Pick-up wheel cleaning. Track cleaning. Rail-Zip?

A few thoughts from a novice:

1) the only pitting I have had was caused by poorly made track. There was a big difference in the height of the three rails in my tubular track. It was not a cleaning issue.

2) if you polled forum members, my guess is that 70%+ use simple 90+% alcohol to clean, when they do. Many threads on this but this seems like the majority view. Works for me!

3) relative to cleaning wheels, many threads again. Many use alcohol, crc contact cleaner, or a scotch britepad on a dreme.

Hope this helps and good luck.

There was a very large uproar about not using "goo gone" as a track cleaner...not that long ago.  You might want to search that out.

I clean metal wheels with a wire brush on my rotary tool (Drimmel).

Guys will yell but, I have always used charcoal starter for cleaning track and never had a problem.  Alcohol is not really a good solvent for what is on the track from my experience. 

SD60M posted:

There was a very large uproar about not using "goo gone" as a track cleaner...not that long ago.  You might want to search that out.

I've used Goo-Gone for well over 25 years on both my scale and hirail/Flyer stuff with no evil effects.

Rusty

Thanks Guys,

I can never find any topics using the search on here.  I just searched goo gone, then goo-gone, and I get 0 results.  What is the trick to seeing results?

Rick 

Hi Rick, Try typing in "googone" as one word.  Multiple results come up.

Mike A.

Since original flyer track is tinplate and easily oxidizes, sparking is common, especially at the joints and switches. Constant cleaning with a bright block or some other medium, especially the switch frogs, is needed along with constant cleaning of wheels.  An alternative hollow rail track with little to no sparking is stainless steel Gargraves. Any of the solid rail, non steel tracks will usually give sparkless operation. 

we use these to polish the pick-up rollers and clean wheels.

https://www.cratex.com/Product...-Wheels/Small-Wheels

q74

My layout uses totally original Gilbert American Flyer track. I have used a Bright Boy type of cleaner on oxidized portions to remove rust pits. Once cleaned I will run one or more of the Gilbert track cleaning cars behind one or two strong pulling engines. I soak the pads on the lead car with denatured alcohol and leave the pads on the other car dry, I clean the pads after cleaning track by soaking in hot water and laundry detergent for a time and then agitate by hand and finally squeeze out excess liquid by hand and let them dry for the next use.  I will also run a home made cleaning car with a foam paint roller set at an angle to maintain the track periodically. I will always run the home made car dry.

Ray

Update:

Hi Everyone,

I want to update my thread just in case anyone reads it in the future.

I did what Mike from Lionel suggested in a thread on 4/8/13.  I wiped the track down with WD-40, and then wiped that off.  

Next, I took my O-Gauge Centerline track cleaning car, installed S-Gauge trucks on it, and ran it with Goo-Gone.  I like to let the track cleaning car do all the work and let it clean all the wheels on all my cars.  The Goo-Gone makes it too slippery to run all the cars, so I ran a couple behind it at a time.  Then, I take those cars off, put on 2 more, and wiped the wheels dry on the first 2 while the other ones run.  After I ran the final 2 cars I ran a few dry rollers in the track cleaner car.  

I cleaned the tender's brass axle pick-up bars, and then gave them, and the truck's mounting rivet a tiny bit of WD-40 to aid in conductivity.   I did the same on my 977 action caboose's truck's rivets.

The result is absolutely amazing!  It has been 4 days and it runs well, and runs slow well.  The caboose's man stays engaged and no longer rattles, it's light and my search light's light never flicker, and I get no sparks from the tender's wheels.  I am anxious to see how long this lasts, and to apply these techniques to my other running trains.

Thank you Mike for sharing your experience with the public!  

I know everyone has their own experience and opinion on this subject.  I am not trying to stir that up again.  I simply want to update this for anyone following along.

Sincerely,

Rick