# Dead rail?



## Bonz85 (Sep 16, 2019)

I was watching some YouTube videos on track cleaning and someone brought up dead rail. With dcc a battery powered train doesn't seem like a horrible idea, it would be nice to never worry about cleaning track. There are some obvious drawbacks but certainly a few advantages. With ho diesel engines you would either need a dummy or rolling stock for the battery pack. Seems like it would be more practical with a smaller layout when you only have a few locomotives. I believe there is only one company working on this. Just wondering what other people thought about it.


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## mesenteria (Oct 29, 2015)

The difficulty comes in the assignment of packets to each decoder. Those currently MUST come up from the rails., so rail contact is still important. If the system could go through the air, say with Bluetooth technology, then the DCC signals could be sent to the decoders that way. It would add quite a bit of cost if, for nothing else, the proprietary nature of Bluetooth.


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## Bonz85 (Sep 16, 2019)

The system I seen uses your phone or a tablet and is wireless. It seems the cost is higher than most dcc setups. Any of the videos I seen on YouTube where a year old and haven't seen any updated information so the company that was developing it my have went under.


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

The crux of the matter, for me, is battery charging. I keep my track clean, and don't have any dead spots, so there's very little up-side to this technology, especially when, for a lot less money, you can just add a capacitor that will give your loco a few seconds of power when it encounters an issue. I have yet to see a feature on these systems that DCC can't do as well or better.

Dead rail requires that you charge the batteries somehow. Even with wireless charging, having to keep track of the battery levels and remembering to charge them just seems like a huge, unnecessary hassle to me.


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## Bonz85 (Sep 16, 2019)

I would agree the hassle of charging batteries would be a pain especially if you were running multiple trains. I don't think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

I have one dead-rail locomotive, the LionChief Plus Camelback that I added batteries to and made it dual-mode power, battery and track power. I don't see me doing a lot of these, but it was a fun little side project.


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## Old_Hobo (Feb 20, 2014)

Personally, I wouldn’t think charging the battery would be any more difficult than charging your cell phone everyday, as most of us do....and the battery in the phone lasts all day, so....


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

If you have a dozen to charge, you might look at it differently.  The battery in a locomotive won't last all day, at least if I run the smoke. However, my little Camelback does pretty well, it'll run close to three hours on a charge.


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## Severn (May 13, 2016)

I'm just about sure I'm going to outfit one ho dcc loco with the tam valley wireless approach.



Dead Rail Installs – Sales and Installation of Remote Controlled Battery Operated Control Systems for Model Trains



The appeal is both the fun, but using existing infrastructure. But it's not the only approach.

Clearly not cost effective for many engines.

Id trade accurate fuel tanks for some kind of snap in battery but I bet that would never sell.


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## Bonz85 (Sep 16, 2019)

I'm sure they could make a quick swap out battery or if it were in a dummy loco you could have a couple and always have one charge but then again there is more expense. I wouldn't expect a ho scale train to run more than a couple hrs on a charge.


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## Old_Hobo (Feb 20, 2014)

A couple of hours would work for me......Seldom run trains all day long anyway....


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## Severn (May 13, 2016)

For me that'd work. Also if in theory the whole stable were like it, then no wiring except at switches (even these could be battery powered). And no reverse polarity/phase problems. But for costs, hassle and integration issues. Still overall it's appealing. Or seems it.


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## Bonz85 (Sep 16, 2019)

Hadn't really thought about integration. It wouldn't really make a lot of sense to go this route if you already have your track wired, basically no advantage to having a couple of your locomotives running on batteries. Unless you are building a new layout and going to be completely battery powered would be the only reason to go this way. Converting locomotives over would take customizing.


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## J.Albert1949 (Feb 3, 2018)

The entire concept of "dead rail", to me, seems as if it will work as well as 1:1 battery-powered locomotives pulling freight trains.

Which is to say... not so well.

That's why electric locomotives have a continuous source of power available, either through catenary or third rail. They run great (I ran them for 30+ years).

Hmmm... and model train locomotives have run pretty well using that same concept for around 100 years now...


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

Old_Hobo said:


> Personally, I wouldn’t think charging the battery would be any more difficult than charging your cell phone everyday, as most of us do....and the battery in the phone lasts all day, so....


It isn't, necessarily. But it's one more (unnecessary) thing to remember to track and deal with. Forgetting to charge my phone is a real PITA.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

Obviously, if dead-rail appeals to you, go for it. It simply doesn't appeal to me, and I also have a considerable investment in stuff that isn't dead-rail, a further impediment to going totally dead-rail. Farting around with charging a bunch of locomotives and being annoyed when I forget the one I wanted to run also doesn't appeal to me. Finally, giving up some of the features my existing locomotives have also doesn't appeal to me, YMMV.


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## Matison (12 mo ago)

CTValleyRR said:


> The crux of the matter, for me, is battery charging. I keep my track clean, and don't have any dead spots, so there's very little up-side to this technology, especially when, for a lot less money, you can just add a capacitor that will give your loco a few seconds of power when it encounters an issue. I have yet to see a feature on these systems that DCC can't do as well or better.
> 
> Dead rail requires that you charge the batteries somehow. Even with wireless charging, having to keep track of the battery levels and remembering to charge them just seems like a huge, unnecessary hassle to me.


I like the idea of a capacitor to help with dead spots. What type capacitor do you use, and is it necessary to fuse the circuit to eliminate surges?


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## Lemonhawk (Sep 24, 2013)

The capacitor keep alive is not quite that simple. The decoder needs to have terminals available for a keep alive as the "capacitor" needs to be connected into the decoder after its picked off the digital message and the fullwave bridge has converted the track signal to DC. in reality there may be even more involved in that the connection to the decoder may have pins for charging the cap and an output that will then supple the full charge in the cap to the decoders power regulation circuitry. It's usually best to get the keep alive device that goes with the decoder.

A word about fuses and electronics. Fuses will probably not act fast enough to protect the decoder, hence the "fuse" will be whatever semiconductor device in the decoder fails first when an over volt condition happens. The "fuse" is usually discovered after the fact - when the decoder stops and lets out steam.


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## OilValleyRy (Oct 3, 2021)

Kind of an old thread but a good topic. 
I agree that it might be practical for smaller layouts that use one or two locomotives. Larger layouts with 6-8 locomotives moving and others needing to be ready at any time wouldn’t work well I suspect. That’s a lot of battery packs to charge.

Speaking of charging; if a service track provided wireless charging, that’d be neat in a novelty way. But no way that locomotives in my staging yard or refinery switchers would be able to utilize that.

Like with most things, it’d be viable for some people/situations but definitely niche. And consider future expansion. Someone who has a small layout may eventually upgrade to bigger better pastures with a 25x40 ft available layout space. At which point battery packs would become impractical me thinks. 
There’s something to be said for tried & true. You can’t really improve sliced bread.


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## kilowatt62 (Aug 18, 2019)

OVR, 
I disagree sir. If you slice the bread a bit thicker, you can hide more batteries. 😂😂😂


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## Matison (12 mo ago)

Thanks for your input on the issue. So far I only have about 100 feet of track to make a single loop around the house using one locomotive at a time.

Eventually I hope to collect enough solid brass G gauge track to make a loop around the garden area. 
Because of this, I am using DC for the time being. DCC may be something that I can do in the future. Connecting components such as capacitors or resistors should be easier when I’m not dealing with decoders, etc…


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## OilValleyRy (Oct 3, 2021)

Matison said:


> Thanks for your input on the issue. So far I only have about 100 feet of track to make a single loop around the house using one locomotive at a time.
> 
> Eventually I hope to collect enough solid brass G gauge track to make a loop around the garden area.
> Because of this, I am using DC for the time being. DCC may be something that I can do in the future. Connecting components such as capacitors or resistors should be easier when I’m not dealing with decoders, etc…


G scale is, in probably most opinions, a very different thing than smaller scales. And outdoors changes things even more. 
I considered possibly switching to G if I had to. Granted I haven’t researched it to great extent; but batteries of the R/C variety are what I probably would have used.
With DC or DCC you need to use romex rated for exterior application (UV & weather protected, and raceway probably required too). But you still end up with it in exposed rails. Bearing in mind that even 0.2 amps at 120V can in theory kill a person. Considering puddles, snow, who knows what… Even with a GFCI I’d be more comfortable with an 8 or 9 cell battery or look into using a cell phone lithium type battery and R/C control like an R/C airplane; rendering the track 100% mechanical in purpose. 
But that’s me.

BTW you can now get lithium batteries about the size of a US Postage stamp. Making a “bank” of 12 cells would be about the volume as a single 9V battery. Not sure how long those last compared to a cellphone battery.


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## Matison (12 mo ago)

A lot of the older locomotives really suck down the power fast. I am going to stick with dc as long as I can make it work reliably. I do understand what you are saying about the dangers of electricity. I have a pacemaker, and a large jolt might make things a little dicey for me.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

OilValleyRy said:


> Bearing in mind that even 0.2 amps at 120V can in theory kill a person.


Actually, way less current than that can kill you. A current of as little as 0.007 amps (7mA) across the heart for three seconds is enough to kill. 0.1 amps (100mA) passing through the body will almost certainly be fatal. 

Factsheet - 120 Volts Can Kill!.pdf


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