I have to vote for Bachmann, for the simple reason that, out of my 10 or so engines, the Bachmann ones are the only ones that still run after sitting for a year...the others are probably only dirty, but they are hard to start running and they get loud and stop randomly awaiting a nudge...which is bad when they are in the tunnels...I have 2 Atlas, an old Arnold and my newer Kato, that I haven't let sit for long enough to test, simply because it's my big steam engine and I love the look of steam engines so it runs a LOT!!!