Crew,

Life is good. No track to clean no joints to worry and fuss over, no jumpers to solder. BATTERIES!

Spent a grand Sunday afternoon running the converted Pacific and U25 on batteries from a trailing car. I did more switching and yard work than ever before due to the lack of grief from inconsistent rail current. IT WAS GREAT!

Pulled as many cars as I ever have with track power. Grade and loco traction limit me here and the batteries pulled as many cars with the same wheel slip problems as they did with track power.

I am a fervent convertee. Am going to work to get the rest of the locos adapted. I will keep them dual useage as I have friends that still run track power…ain’t seen the light yet! At least not until they see mine operatin! hehe

Am itching to try the SD45s on battery power as it has little grade trouble except when hauling 40 cars up the south loop from the hard side! Will see if there is any difference there. I seriously doubt it based on what I saw yesterday.

Funny thing is…near the end I couldn’t get that loco to pull a dang thing. Finally disconnected the string and it went down the track for about 50 feet then died! Twas then I remembered…BATTERIES!

Almost three hours of run time on two 9.6v Nimh batteries in series. They had only been charged once about 1 1/2 months ago and had been left sitting except for use on the bench when constructing the battery car and making tests on the test track.

Looks to me like this is the real deal!

Thanks for the push guys! Yell when another prospect comes nosing around…I’ll help!

Andre’