I see in the upcoming (May) issue of MR they are going to do a feature on battery powered/radio controlled trains. I said about 10 years ago I thought onboard power would be the next big thing but I also wonder how soon it will be practical. I am amazed by the advancements in battery technology just in the past ten years. I can certainly see having batteries strong enough to power a good sized consist and yet small enough to fit inside a single loco. It seems to me the biggest problem is going to be keeping them charged up. If you have a large fleet, it would be a royal pain to have to move them to a charging station after each session. Maybe it will be possible to charge them in place through the rails but then you lose what I think would be one of the benefits of onboard power and that is eliminating the need to keep your rails clean. I don’t think it will be that big a deal to convert decoders to receive instructions via radio signal rather than through the rails. I’m betting there will be about a 20 year conversion period between the time the pioneers venture into battery powered locos and it becoming the norm, similar to the way DCC was gradually adopted.
My guess would be that a trailing boxcar is used for the batteries and maybe even the radio receiver.
I agree that as battery techology advances battery powered trains will come along. The idea of “dead rail” has moved along rapidly since its introduction and it will probably be a significant player within a few years. It will be quite interesting to see the DC vs DCC vs Battery forum squabbles as things progress [:)].
Joe
There was some chatter about this a few months ago.
The consenus, only partly informed, was that the batteries would be onboard the locos, be good for seven hours continous use, and recharge from the rails.
If the end of a session leaves all your locos in either staging or Engine storage spaces at a yard, then wiring would be simpler and less extensive, and a short period of power on would prepare for an operating session.
Be interesting to see what the article says is the actual status at this point.
Dave
The trouble with getting battery-powered trains is that there is little motivation for their development. On our home or club layouts, we essentially have an infinite power supply at our finger tips, and all we have to do is wire it up and it’s done. When you compare that with constantly need to recharge batteries, to me it’s a no-brainer with current technology.
In the last few years we’ve seen improvements in the opposite direction - keeping locomotives running over less-than-perfect track. Look at the Tam Valley “frog juicers” and TCS keep-alive decoders to see where we’re going.
Not having to worry about track power or shorts is a real plus. The batteries today will suport 6+ hours of constant use (how many of us do that). The new batteries will give 10 times that or be much smaller, they are starting to manufacture them now with even better ones in testing stage. Can’t wait for my cell phone battery to last a week!!!
I just wonder about the cost.
Once the technology is mature, I could see the cost to rise $100 to $150 over the price of a similar DCC engine. This is based upon my experience with mobile phones and assumes that a cheap control protocol like Bluetooth is implemented. I think battery technology is there for this. Charging through rails although possible would need some development. The question is who has deep enough pockets to develop this and can see a viable ROI.
Derek
I could see this developing the way the personal computer did. In the 1970s, PCs were built by hobbyists from components. Within a decade you could buy a complete ready to use system right off the shelf.
There is already radio control technology for HO scale locomotives. Ring Engineering makes railpro which uses a hand held control unit with a touch screen, and a small circuit board that can plug in like a DCC decoder. Currently, ring engineering sells a power supply which powers the rails with a constant DC voltage. They can also run on DCC (but won’t respond to DCC commands). A system like this could easily be converted to use battery power. The batteries could be put in a dummy locomotive, and wires that look like MU cables could connect the locomotives.
The problem with this approach is that many layouts model branchlines and short lines where double headed engines, whether steam or diesel, would look out of place hauling a short 6-8 car train. The battery pack could be put in boxcar right behind the loco, but what if you are modeling a logging or coal mine operation where a boxcar would be out of place. I don’t think this is really going to catch on until everything can be built small enough to fit into a single loco.
Tam Valley has an interesting variation, they have a small trnasmitter unit the connects to the track outputs of any DCC system, and the reciver connect to the input of any decoder. You operate your DCC system as usual, but instead of the signal going through the rails, it’s radio. The receiver side can be powered by on-board batteries or through constant rail power.
–Randy
Personaly, I think that a true battery powered locomotive will not happen. Why pay a higher price to have batteries, and have to fit them in your locomotive, plus have to remember to recharge them, when you can have an unlimited amount of track power. I believe in the future we will see hybrid locomotives, ones that have batteries that last at least a minute, but run off of track power whenever possible. It would be the best of both worlds. You wouldn’t have to worry about somewhat dirty track or dead spots, and you wouldn’t have to worry abo
[quote user=“Kyle”]
jecorbett
Kyle
There is already radio control technology for HO scale locomotives. Ring Engineering makes railpro which uses a hand held control unit with a touch screen, and a small circuit board that can plug in like a DCC decoder. Currently, ring engineering sells a power supply which powers the rails with a constant DC voltage. They can also run on DCC (but won’t respond to DCC commands). A system like this could easily be converted to use battery power. The batteries could be put in a dummy locomotive, and wires that look like MU cables could connect the locomotives.
The problem with this approach is that many layouts model branchlines and short lines where double headed engines, whether steam or diesel, would look out of place hauling a short 6-8 car train. The battery pack could be put in boxcar right behind the loco, but what if you are modeling a logging or coal mine operation where a boxcar would be out of place. I don’t think this is really going to catch on until everything can be built small enough to fit into a single loco.
Personaly, I think that a true battery powered locomotive will not happen. Why pay a higher price to have batteries, and have to fit them in your locomotive, plus have to remember to recharge them, when you can have an unlimited amount of track power. I believe in the future we will see hybrid locomotives, ones that have batteries that last at least a minut
battery technology is one of the most critical technological challenges of today. While battery technology has improved over the last 40 years, it hasn’t improved at anywhere near the rate of electronics and computing power which while increasing in processing speed also requires a similar increase is power.
If either batteries or supercaps were used in model railroads wouldn’t it make sense for them to stop at some station with powered rails to recharge, just as steam locomotives had to replenish both water and coal and diesels has to replenish with fuel. Would this become part of operation?
Battery powered direct radio is already the system of choice in large scale.
With or without batteries, considerable developement is happening in direct radio for HO, and a hybrid system is likely the best future, batteries with some live rail for charging.
Advantages - less under layout infrastructure. Have any of you looked under the layout of a LARGE DCC layout with signaling and detection - just as much, or more, hardware and wire than my advanced cab control DC layout.
Sure small and medium sized DCC layouts without signaling or DCC controlled turnouts don’t need much in the way of wiring, but start needing lots of boosters, sationary decoders, detectors, etc, etc - the picture chages quick.
Battery powered direct radio would greatly reduce all that.
Sheldon
The answer is simple, when it is economical. There is car-plane going to be available from a European company in the next couple years - cool yes - affordable, not so much - and of course commen? Not for a long time (even considering a whole new set of flight rules).
As for battery powered trains, as someone mentioned, something like the Railpro from Ring Engineering seems like the logical leap in that direction, where yes, battery power is provided but track power is still there to charge the batteries. Maybe a bit like “keep alive” on steroids and control is through the air and not through the rails.
http://atlasrescueforum.proboards.com/thread/3521/ring-engineering-railpro-review
There is a discussion in the above topic at Atlas Rescue.
For me, and many others, cost is a major consideration as to what we adopt on our model railroads, as well as featuers.
The more I read about the various issues and fixes or systems, the more I like the idea of a simple keep-alive feature on what we already have. If batteries are ‘that good’ in recent years, then surely a small one capable of extending an otherwise dead locomotive for maybe 10-15 full seconds is doable, and all inside the tender shell or fuel tank of a diesel. That feature would solve about 90% of all the hair-pulling for about 90% of all users in a given scale.
Yes, keep alive seems like just the “tweak” DCC needs to have to address one of the only major short comings - break in power due to dirty track or dead spots such as switches/turnouts. Cost of course is still a barrier or limitation to many of us, as ideally all DCC decoders would have a keep alive circuit in them. Some day…
What could be more simple than a radio decoder and battery, the decoders (without sound) are as small as .8x.4x.2 as in a Deltang Rx60-22. Around $40 before the euro plunge.
Again I will remind all in this descussion that we are really just talking about the further minaturization of an existing and popular technology.
Spend a few minutes on the Garden Railways forum and you will see what I mean.
I agree, cost, interchangeablity, availablity are all issues that will drive populartiy of any such new products.
There are several good direct radio systems on the market now - and more work is being done to expand them deeper into the HO market - with and without battery power.
Now, I don’t expect many people to convert from DCC to direct radio or direct radio w/battery power.
BUT, it is a very real possiblity that it could soon be a serious contender for new people entering the hobby, or existing modelers still using DC.
Personally, I think the guy who puts a together a complete product line, and has an easy to use throttle (a big problem in my view with DCC), will have a good shot at both the market segments mentioned above.
And I am still convinced the existing percentage of DC users in HO and N scale is pretty large - likely 50%.
Sheldon