Broadway Locos vs Atlas Locos


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dlobmwm3

Member
I am recently new to HO scale and was in the market for some locos that have sound. I have found some and wanted to get your feedback on quality and availability of parts on these two manufacturers. Would you go with Broadway or Atlas and why? :confused: Your input is greatly appreciated. Thank all.
 
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Both have the option to come with Quantum Sound, so both are great! They are both highly detailed aswell. Atlas is on the upside of running though, they run alot quieter. For some reason my BLI SD40-2 will make a hard to descrbe noise when in reverse, but simply turning the volume up has muffled it. Yay me! Ignore the problem instead of fixing it! :D:D
 
I concur. The Atlas diesels are exceptional in my limited experience. They almost universally get big thumbs up from members of other forums. The BLI product is also very good, but their drive mechanisms tend to be noisier than I would like in some cases. I have five steam engines made by them, and also a Lionel Challenger. Two of the BLI engines and the Lionel are noisy in reverse. They seem fine in forward.
 
BLI is the leader for less expensive sound equipped locomotives. Atlas is the leader for the smoothest runing locomotives but you'll pay more for DCC and sound. Both have about equal levels of detail. The BLI locomotives I have definitely have noisier drive systems but it's not like an old Athearn or anything that bad. My Atlas engines can hardly be heard running. I slightly prefer the sound system used by Atlas. It seems a little less muffled than BLI. Either company makes good products so it's just these small differences to talk about. If money is the main driver and you want sound, BLI is the way to go.
 
BLI and Atlas use the same sound system (QSI) so if that is your main focus, they are going to be roughly equivalent. But there have been several generations since both got into the sound business and you get what you get.

OTOH if you're interested in the model itself, quality of the assembly, quality of the drive line, accuracy in tooling and finish - Atlas wins hands down. BLI doesn't even make the top 5 there, diesel-wise. However BLI does make at least one prototype - the RSD15 - that nobody else makes. It's a decent model... not a spectacular one, but respectable at least. Most of the other BLI diesels have been done better by somebody else.

Andy
 
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