Ole' Reliable

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Kato has the best motors and drive. (In fact, the Athearn RTR hex drive is a clone of the Kato). Smooth and quiet running. They do not come with DCC on-board unless you get a Kobo special (where they install DCC and/or sound at the factory for a fee), but they come with an 8-pin plug making installation easy.
 
Never had any trouble with Walthers/Proto 2000 sound/DCC models; Athearn Genesis with Tsunamis or BLI/Precision Craft. No experience with Atlas with DCC, but plenty without.
 
Proto 2000 models have different gearing which may affect the running characteristics and MUing. Also, Proto 2000 engines seem to top out at a lower max speed.

Athearn Genesis engines may have motors that start up too fast and cannot be fixed with DCC programming. You may need to remotor them.

BLI engines are nice, but if you get the earlier Blueline locomotives, you may have problems programming them.

Atlas locomotives with DCC come in two varieties. The old Atlas Master series with a (lenz) dual mode decoder on board, and the Atlas Master Series Gold with the QSI Q1 decoder on board. (Q1 is the stock QSI decoder, Q1a is the chip upgrade, and Q2 is the Quantum Revolution.)
 
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