Dead Rail, more commonly referred to as Power Onboard or Battery Power, is the term used to describe locomotives that use a battery as their power source instead of the rails. The name comes from the fact that the rails are electrically dead. I use the term “Battery Power” to describe this since it is more accurate to what the control system is.
There are three big advantages to using battery power over track power: smoother operation with no random power drops, no complex wiring or dirty track to worry about, and the cost!
Weather it’s caused by dirty track, bad power pickups on the model, or a broken solder joint, there is no bigger source of frustration on a model railroad than when the trains stop moving. Track Power is an unstable source of power since there are so many failure points: you need the DCC system to reliably send a signal through various connectors and solder joints, rely on the track and locomotive’s pickups staying clean, and hope that you wired everything correctly and it stays that way in order for the system to work. Battery Power takes the failure points out of the process and delivers power straight to the decoder at a constant rate for the smoothest operation possible.
Costs
Battery power is the most cost-effective way to get the DCC features you expect in your locomotives. What converted me is thinking of the cost in this way:
A DCC system that can run multiple locomotives with a motor that has a 2amp to 3.9amp stall current costs $600 or more. That price does not include any boosters (an extra $250), detector/reverser boards (depending on manufacturer $50 to $90), wiring, or the decoder for your locomotive (anywhere from $160 to $250).
Your locomotive will cost the same (assuming it’s a DC engine that runs on a motor with a stall current between 2 and 4 amps, which is most of the market).
A typical battery power install needs a battery ($30 to $80 depending on capacity and discharge amperage), Blunami Decoder ($136 or $205 depending on 2amp versus 4amp), a charger ($40), speaker ($3), lighting (depends on what features you want, no more than $20 usually), and labor (Contact BLW for rates).
The common parts are the pieces used in both installs (speakers, lighting, and locomotive). What you’re comparing is the cost of the DCC electronics to the slight increase in cost of the decoder plus battery and charger. The Blunami is slightly higher in price compared to the Tsunami line (2amp decoder is $30 more, while the 4amp decoder is $40 more). If you have a layout with multiple controllers, reverse loops, boosters, and multiple power districts, you’re looking at over $2,500 in electronics alone. The cost of the difference is (high capacity) is $120. You can get 20 locomotives in before those costs equalize.
If you have more than 20 engines? Then you need to consider this: replacement costs. One bad short can destroy a reversing or power district board. Exposed electronics are also very sensitive to their surroundings, so a board may randomly not work for a variety of reasons. Now you’re in even more money to electronics than you’re initial starting cost. If there’s a flaw in the wiring of the layout, you may not find it until you’ve gone through a couple of boards. With battery power, you put the control and power systems in each locomotive. This means you’ll never have a system-wide interruption to your layout. A locomotive may need servicing or charging, but you’ll always be able to run something.
Can my engine be converted to Battery Power?
Yes! If it has a can motor and runs well on DC or DCC already, installing the electronics is quick and easy!
Can my Battery Power Engine run on a DCC Layout?
Yes! Remember, Battery Power means your engine doesn’t need track power to run. Your engine will remain electrically isolated so it can run on a friend’s layout, club layout, exhibition layout, or anywhere else you want!
My engine won’t run. Can Battery Power make it run?
There are a variety of reasons an engine won’t run. In my experience, most of those issues revolve around bad power pickups or shorts as a result of metal detail parts coming into contact with electrically live parts of the locomotive.
Sometimes the locomotive won’t run because there is a problem with the mechanism. In that case, we’d need to address the mechanism before adding the electronics.