I have plenty of both from a few model runs. 3 MTH’s and 3 Lionel’s. If I had to pick a best one. Right out of the box. It would be the most recent MTH Proto 3. Very well detailed and a very good runner. Typical MTH smoke. No battery. Not great sounds. But okay for a switcher. 3 pickup rollers. 2 on the engine, one on the tender. It uses the drawbar for electrical connection. The very first Proto 2’s also had 3 rollers. Same detailing. Just the large looping tether. The later Proto 2’s only had rollers on the tender. I added rollers to the engine and now have 4. All the holes are still present to do it. I run Kadee’s. I used the wiring for the front coil coupler to tie the rollers together. Great runner but you still have the looping tether.
The Lionel’s aren’t as detailed. But they do feature a totally round boiler you can see under. Even the very first run came with 4 chuffs. Smoke is fan only. Not with chuffs. It does smoke well. Pretty good runner. Tie the rollers together and shorten the drawbar. The factory has a gap the size of the Grand Canyon. Probably the Best Buy of the bunch. The first Legacy version is a good runner. You can tie the Rollers together. I didn’t. Can’t remember if I shortened the drawbar. I did add a ground wire between the engine chassis and tender chassis. It would stall when changing direction. Maybe the traction tires needed to seat better. Forget the recent Legacy version. Way over priced. Came with a Flyer style board. Not a true Legacy engine. Terrible in switching moves. 3 or 4 usable speed steps.
