10-07-2011, 02:52 PM
All popular priced train set locos used to have the flat pancake style motor that was basically an on-off throttle control and very poor at pulling loads. The exception was the old Atlas sets, and I think Walthers who offered their train sets with can motors and gear towers with all wheel pick up and all wheel drive. About the time that Athearn got back into train set production, Bachmann came out with Bachmann Plus which was basically the old Bachmann train set bodies on a Bachmann Spectrum drive. Lifelike came out with Proto 1000 which is the old train set body on a Proto 2000 drive. Any locomotive with a pancake motor driving off one truck will run awful and not pull well at all. Those locomotives with the better drives just lack some of the body detailing that you would find on Athearn Genesis, Bachmann Spectrum, Lifelike P2k, etc. They will be good runners.