05-08-2010, 01:07 PM
Another reason that I buy most of my locomotives from my local hobby shop is that they take every locomotive out of the box and test run it before they put it on the shelf. In addition every time a customer buys a locomotive, it is taken out of the case, put on the tracks and test run in dcc with a test of the sound if it is so equipped, before it is put back into the packaging and the box for purchase. I have been there when they received a shipment of locomotives and discovered that typically the only locomotives that run correctly out of the box 99% of the time are Athearn. Kato, BLI, Intermountain, Atlas, and Bachmann all have at least 10% and in many cases up to 40% failure rate out of the box. Those locomotives they don't even mess with, they just send them back. When they run the Katos, Atlas, and BLI models may run better than the Athearns when they work, but they are not as consistent out of the box. I don't order locomotives online or mail order ever.