Did your friend ever try buying locos from: Walthers's, Roco, Lima, Rivarossi?

What brands did he use?

Sorry, Michel, but I have had MUCH more trouble from Marklin digital than 2 rail analogue (or digital, Roco, but for a short while only).

See you on the 28th and please bring a loco or two (2 rail) to run.

Ciao.

Silvano

Hi!
Some two-rail users do not use traction tyres at all. Some two-rail users run many trains with cleaning cars.
For every H0 track system there are recommended practices and possible problems.

I have some expensive Märklin three-rail models that run like Scheiße - and some of them are made in China.
And some are "Made in Germany" and run like Scheiße.

I hate to say it that virtually every mass produced analogue engine I have works great. As soon as there is a decoder in it, the chances of it running well drop like a rock.

In the high end limited brass arena, only models by Christian Fuchs run well. All others are garbage for running. Forget the Falhaber engine etc, it will still be garbage running but great in a showcase.

I agree,the basics have to be there. Good track and wiring are the building blocks and without that, it doesn't matter what you run.

Some reference for a stuttering pig.

The Case Of The Stuttering Pig

http://dai.ly/x4d8tdf

It depends on how you define good running.

It is true to say that digital layouts need to be cleaned more often and dirty tracks and wheels have a greater effect on the performance.

However, analogue Marklin layouts always run too fast because it is impossible for the old AC motors to run slowly, so slow speed performance is terrible on AC analogue layouts compared to digital.

To sum up, simpler is more reliable, but not as realistic.

Ha ha!

Michel,
I'm not fully convinced you've used the availability of decoders which would make any brand loco run smoothly and Märklin, say 3 years ago wasn't one of them and today you pay a fortune to have your loco run smoothly under the Märklin brand and there aren't many options available to change the cost unless they are coming from a starter set whereas the amount for a loco may has been reduced.

I personally think there are several points of interest when it comes to model railway locos: the material is used, the motor, the gears, if any and the weight of the loco itself. so there isn't a great deal of things going wrong when you have options by using a decoder which is known to be suitable for a specific motor and these days there are decoders which you can program to a suitable speed, delayed acceleration or breaking speed,

I have not found 1 model train loco as yet, put it on the track and it runs either prototypical, has a prototypical delayed acceleration and breaking speed, has the light functions it should have unless I program the decoder.

if we include a smaller sized layout whereas a delayed acceleration or breaking distance is not possible to recreate a prototypical setup it still should have the smoothness of accelerating or breaking but at a faster rate.

it maybe helpful if we find out what type of decoder is in the loco and than we may know why you're not happy with its performance, and last, has the decoder been programmed at all ?

I'm sometimes horrified by the cost a manufacturer or dealer charges for a model, I've bought 2 locos, 1 from Liliput (diesel railcar) bought for Euro 69.00 instead of its RRP of Euro 265.00 and I wasn't impressed with the overall construction and materials they've used, the other from Jägerndorfer (ÖBB Rh 1163) how flimsy they've made them, it may represents details and is good enough to sit on the sideline but not used as prototypical model on your layout.

your topic heading: who rules the model railways ? its the buyer unless you are buying anything just because its a brand name, a model you like and later find out it has been a disaster, although most of my locos are made by Märklin (stopped buying them around the year 2000 but bought locos at a discounted price) I could never afford a loco for Euro 500.00, I just can't see the value in it., take the latest BR 103, the video shows the coupling between the loco and carriage doesn't work and this is what you call progress but they offer you 32 functions.

John

That is indeed key. Analogue is highly fault tolerant to wheel and track dirt and electrical noise, because its just voltage. Its like AM radio, its a simple and rather bulletproof system but what can be done with it is limited by what can be done in the past 20 years.

The digital solutions today can do so much more, and offer so many more play/model capabilities, but the signaling system, since it is pushing so much more information though the same 2 conductor, friction contact channel, is quickly degraded by poor contact, noise, dirt.

Pull a loco out of the box and plop it on a track - the factory applied oiling can be a problem. Things rattle loose in shipment as well.