They did this with the recently released JR Kyushu 885 Series "Splatrain" as well. Which isn't a problem to me, as the old C-Battery chassis run for much longer from my personal experience. I've had screw chassis locomotives (which use AA batteries) run out of power after an hour of total run time while some of my old clip-on trains which use C-Batteries have had the same battery for months without much speed difference. Maybe my AA batteries aren't any good? 