How do you clean your track?

Many moons ago, I used to use alcohol and a rag. Effective, but a PITA to get the trains running smoothly again. John Will turned me onto using lighter fluid, and I never looked back, …I can pretty much blindly walk the track and wipe off the track with a small dab on a rag……trains don’t hesitate a second after a cleaning……has something to do with the conductivity value of lighter fluid vs. alcohol…..

Pat

Zak: You pictured a Centerline track cleaning car. They came with a roller pad which is very similar to a paint roller. You may be able to use a readily available paint roller from a big box store and make your own The roller just needs to fit inside the center opening with enough room to roll as the car is pulled down the track. The original supplied roller had two plastic plugs which went in either end to hold some weights which applied some downward pressure. You could add your favorite track cleaning solution to the pad to help it loosen the grime on the rails. The roller can be washed and re-used until the nap is worn down.

If you find a commercial roller that will fit, just cut it down in width to fit. One roller should give you four or five new cleaning rollers when cut down.

Yep, I used to use 91% Isopropyl to clean track, but after reading that it has a high Dielectric constant, I switched to using Low-Odor Mineral Spirits.  While effective, alcohol seems to require more frequent track cleaning because of the higher resistance its residue leaves on the track.  Higher resistance leads to more carbon deposits on the rails.  Some recommend No-Ox, but I haven't tried it since it's a dielectric grease that needs to be thoroughly wiped off after application.

As Pat says, Lighter Fluid works well too.

Here's a chart of Polar Solvents.  I think it was @gunrunnerjohn who posted this.

Click here for my thoughts on this subject: The DEFINITIVE Guide to Track Cleaning & Maintenance