Marklin vs. MicroTrains vs. AZL Who's better?

Well it used to be MT vs. Marklin, but with AZL in the mix, Marklin is in the back seat except for people who need European prototypes.

I have decided to go with MicroTrains couplers (Kadee) because of how they look, and the delayed uncoupling. I hear that they are less reliable, but we'll see if they are reliable enough.

There was an ongoing controversy over whether the Marklin F units are better than the MicroTrains. One thing for sure, the MicroTrains stuff is scale proportioned, and the Marklin stuff has some strange dimensions. Things are clearer when you find out that Marklin makes a limited number of locomotive chassis, and they "fit" a number of different diesels to the same chassis. If you don't know this, Marklin is German, and they have mostly german prototypes.

here's a link to a site with pictures of Marklin rolling stock by part number

Micro Trains - improvements and repairs

here is a link to Harald's "freudenreich Geinwerktechnik" page on how to modify Marklin cars to put the trucks the right distance from the ends of the cars, it really improves their looks. I just hope someone would sell the little bolster pins!