Ok, well here's my sixpence worth on the Advance range.
Personally I love it, for a start it is backward compatible with the standard plarail 'blue tracks' so if you have any existing track or you pick some up somewhere you have an automatic head-start. It also means if you decide Advance is not for you then you can still re-use any 'standard' track you already own for the larger plarail rolling stock.
Secondly you get to run two trains on a single track side-by-side so that you can have a more active layout for the same amount of track.
Thirdly and the winner for me is that the locomotives themselves are a true work of art. The detail is stunning and due to the smaller scale they are more accurate in terms of dimensions than the larger plarail scale. You can also with most of them connect them with couplings so you can create longer trains.
Unfortunately I can't confirm or deny the issues with the trains climbing slopes as I don't currently own the slope specifically made for the Advance series, but I have seen videos online where they appear to run as well as standard plarail and/or where the owners have a dual level setup.
The only other downside is that you do need plarail advance specific types of certain track components such as stop rails, points and the aformentioned 'slope', but these are relatively cheap so aren't a major blocker, doubly so if you are starting from scratch.
Hope this helps a bit, Nigel
Oh, and I just found this; Hyper Guardian Starter Set
This is a basic start set containing one of the Hyper Guardian locomotives/carriages with an oval of track for just over £35 so quite reasonable in price
(This post was last modified: 06-18-2015, 09:09 AM by Nigels.)
Personally I love it, for a start it is backward compatible with the standard plarail 'blue tracks' so if you have any existing track or you pick some up somewhere you have an automatic head-start. It also means if you decide Advance is not for you then you can still re-use any 'standard' track you already own for the larger plarail rolling stock.
Secondly you get to run two trains on a single track side-by-side so that you can have a more active layout for the same amount of track.
Thirdly and the winner for me is that the locomotives themselves are a true work of art. The detail is stunning and due to the smaller scale they are more accurate in terms of dimensions than the larger plarail scale. You can also with most of them connect them with couplings so you can create longer trains.
Unfortunately I can't confirm or deny the issues with the trains climbing slopes as I don't currently own the slope specifically made for the Advance series, but I have seen videos online where they appear to run as well as standard plarail and/or where the owners have a dual level setup.
The only other downside is that you do need plarail advance specific types of certain track components such as stop rails, points and the aformentioned 'slope', but these are relatively cheap so aren't a major blocker, doubly so if you are starting from scratch.
Hope this helps a bit, Nigel
Oh, and I just found this; Hyper Guardian Starter Set
This is a basic start set containing one of the Hyper Guardian locomotives/carriages with an oval of track for just over £35 so quite reasonable in price