Once upon a time, I bought this train set as a introduction into DCC. That it did and it provided me with a year of so of enjoyment until I overloaded it. One way or another this set is a decent entry level train set into DCC. Just beware of some possible manufacturing or storage errors. First off the set came packaged well, and despite a reckless UPS man it arived at my front door with no damage. Upon setting the train set up on the floor, and running the trains for a few hours everything seemed well. So I packed it up again and took it to my layout, which was under construction. There are the DCC system as well as the track used in the set, were heavily used. Unfortunately this is where the problem started. The F3, (red and silver locomotive) somehow manage to bend an axle. Sadly I didn't know about the warranty program, and piched it. A week or so later after a visit to a train show, my brand new 2-8-0 steam locomotive developed a valve gear problem. All the metal pieces that connect the wheels together got tangled up, and the train seized up and ground to a halt. After a little work I managed to get the valve gear back the way it was supposed to be, only the find out the inner axles had twisted and broken. The culprit turned out to be the manual switch used in this set. The frog of the switch, the piece that rerails the train after it crosses over the points themselves, was warped just slightly and made itself a hint too narrow. This caused certain locomotives to bend their axles slightly, eventually leading into total failure. After replacing that switch, not a single locomotive hashe had a problem on my layout. I was lucky that only two engines suffered this fate, however this being said, I doubt it was Bachmann fault. These train sets are designed to be sold at Hobby Stores, where there is climate control and AC, not the massive Amazon warehouses. Now, I'm not saying Amazon is totally at fault, but I am saying every train set I've bought from a local hobby store has been flawless, Bachmann or otherwise. And upon browsing the other train sets on amazon.com, I've noticed similar complaints. Trains not staying on the track, tracks not going together, derailment all the time, small pieces breaking off when taking out of the box, warped track, so on and so forth. Now my second trains that I bought from Amazon has been flawless, I bought the Echo Valley Express as a replacement and its been a bundle of fun. So I have a feeling that buying train sets from amazon.com can end up being a mixed bag. I recommend checking your local hobby shops first and then compare prices. Amazon is normally lower, so it's upto you weather the risk ia worth the reward. As for the set itself, the blue and yellow diesel continues to be a hard worker on my layout. As I said I accidentally fried the first EZ command trying get to run a DC Loco that was nearly 40 years old. All the other track minus the switch is still in use. And the Rolling Stock is also perfectly adequate. Personally if you want to see all the advantages of dcc I would pick this set-up as long as you accept the fact in could be faulty. The Value for money is well worth the risk, as long as you are sightfull. Check your rolling stock after i would say 5 laps, check for extreme bumpiness when going over the switch, and listen to your models. Any buzzing, grinding, or any other noise out of the ordinary needs to be addressed. And should something go wrong remember about them has a lifetime warranty on all their equipment. Don't be a fool like me and throw some trains out. Also one last word of advice. The EZ command is designed for small layouts. It only has enough power to run 3 trains at once despite having the ability to program 10. If you're buying this to upgrade an existing layout be aware of this. Bachman does offer a 5 amp power booster, and this would provide more than enough power to run any locomotive you want.
