As an LGB MTS user now for about two years now I thought I would put finger to keyboard and write about my experience's with this system.

 I first decided to go the MTS route after building my second railway which was only a single line and wanted to have more than one train running at once and to allow for a bit of shunting. This system fitted the bill and had the added advantage of not having to have so much wiring as in isolating sections to hold locos as the LGB MTS system would do all this for me.

One of the down sides to start with was the fact that all my locos where going to need decoders fitting to them which would mean a high start-up cost as these decoders are about £45 and one per motor block are needed. After getting the system setup and chipping a couple of locos I found this system very easy to use and the fact that all lights stay on even when loco is stationary looks nice. This system does allow the operation of one none decodered engine in the form of an analogue mode. This works fine but when stationary the loco motor will buzz because of the track power being constant, it is advised that none chipped locos are not left standing for long periods as it can over heat the motors.

The initial setup I purchased only came with a wired handset (55016) and a command centre (55005)to go wireless requires more kit to be brought ( a 55050 and 55055 )this adds once more to the cost, but having the freedom to wander with the handset is a real bonus, but please remember that if you did choose this setup to use the Ariel that is tapped to the inside of the lid of the box as the unit will not function correctly without it.

One of the other quirks with the system that has now been fixed with the new parallel MTS system is that when using locos with sound you sometimes get the wrong result as when you press a button to activate a sound , say 8, it sends eight pulses to the train and these do not always get through and the loco may receive seven pulses and sound the horn instead of the bell, but this is not something that effected me as I do not run sound equipped locos.

I find the 6amp output more than enough to run about four small trains at once with lights without any problems, I can also have a couple of trains waiting to run on the track as well such as in sidings.

As for the handsets, well the standard loco handset (55016 ) which has a nice dial to show train direction and speed is great to use but will only operate locos and has no other functions but the universal remote handset (55015) that allows you to operate trains, points, signals and the such only has buttons to press to change speed and direction which is not so nice to use which is a shame, but the new Parallel enabled units do make more use of the display to show speed and direction which is a slight improvement.

One last thing I found with the system was the remote switch boxes (55025) where hard to setup and the instructions to change the settings on these units is some what poor leading to a few frustrations when first using them and I also found that they ran into problems when being used to change more than one point at a time in that one point would not always change properly it would just buzz. I now use the large switch boxes (51750) to control my points and as this can be fed from the output from the LGB MTS power station it does not require much more to wire this system in and it can change up to four points at once,

All in all I have been more than please with my LGB MTS system and now that all new locos are coming ready chipped the cost of running this system is getting cheaper and easier. And as for the question of running other makes of train with this system well if using USA Trains then they can be converted to run with LGB MTS decoders, see article on this website for more details and with Aristocraft well I use Digitrax DCC decoders as the Aristocraft locos come with a plug ready for these and they can used and programmed using the LGB MTS Handsets so once fitted they are almost the same as an LGB MTS decoder loco but they do tend to be a little abrupt at pulling away as the Digitrax decoders like to use 28 speed steps for acceleration and the LGB MTS system only supports 14 but this is only a small quirk.