Years ago, when I was a teenager (OK, less then 10 years ago) I dreamed of the day we no longer needed to rely on one company for trucks and couplers. True the couplers worked well, but I did not like MTL trucks. I also had issues with relying on one company for this vital product.
When Atlas introduced their Accumates, I jumped early. My modern era cars required true 100T rollerbearing trucks MTL refused to make. The first few runs were prone to problems, which were fixable. At 60% the street price of the MTL trucks, I learned to live with it.
Atlas redesigned the 100T truck, along with many others. The detail became crisper, the couplers worked better, and the colors seemed more realistic then MTL's. Sure they still had a longish gap between cars, but most modern cars do anyway. Atlas and then Athearn added a long list of body styles to the Accumate brand.
Now Rapido has anounced passenger trucks in multiple styles that will no doubt blow away the old MTL stand-by.
Its nice to have a good selection of quality products, but my question is, whats left for MTL?
