Just wondering which manufacturer is offering the nicest scale intermodal equipment these days? I have tons of Lionel traditional size TOFC's and double stacks but am considering making the leap to scale size.
Opinions?
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You won't go wrong with Atlas-O Gunderson 5-car sets. A new shipment is due this Summer (slipping from 1Q2013), and they typically don't stay on shelves all that long. I have a blue CSX set on order already. 40' and 45' containers are available now for separate-sale purchase.
A close second is Lionel's husky stack cars with containers, but they've been absent from the latest catalogs. MTH Premier tends to have a couple of cars in each catalog... and occasionally will offer an uncatalog'd intermodal twin-stack car or two throughout the year. MTH did a couple of runs of Gundersons several years back following the excitement Atlas-O generated with theirs, but it's been quite awhile since MTH produced Gunderson's.
David
Atlas sets the bar for intermodal equipment being 1:48 and prototyipcally accurate. Just keep in mind that their offerings are late-80's era stuff. Their containers are fabulous, but most of the 40ft containers on the rails today are high-cube.
The original Lionel notquitescale offeriings had awesome 48 ft containers with very prototypical markings. Then they started making 48ft evergreen and 48ft Maersk, containers that have never existed. Their stuff is early 1990s.
No manufacturer makes anything like you would use to put together a modern intermodal freight train. You have to go to HO or N scale for that.
But I agree with David above. Atlas first, Lionel second.
