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Reply to "Atlas' Acquisition of MTH Tooling"

Let me preface this by saying I am a huge MTH fan.

H1000, you are lucky. Back when I was a 3 Railer I pre-ordered the first gen DCS system. It cost $300 at the time. I also ordered the AIU. I forget how much that was. I had a small layout at the time and the system worked okay. Unfortunately, one day I had somewhat of a short. It must have been pulling about 7-9 amps (just guessing) and the circuit breaker never tripped on my transformer which was a postwar ZW. Well, that let the smoke out of the TIU. I guess it was my fault for not using a more modern transformer but I felt the TIU should have been designed with circuit protection from the get go. Looking back maybe the CB in the transformer was faulty. If it was I didn’t realize it was faulty so it may have just been bad luck that the TIU got fried. The original remote also broke and this was not my fault. The wire going to the antenna board broke. I tried to fix it but a couple of traces came off the circuit board. Years later I sold the set for $15 to fellow forum member who wanted to mount it on a display board for some kind of presentation. The remote still worked but only if tethered. I still got the AIU and it still works perfectly.

I did buy another DCS set years later when the added the USB port. I still have it and have used it sparingly over the years for both the occasional 3 rail train or a PS3 upgrade I did. Even after all of this I am still a huge MTH fan. Hey, no train company is perfect.

About 16 years ago I spent double what I spent on my first DCS system to buy the NCE DCC system (and eventually had to spend more money on a power supply—initially I used the same ZW) but it hasn’t been upgraded, hardware or software in all the years I have had it and it still works perfectly.

Since Atlas will be using PS3 it can be controlled by DCC as Matt mentioned. I am not sure about the diesel side but a lot of my MTH steam engines have the same exact whistle. I like the sounds but I hope that whoever does the sounds for PS3 in the future will continue to upgrade and create a higher variety of the whistles and horns.

I also hope that PS3 upgrade kits will continue to be produced. I haven’t seen anything mentioned about the upgrade kits.

Last edited by Hudson J1e

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