Seeing the new nicer looking measurement car in the Piko new items 2019 catalog, I was hoping (against reason) that maybe, just maybe, they finally added a center power pickup to the thing so it works fully with Märklin tracks and can thus get power from the track and display track voltage, as it does for the DCC track systems.




But alas not:



And to some extent I can understand. Their bread and butter is the DC/DCC market and to redesign the car to allow for a pickup and the necessary additional signal routing and mechanics inside to allow for 3 conducter/2conductor changing is work and design and manufacturing cost. The model as it is, will work on 3 conductor track and give you the survey data of slope/tilt/distance/etc, just not the live running track power, and only from the charged internal battery.

So I'm hoping at some point ESU will put out a solution (updating the EHG 388 if thats the way) using their great 3 conductor / 2 conductor interface that includes the layout surveying capabilities and reporting capabilities of the Piko measurement car, which would mean adding grade and tilt angle detection, track voltage measurement, and reporting this as well, and storing it on a flash card or allowing wireless or wired download to a reporting/display program or exporting as CSV file.