You haven't lived until you see a destructive test of a 28V battery that is intended to be the primary battery supply for a commercial jet! The videos were sobering!
For small battery videos, there are plenty on YouTube. None of them even remotely resemble what happens when you abuse a really large Lithium battery!
I am a member of a very large G gauge club with over 250 members. Only a handful of the club's members operate on battery power. Most members use track power. The largest group not using track power are running live steam.
Battery power works for some G gauge folks because the trains are short are light. I would say that the vast majority of the club members model narrow gauge trains. There are only a handful of club members who have built their garden railroads to operate 1950s and later trains. Almost all garden railroads are single track and can only run one train at a time. A few can run two trains on separate loops. Very few garden railroads have large yards, multiple switches, etc.
I have observed that battery power has two major drawbacks. First, the battery life is short as already mentioned. Most people have two boxcars with batteries in them to power the engines. One car is in the shop (garage here in CA) recharging while the other is powering trains.
Club members have to remember to start charging their boxcars the night before they want to run. I remember arriving at a club's member's home to help host a train open house. Nothing was running. He forgot to charge the batteries. We couldn't run anything until an hour after the open house started.
The second and probably biggest problem is the expense of installing a radio system in an engine. I believe that the cost per engine is $300 to $500 plus depending on the sound system, etc. G gauge modelers overcome this problem by owning and running only a few engines. Most of the club members own less than 5 engines. I only know about 5 members who own more than 10 engines. I only know two people who have more than 20 G gauge engines and they run track power.
I think that battery power will be in the future but it will be in the far future for the O gauge hobby. Battery power will only be widely accepted when it is offered in ready to run engines.
Please forgive me. I am not trying to argue. All I am pointing out is that there are billion dollar companies producing battery technology that works safely and is widely deployed. If cordless tools were maiming and burning my crews I would probably either stop using them or make my guys buy their own. Now, they may not be powerful enough yet, and the other systems are not in place yet, but this is an idea that I think will take off. When it is established there will still be plenty of folks running conventional and digital. It is a big tent after all. The only thing that will kill it is if there are 5 different battery types and three proprietary control systems.
I don't disagree that at some point battery power will be a reality. However, there are at least two multi-billion dollar aviation companies that have not cracked the code and have on-board fires as a result! One removed all the Lithium batteries for older technology, the other is still grounded!
Also, one only has to peruse the many stories on the Internet about Lithium battery fires in every device imaginable to know that 100% has not been achieved in the Lithium battery market.
Gunrunner,
Just so you know there are some small batteries that have been invented that
probably could do the job, however they are military classified gear, used in our Special Forces uplink mobile radio gear and they probably cost as much a house today. However when some of this kind of military gear is declassified for civilian use, and mass produced, it could change our hobby in a lot of ways. Technology like you want to see, is very expensive and even the multi billion dollar corps
don't have the money for experimental work that Uncle Sam does. Remember it was not to long ago that Disc technology and Cassette technology were classified military technology, unavailable to the general public.
PCRR/Dave
Just as in electrically powered toys, lithium batteries have recommended practices and those they clearly state to avoid. Lionel's G scale trains have an optional, rechargable battery pack so they have waded into this with one foot in the water. What of BCR's and on board recharging batteries now as a precursor to the future?Of course, Marx and others used disposable batteries in the past both in track power and on board applications, as does LGB in kid's starter sets. I bought one to upgrade to use outdoors with standard rechargable batteries. As far as running time, even standard batteries run a train for the half hour or so daily I run them. I have little doubt that RC control and lithium batteries are a future trend because like any technology, it will improve with time with more miniaturization to come. I am sure there were those who warned of using those new fangled transformers back in the day...Kids were running live steam locomotives in the living room back then...Nothing ever stays the same which is a good thing most of the time. Is the glass half empty or half full? It certainly would simplify all the complicated hoops many have to jump through with hardwiring control systems wherein you need an associates degree to undo the jumble of components and wiring spaghetti when an unwanted mystery issue lurks and rears its ugly head.
Dave, keep in mind that the military also doesn't have all the pesky safety regulations that civil manufacturers have to deal with. When we built avionics for the military, there was a whole different standard applied to the certification of the products! It's not that we built them better or worse than the civil aviation products, it's just the level of testing and certification was totally different, and frequently much less stringent than civil aviation standards of testing. Hard to know how concerned they are about a few batteries melting down. 
gunrunner,
John I agree 100% in some cases there are no standards for experimental
work, however in the end everything ends up under the Mil-Specs which filters down to civilian life and standards.
PCRR/Dave
The "experimental work" was avionics to go into the entire fleet of AF tankers, so it wasn't all that experimental.
FWIW, much less is ending up as Mil-Spec nowadays, try looking for military grade IC's now. They've really cut back on qualifying many standard parts. In addition, if you waited for the military to bless a microprocessor, it would be obsolete before you got to use it!
I talked to a couple of RC airplane hobbyist in the park this morning. Both were very knowlegable about the Li-Po batteries. As the discussion continued, some points to be noted.
Care in charging is a must. Note that it is not the recharable batteries common in most battery powered hand tool equipment, plug-in to the charger and forget it. Both charge rate and over charge are points of concern. It was noted that charging inside a car/vehicle was not recommended. They had concerns about club members charging their batteries inside a vehicle.
Safety, I mentioned battery storage containment. They said there are special sacks for safe storage of the Li-Po batteries. They were also very concerned about shorting a battery. We talked about the plug-in connectors and the difficulty of an accidental dead short.
Model Airplane Crash. If you see smoke, there is a very limited time to get the battery pak out of the airplane.
Over use of a battery Apparently, you can change model airplane props (propellers) to increase speed/performance. Over using a Li-Po battery can be an issue as much as over charging. It was mentioned that usually the speed control module failed before the battery failure began.
Fire control Containment in sand. No water and apparently no fire extiguishers especially liquid fire extinguishers. .
That being noted they both prefered the Li-Po technology over previous propulsion. They especially noted a dislike for older liquid fuel models.
Discussion of re-cycle left a lot of questions. Apparently hobby stores are not gear to a re-cycle program, at least not locally. I noted that my wholesale electrical supplier had a re-cycle program in effect for all defective/non-operating batteries used in both power tool equipment and emergency battery operated lighting. I would think these batteries should not to toss in the trash.
Interesting to note that both these hobbyists were surprised that I would ask such pointed and direct questions about the Li-Po batteries. Apply bits and pieces or all of this information to Model Railroading. IMO an Interesting discussion. Thanks to all who participated.
Mike.
My brother is an avid RC airplane modeler, and he's abandoned gas models entirely for the electric ones. He has an array of Li-Po batteries of all sizes and special chargers for them. He's also seen several planes at the club flying field go up in flames after a crash, one that set the adjoining fields on fire!
As you say, shorting any Lithium battery is a SERIOUS no-no! The currents developed are mind numbing, even for fairly small batteries. The project I worked on last year (last thing before retirement) was a Li-Ion battery for a business jet that weighs 28 pounds and has a 32 amp/hour capacity. Doesn't seem like much until you consider that it's peak current output was in excess of 1200 amps at 28 volts, or 33,600 watts! A short across that little beauty would spoil your whole day!
I hasten to add, there were nine microprocessors in the package monitoring every aspect of the battery's operation, and some really monster MOSFET switches that could interrupt the current flow as well as the charging currents. Your train isn't going to have that kind of monitoring.
Cummon! Are you guys going to tell me that my Santa Fe 2343 isn't powered by that D cell I put in there? And all these years I thought....
Cummon! Are you guys going to tell me that my Santa Fe 2343 isn't powered by that D cell I put in there? And all these years I thought....
That was a special train Dale, they had space-age technology in those 2343's. 
Some of the remote-control battery-power Lego trains work that way. Last year I saw an operating Lego layout at a train show which had metal rails on just parts of the layout, not continuous. I guess Lego trains have had various power and control systems through the years; I'm not familiar with them all.
Craftman 40 volt lawn tools. Lithium Ion batteries, not Lithium Polymer batteries that we have been discussing. It looks like batteries/energy cells will be a part of our lives for some time. Note that 40 volts DC has some bite too it. Drill/Driver, Hammer Drill, Sawzall/reciprocating saw in my truck top out at 18 volts. The link above shows a battery powered chain saw. 
More power Tim!!!
This is an informative and at times an amusing discussion. I've learned some things about batteries.
Having said that, I'm glad train technology was not discarded or banned (100+ years ago) due to exploding boilers that killed people & destroyed property, because this forum or topic would not exist.
Having spent 3+ years as an electrical engineer for a lithium ion battery company I can tell you there are a lot of misunderstanding in this thread. I see a lot of talk about LiPo/power tool batteries. These batteries are a "power" chemistry and are probably not the kind of batteries that you want to use. These batteries deliver huge amounts of current but have low capacity. Your model trains do not draw huge amounts of current. What you probably want is an "energy" chemistry which delivers much lower current but has 2-3 times the capacity (2-3 times more run time).
If you were to look at 18650 sized cells used in your laptop, the energy chemistry batteries would have a nominal voltage of 3.7V and a capacity of 2000-3000+ mAH (milli Amp Hours, 1000mAH = 1AH) and deliver a current of 1-2C (C = capacity of the battery). Power chemistry batteries would have a nominal voltage of 3.2V but in some times as high as 3.7V and a capacity of about 1300mAH and deliver a current of 10+C. To sum things up I would build a battery with a combination of series and parallel energy chemistry cells to achieve the required voltage/capacity/current capabilities.
Safety has always been a big concern with lithium ion batteries. Things that come to mind for your indoor layout are current and voltage limits during charging and discharging. Over charging and over discharging as well as operating above the cells maximum C rate can all lead to problems (read potential fires). Operating at too high or too low temperatures can also cause problems however this is unlikely in your indoor layout. Be sure to read and understand the datasheet for your cells. That should give you all of your operating voltages/current/temperatures.
I've got to head out now but if anyone has questions feel free to ask.
Has anyone thought about powering passenger cars?
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