Anybody ever heard of The Dead Rail Society? A lot of what Ring is doing could be adapted to Dead Rail. A lot of the manufacturers of Dead Rail Systems have overlaping technology. Rail Pro is a proprietary system that has large components that will only fit in certain locos.
Correct me if I am wrong, but their sound is not as advanced as Soundtraxx or TCS.
I've heard of a few people that really like the Rail Pro system, although I've never seen one in person.
Check out www.deadrailsociety.com
Pete Steinmetz
Dead Rail Society
www.deadrailsociety.com
On30 Modeler
Encinitas, CA
CHARLES STEINMETZ Anybody ever heard of The Dead Rail Society? A lot of what Ring is doing could be adapted to Dead Rail. A lot of the manufacturers of Dead Rail Systems have overlaping technology. Rail Pro is a proprietary system that has large components that will only fit in certain locos. Correct me if I am wrong, but their sound is not as advanced as Soundtraxx or TCS. I've heard of a few people that really like the Rail Pro system, although I've never seen one in person. Check out www.deadrailsociety.com Pete Steinmetz
Railpro can do dead rail if you choose to. It will run fine on batteries, though currently there is no charging circuit made for it. Batteries would have to be charged out of the locomotive. Railpro doesn't care where the power comes from....DCC, DC, batteries, etc. It doesn't matter as long as it is consistent and preferrably 12+ volts. That being said, I can take a 9-volt battery, stick it on unpowered track, and I will be able to power up my Railpro locomotives (though 9 volts is too low to do much more than that). Proof of concept that batteries will work fine.
You mentioned the size of the modules. The old modules were rather large and difficult to fit, however the new generation (LM-2 and LM-2S) are about half the size of the old ones and fit fine in most applications. They are much smaller than a typical DCC board. The non-board DCC decoders are still smaller, but many of the sound ones (and probably most or all of any wireless/bluetooth/radio) are about the same size or larger than the LM-2S, which includes sound and direct radio.
Size of the module is a consideration, but to me size of batteries is a much larger concern. The main reason why I haven't pursued battery power for my Railpro is that there are no batteries that I have heard of or found that can be made to fit in a standard HO-scale hood unit (EMD or GE), while still leaving room for the motor, module/decoder, lighting wiring, and speaker system (I use a minimum of 2 speaker, normally 4). To me, batteries are the component that will only fit in certain locos, not the Railpro module. Until I can find batteries that can be reliably installed in a standard HO scale hood unit, while allowing room for everything else, and remaining safe, then it's not really something I can pursue. This is just my opinion on the matter.
Regarding sound, yes Soundtraxx/TCS/Loksound are more advanced currently. These companies have been around for a long time. Loksound has recently made huge strides in the quality of their sound, but it has taken them years to get there. Railpro is still a new system and it will take a while for the sound library and functionality to reach the current DCC offerings. However, in the time I've owned Railpro I have seen massive improvements in the quality of sound from where they were to where they are now. Constant improvement is what I want to see. The sounds will continue to improve. Plus, with the release of the new Railpro software I can load my own sounds onto my locomotives. I'm having a blast with that.
Best way to get a feel for the Railpro system is to try it out. Hopefully you can find someone around your area that has it and you can give it a test drive. With a proper charging circuit it would work well for dead-rail applications.
-Kevin