Soliciting advice on track cleaning experiment

At the end of your experiment and you determine the best of these methods, will you expand your experimentation to include mechanical means? Or are you limiting your research just to manual methods?

i found out that using the new synthetic oils must be done with just a tad of oil as it will creep anywhere it can after applying. it mainly likes to go from the driver bearings to the wheels and then the rails. it seems to attract any kind of dust it can and makes the black crap we see on the wheels. i switched to just old 3 in one oil and put a fine amount on and have way less trouble now. it also softens traction tires making them spin easy.

TrainPop: If by mechanical means you mean track cleaning cars, since I can't connect a loop I can't run one: I can only run a back and forth trolley on the two straights.

ironlake2: the oil is a thought. it would contribute to the gunk, wouldn't it. gotta think of that more.

Here is a simple technique that will help to 'visualize' some of the track conditions during your experiments... Place a piece of of Scotch Magic Tape across the 3 rails of a section of track.



Rub the tape back & forth along each rail with your finger. Remove the tape and place onto a sheet of white paper & label.



The dirt & grime from that track section will transfer onto the tape. A portion of track cleaned with a track eraser will make no image on the tape. Do not repeat the test on the the same portion of rails, as the tape will have removed much of the dirt the first time.
I believe such data could be an asset to, and maybe also guide, your experiments. Showing dirt build-up over time w/o cleaning is also possible as long as the exact same portion of the rails is not 'measured' twice during a series of tests. Also inside vs. outside rail deposits on curves is interesting. Many possibilities!
TomB

We have to keep in mind that the main advantage of "clean" track is that it conduct electricity well between wheels or rollers and rails. This is what Lee's test car is measuring - a good technique IMO.

Not all the black "gunk" that we see on track inhibits this flow of electricity. Using the white glove test can be misleading. If you clean track every time your glove picks up some black, you will spend most of your train time on unnecessary cleaning.

IMO, the time to clean track is when you begin to notice some operational problems such as hesitation, flickering car lights, command error messages, etc.

It may seem counter-intuitive, but, in my experience, the more often you run your trains, the less cleaning you will actually have to do.

Think of all the surfaces that have to conduct well in order for a train to run: track, roller, roller axle, motor brushes, commutator, E-unit drum and fingers in older trains, wheels, axle bearings, contact between motor truck and frame, etc. etc. It begins to make sense that the more use your trains and track get, the less chance these surfaces will begin to develop current-blocking oxidation.

In fact, I don't know if it has ever been tested, but I would bet that oxidation of all these contact surfaces (a chemical process due to oxygen and helped by mostly natural airborne chemicals) is more of an operational factor than the accumulation of dirt, dust, and oil and grease residue. Probably, dirt would be more of a factor only if your layout is located in an extremely dusty environment.

Jim

i have found the mth dcs system is the best indicator of when to clean track that exists. loss of signal will show up very fast with it.

Boxcoupler: an interesting idea and I think I will do it although I agree with Jim Policastro's observation that not all black gunk of the track inhibits electrical flow. Certainly won't hurt to do this and record the results.

Jim - I used to think that track that was constantly used (trains run on) stayed cleaner. But when I actually record results it indicates the opposite. I also have this: I have two loops where I run large articulated scale or nar scale (Lionmaster) Locos pulling 20+ car consists, and twoloops where I run BEEPS, etc., pulling about four to six cars. The loops with the bigger, heavier, longer locos dirty up about twice as fast: I clean the track on my BEEPworld loop maybe once every 40 hours of running, the other two loops maybe every 215-20 hours - point being that on my evidence dirt build up seems proportional to overall burden not just hours of use.

Mostly though, I wish I better understood WHY AND HOW track gets dirty. Frankly, dirty track seems an easy thing to manage if you stay ahead of it (just run a track cleaning car once a week) and so it may not be necessary to understand it, but inquiring minds want to know, etc. I see three possible processes:
- the metal tarnishes by itself, without provocation, just like silver does, a process perhaps exacerbated by foreign contaminates, fingerprints, grease, and who knows what but that is going to happen anyway. Since clean track does not seem to tarnish by itself (at least over a period of even several weeks, I'm not certain this is an important contributor to "dirty track." On the other hand all old, old track I've found out of someones attic, etc., is black with tarnish (not gunk) so maybe this does occur, over enough time, even on "stainless" surfaces.
- oil, grease, grime and who knows what else from the locos and rolling stock gets onto the track and cakes up, both visibly and not, and inhibits electrical flow. I can see black gunk on my track sometimes, and I hear stories from others about over-oiling locos and then finding a lot of this subsequently, and it makes sense in a way, but I don't actually know because I have no way to distinguish between this cause and that below.
- energizing the track causes or greatly accelerates tarnish and attraction of dirt, the distinction here being that trains don't have to be running on it -- that merely having, say, 18 volts of AC field on the track attracts and bonds dirt and grime to it. I am certain that the field (the fact there is voltage) is a player here, I just don't know if it works via exacerbating gunk build up from trains, acts alone, or does both (most likely in my mind).
I know the second is very possible. Forty years ago, as a junior engineer at Houston Light and Power, I saw this happen to overhead conductor on electrical distributon lines in industrial areas: the field around the wire would draw continminants to its surface and bond them to the metal. This in itself was not a problem because that did not inhibit electric flow through the inside of the wire; I got involved because rain wetted the contaminants and turned them to acid, with the expected results over a period of years). Anyway, I expect that the fact that track has a voltage on it contributes to grime and tarnish build up, I just don't know if it merely exacerbates the build up of grime from trains running on it, or if it actually causes that even if trains aren't running.
Sure wish I knew more about this. Maybe someone does and will share their experience with us.

quote:

Originally posted by Lee Willis:
Boxcoupler: an interesting idea and I think I will do it although I agree with Jim Policastro's observation that not all black gunk of the track inhibits electrical flow. Certainly won't hurt to do this and record the results.

Lee W & Jim P - I never said that all black gunk on track rails inhibits electrical flow. However, conversely, I do not believe that all track deposits are conductive either. Also, when the pre-determined track cleaning is performed, most of whatever is removed should show up on the tape samples. I think that these measurements may prove useful within the framework of Lee's experiment, even if they show that the amount of track deposits do not correlate to electical pick-up. That would be a great piece of data (as opposed to an 'opinion') to have!!! It can be treated separately from the oxidation issue. Hope you do include this in your testing.
TomB

It would be nice to know what it is that we are cleaning from the rails. The black stuff is what corrosion?

If stainless corrodes because of minute pockets in the metal where chromium is missing [The chromium-depleted pockets less than 400 nanometers across] as its atoms are in small numbers then according to recent research unconventional heat treatments, designed to diffuse chromium back into the depleted zones," could improve the corrosion resistance of stainless steel.

So for the rails when we surface grind or chemically clean are we making it better or worse.

Still what is the effect of the electrical flow thru the rails to the corrosion?

The number of variables (track type, equipment type, traction tire brands, lubrication techniques, train room environment, cleaning methods, etc.) make designing definitive, controlled experiments very difficult. Plus, I learned a long time ago that generalities seldom hold true.

For these reasons, I wouldn't discount anyone's observations or experience in the area of track cleaning. The best you can do is find out what works for you, realizing that it may or may not be the best plan for someone with different equipment in a different layout environment.



Here are a few more observations based on 50+ years of running trains of various scales and gauges on various track types (along with some non-substantiated guesses/questions as to the reason):

***Flat-top rail seems to require more frequent cleaning than round-top rail such as traditional Lionel tubular. Wheel contact is concentrated on a smaller area with tubular - more pressure wears through the oxides and grime to keep it cleaner???

***The clipper oil treatment does make for better conductivity even though the build-up of "crud" on wheels and rails is increased. Definitely reduces roller sparking in 3-rail. Oil fills in pits in rail/roller/wheel surfaces???

***Plastic wheels produce more black "crud" on rails (primarily an HO observation). A result of a chemical breakdown of the plastic??? Static electric effects??? Possibly of significance in 3-rail with traction tires.

***Rail composition is important. Quick oxidation of brass rail produces a non-conductive surface requiring frequent cleaning. Nickel silver rail (such as Atlas) not so much. Effects and types of oxidation on various tin-plated rails as relates to conduction???

***Dusty environments (unsealed concrete floor, for example) mean lots of track cleaning. It's amazing what a few gallons of sealer did for my first layout efforts.

***Frequent running helps equipment run more smoothly even if it causes more track deposits.

***Some HO power packs in the 1960s would produce a high frequency voltage pulse that was supposed to cut through "crud" whenever it sensed a drop in conductivity. Wouldn't affect motors, but kept the engine running over dirty spots. Does the higher voltage to the track in a command environment also help maintain conductivity vs. the lower track voltages in conventional???

***The weight of O gauge equipment is the main reason we don't have anywhere near the conduction problems that HO or N gaugers have. Unfortunately, On30 is closer to HO than O in terms of operating reliability and requires more attention to track and wheel cleanliness.


Again, generalities are hard to make, and I don't claim to have answers for every situation. For me, an occasional swipe with a rubberized abrasive pad (Bright Boy or LGB cleaning block) keeps things running reliably, but the questions related to track condition are interesting.

Jim

Thanks, you've obviously thought hard and had lots of experience here.

I agree about the flat/round top rail and the reason. Its a good point.

Also, I like the eraser cleaners. It seems to me a track cleaning car that drags one or two around under lite pressure would be the best possible solution" better than the messy fluids and foam pads that keep flopping off (I made my own that uses a pile of denim cloth as a pad but its still messy.

Thanks

Lee, 

How is the experiment going? I was curious if you came to any conclusions yet?

 

Thanks,

 

Dennis

NJ