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Has anyone heard of a Radio Controlled Locomotive?
I woke up last night with this idea.
I am in the process of removing my old layout and planning for a new one. Since I'm getting up there in age (read, I don't bend like I used to), and the thought of getting under a new layout to do all that wiring is not to my liking.
I got to thinking that if a locomotive could carry it's own power supply, then all the feeders, blocks, gaps, and power reversing for loops would be not be necessary.
I'm no expert, but I believe this is already happening in G scale (any G-scalers out there care to comment?)
This topic comes up from time to time on various forums, and the main problem is the size of the stuff you'd have to put in a locomotive and the lack of space available for it (I'm talking about HO). The consensus is that at the present time, battery and electronics technology isn't quite there yet for anything smaller than G scale (although O scale should be getting close now-a-days). It might work in a steam loco if you put the receiver, battery, etc in the tender. Or in a boxcar or "B-unit" trailing a diesel locomotive.
Another problem re-charging the batteries - you'd have to have a way to plug them to a charger when not in use. Perhaps you could have a short section of powered track that would transmit recharging power to the batteries through the rails.
You sound like you're dealing with DC... There are wireless remote control throttles for DCC, but you still have to wire feeders to the rails and to an electrical bus. The wiring is much easier with DCC, though.
One good thing about remote control like you're talking about is that you don't have to worry so much about keeping the rail heads clean, since the locomotive carries its own power. Even with DCC, you still have to keep the rails somewhat clean and shiny.
