee sd70macs one from each manufaturer and the kato loco took evev the tightest radius curves without slowing down at all. the atlas loco slowed down noticably, while the athearn damn near stopped. this was also notiable with other locos with the katos breezing right thru.again just folly, but my curiosity gets the best of me sometimes.

I personally dislike Kato. I have only one Kato set, an N-scale TGV set. I have had some issues with the draw-bars coming undone, even on straight track. The people I talked to at customer service were not all that helpful, and claimed that despite the fact that I bought it new, it has been deemed used due to it's time on the shelf, and that I should just buy a new one, as support for the style I bought was no longer available. After some reasearch, I found that the drawbars were made poorly, and some had been able to get those replaced by Kato, for a fee. Said parts were about $20 + shipping for a single drawbar, which is not cheap considering there are 8 cars in the set, so I made new ones myself.

Athearn has pissed me off with their dropping of all support for kits and spare parts, leaving a few of my Athearn locos with no future.

I think it might be better to get a company that is familiar with TT scale to build North American prototypes. Perhaps Tillig and Roco might be the best options.

Being strictly a TTer, I only have experience with European manufacturers. I think very highly of Kuehn and Roco is doing good stuff as well. Kuehn's price points given their quality is unbeatable so I would have to vote for them.

Kuehn, Tomix (just as likely as any others, I guess, to do NA TT), Atlas would be my votes.

Haha, I'd take any of them.
Kato makes great locos but doesn't produce a lot of different models. Atlas would probably be the best choice based on their combination of quality and production. Bachman would also be good for their pricing and tendency to make lots of choices for their chosen scale. MTH could pull it off and might sell a lot of DCS systems in the bargain. Lionel makes a quality product and also knows how to popularize a scale. SHS has the best customer service in the industry and makes a top quality product so if they got interested in TT we'd be well served. and Weaver is a dark horse candidate based on their ability to make a good product at a reasonable price and their willingness to move into market vacuums, they started the 2 rail O scale revival years ago so they could do the same thing for TT if they wanted. I don't know much about the foreign manufacturer but they'd have to change their ideas of flange size and pricing to be a hit over here....dave

In defence of European manufacturers and their flange sizes, it's not necessarily "their idea of flange size" as much as the fact that they've got to adhere to the NEM (European Model Railway Standards) specifications, which are IMNSHO very much outdated.

TTQuebec wrote:In defence of European manufacturers and their flange sizes, it's not necessarily "their idea of flange size" as much as the fact that they've got to adhere to the NEM (European Model Railway Standards) specifications, which are IMNSHO very much outdated.

For me, the NEM specs for flanges are not a problem, so a European model company would work just fine.