Recommend Some Traditional Scale Engines

The Legacy Geeps are awesome.
The Lionel LionMaster line is good for Traditional sized and RailKing rolling stock.  Some of them have been released with Legacy.  they handle small curves.  I have the LionMaster Pennsy T1...beautiful loco and a very good runner.  The T1 has been released recently with Legacy.

The Legacy 0-8-0 steamers are great. And while they are scale size, they look right at home pulling semi-scale and/or traditional size rolling stock.

 

Right now it seems that Lionel is putting most of their Legacy efforts in the scale realm.

 

MTH has just released a Railking PRR Trainmaster diesel. The Railking version is a dead ringer for a postwar Lionel model and has all the bells and whistles.

 

You also can look into the Railking "scale" size F3 diesel sets. They are also spot -on Postwar Lionel remakes. I believe they will be available in PRR next year.

 

Good luck and welcome back.

check out Williams by Bachman

The lionmaster t1 is on my list but im having trouble finding someone with one in stock. There was one on the forums here earlier this year but i never could get a response back. Great news on the geeps, i was pretty sure they were the right scale for my needs. I do have a k-line fm trainmaster as well as a pa-1 set. Im needing a jr mikado, a k4 and I believe the consolidation will fit my needs. I think i have a k-line gg1 in the works, which i like better than lionels as they have can motors instead of pullmors. Any others? Will check out williams stuff.

F-3's, F-7's and F-9's were short enough to be scale length yet operate on tighter turn "traditional" toy train tracks.  The main difference in "scale" on these is that the traditional units may not be has high as true scale units in order to match the smaller "traditional" passenger car sets of the 50's.

Some of the Imperial Railking is very nice too.

 

Dave

 

 

I asked a similar question a few years ago, and received good suggestions from the folks on the forum. I copied and saved the info. Here is a pdf. Hope it helps.

For years I ran nothing but Postwar Lionel F-3'snd GP at the rear, along with my 736,746 and 2046.  Then I got brave and added MPC GP's as "B" units between my F-3's, thus I would have a F-3 "A" unit followed by 4 GP;s all powered and then the powered F-3.

 

You haven't lived till you put on a GP and follow with GP's till you run ot of space, I never ran out of power using a ZW on a 30x45 layout.

 

Enjoy those MPC units , today they are cheaper and all I ever did was service brushes and springs,,,,,,,,,,,,,sometimes an eunit.

 

Today I have TMCC and are waiting to go to Legacy when I build my probably last last layout.

 

Rod

Another Vote for the Imperial Railking Engines, now with PS3 and wireless drawbars.

These engines are very nice, not too big and look and sound great.

Some say the sound is not as good as Legacy, I would not know.

I do know they sound pretty good to me.

I currently have a legacy set, or at least its in the mail. Im going with the fastrack tmcc switches as it cuts down on the wiring. My only real space for a permanant layout is in our barn and its not quite weather proof. That being said i dont plan on running dcs until or if they ever come out with some way to control the tmcc switches. The pdc was great, gave me alot of ideas. Im not affraid of doing some repainting. I really miss k-line, they had some of the best full featured traditional sized engines.