nick_young

I may have missed a trick here, but on the premise that there is no such thing as a stupid question here goes: I remember back in the day the late Bernard Weller espousing a system called Red Arrow that completely by-passed the track as a source of power and control, relying instead on on-board batteries and (presumably) something like Bluetooth. If HM7000 does something similar, albeit falling back on the DC or DCC track power, but dissociating the command system from the track itself, shouldn't there be significant benefits in reliability, since the DCC signal is no longer dependent on the vagaries of the track connectivity? If so this would overcome my main objections to DCC which are the need to attach droppers to every piece of rail and the opportunity for everything to come to a sudden halt at the slightest hint of a short-circuit. I am speaking as someone who has installed full DCC on a previous layout but has now reverted to DC for the reasons above. I haven't seen improved reliability for people that can't or won't install track electrics to the standards required for faultless DCC running as a benefit for HM7000, but if this is indeed so then it would appear to be a deal-maker for people in the sort of position I find myself in. I wait to stand corrected!