Glad to note that my article created so much interest. For the record, battery power is an option, not a requirement. In my work with BlueRail Trains, I ran both AC and DC track power as well and it performs just as well. The version of bluetooth that BlueRail is using is the new low energy which means that the board requires very little power. This means that almost all of the battery power is used for motor and lights, which makes battery operation that much more efficient, but not absolutely necessary. For locos with limited space, I located the board and the battery in a trailing car like the dummy A unit of an ALCO AA pair or the tender for steam. BTW, because the BlueRail board uses controlled PWM, low speed performance is quite good.
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