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Handlayed track (some new ideas I suppose)

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As i see it and i am sure i will be corrected whether i am right or not but Radio Controlled battery operated locos do have advantages in that they are relatively cheap and easy to get into, you have no track power, so dirty track indeed even track material becomes superfelous and reversing loops are very easy. I do think in many ways it has a big advantage over DC in that you can run several trains doing different things on the same set of tracks.However there are many disadvantages too many for me.1) limited autonomy (running time) due to batteries only having a limited capacity.2) the minute you have anything else running on the loco that uses power, such as lights, sound etc  you degrade your autonomy. 3) As the loco does not recieve its commands through the rails; black spots such as tunnels do occur.4) Ive not seen any system that you can control your points (switches) remotely; or any other track side stuff for that matter.5) Only a limited number of locomotive are availble with batteries and radio recievers, many are modified or even kit bashed.6) Batteries do die over a period of time and need to be replaced and this could be costly.7) limited on board functions are available and if they are they degrade the locos autonomy.8) Batteries by their very nature are a problem and their life varies greatly with temperature and so does their capacity.9) most of the battery operated units i have seen are very slow and they get slower as the battery discharges.10) Although you probably will ignore it, but stringent laws apply in most developed countries as to the disposal of old batteries, particularly those containing nasties such as cadmium etc.Rgds Ian
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