Track Cleaning - Need to Know

I run 2 rail O Scale rapid Transit. Most of my trains are made up of motor cars with some trailers. I use small Q Car motors in the trucks. I use a dummy 3rd rail.
I use to use Wahl clipper oil on my track after I cleaned the rail with Bright Boy. The Wahl oil keeps the track clean for some time. If the track starts to get dirty I re-apply it a few more times before it needs Bright Boy again. I also lubricate my wheels and axles with it.
Recently after reading about it on the net I tried using red automatic transmission fluid on my track. This seems to work better than the Whal oil. I have not tried it on my wheels and axles. All it takes is a few drops on the rails and it spreads quite well. Don't try too much oil especially if you have grades.
All this also depends on how often you operate your tains. I like to operate a minimum of 2 weeks as I enjoy scratch building more. I run a rail polisher when the 2 week period is up. You can notice the difference in a few runs. I can tell if the track need servicing when my interior lights start to filcker.
There is a product out there called Green Snot which is supposed to be good for Locomotive traction. I have never used it but I have heard it works well.
Nate

You need to get rid of the bright boyyou are scratching your rails. You're creating more work for yourself. With the Roco Rubber pad track cleaner. I only need to clean my track once a year or twice if I have guess to make sure everything is top notch. I do not use any oils or special solutions to add problems to the running of the layout. Metal to metal like the real trains in 1:1 scale. I had an international tour several years ago and always get compliments on how well the layout runs. nw2124

"Progress - either you are for it, or get out the way!"... SLR

It is all opinion. I use #400 sandpaper with Wahl as a lubricant, and have no trouble. To me, the arc suppression of a light oil keeps the pits down to a miniMum, and The lengthwise scratches do not seem to affect anything. It does take the plating off of old rail, but just wheels will remove plating.

Since when did facts become opinion. Your old school. Sandpaper scratches your rail-"fact," and sandpaper doesn't remove the plating?, "give me a break"!?! You sand wood and you grind/polish metal. The oil, goo be gone, and alcohol is fine. nw2124
"Progress - either you are for it, or get out the way!"... SLR

Sorry. Mine is opinion, and it works for me. I really don't take the train part of all this very seriously.

bob2, would you please address the performance results the Cabrillo & Southwestern RR gets with the track cleaning method I saw you all using at the SDMRR. Seems each train had two cleaner cars using a system I first saw half a century ago. tt

quote:

Originally posted by nw2124:
You need to get rid of the bright boyyou are scratching your rails.

When you speak of plating on rails, what brand rails are you talking about? Most of my railroad is steel rail but some of it (in staging) is old pullman or micro engineering. I was under the impression that newer track was not plated. I believe that the old (1970's) atlas track was plated brass. Just curious.

Tom and Bob: I think you both need to reread the original post again. It is not talking about performance! It is talking about a BETTER product that saves wear and tear on your track so that you do damage it and not have to clean it as often. You spend a lot of hard earned money on track, so why not take care of it. I personally don't care if you use 80 grit sandpaper and crisco. The information is here for you to use. Use it wisely! nw2124

Progress - either you are for it, or get out the way!"... SLR

Tom Taipalus: Some track is plated nickel silver over brass, this saves manufacturing cost. Nickle silver is used not for looks, but because it oxidizes postively for better conductivitly, whereas brass rail oxidizes negatively. What one wants to accomplish is to clean the track without damaging/pitting the rail so that dirt and grime doesn't get embedded in the scratches giving poor performance. The Roco-Rubber Pad Track Cleaner(item 10002) does the least damage and altimately you clean the rail less often. Less work sound great to me. Hope this helps. nw2124

Progress - either you are for it, or get out the way!"... SLR

Denatured alcohol is best. It leaves absolutely no residue and removes no material.

Everything mentioned here does one or the other!!

NW2124,
What brand track still uses plated rail? I don't believe ME, new Atlas or Old Pullman is plated.

The only nickel silver plated brass O scale rail I've found is in 1970's vintage Atlas/Roco track. Later batches of Atlas/Roco flex track had solid nickel silver rail. Current AtlasO/China track is not plated. I found out about the plating on Atlas/Rocco flex track the hard way when hand filing rail into points and frogs. Later on plating started to rub off whole sections of the railroad – possibly excellerated by cleaning the rail with a Bright Boy. With hundreds of feet of track down – but not yet ballasted my fix was to slide out the plated Atlas/Roco rail and slide in code 148 steel in accessible areas of the railroad. That worked fairly well for several years and then I began to experience arching which pitted locomotive treads badly over time – especially with tender truck wheels and All Nation sintered wheel diesel drives. I replaced the wheels where possible and to counter the arching applied Wahal oil to the rail head. This solved the arching issues but if not VERY sparingly applied led to wheel slip issues on mountain grades.
On the new railroad I'm 100% NS and have had zero arching issues - without using oil on the rails. Once in awhile if the railroad has been idle for a month, or so or if there seems to be more construction dust around, I’ll push a car around with a spring Masonite block under it (rough side down.
Ed Rappe

The whole thing seems pretty straight forward to me. If you use an abrasive of any sort, there is going to be debris created. Mix that with oil and what you get is, I think at best a mess. No thanks!

Simon

Ok I'll join this party

My track cleaning regimen is followed once a year. But sometimes I skip a few months. I have Atlas Nickel silver rail, exclusively

I use centerline track cleaning cars. You know, those big brass things with the square hole in the center.

Centerline Car

I run a pair of cars at a time

In the first run the lead car has a magnet, and the trailing car has a Cratex block. For the magnet car, its a rectangular magnet that just fits width wise into the hole so it bridges both rails. The magnet picks up all sorts of crud, which I think is the black crud we see on our rails. I learned this from Brian Scace. You will be amazed how much magnetic stuff you will pick up.

The second car has a Cratex block in it, that is weighted down with about 4 ounces of tungsten (you can use lead). Cratex is a rubber block with an abrasive bonded to it.

Craytex


It is very different than a brite boy. I have never seen the Cratex scratch the rails. It behaves more like a super eraser. I glue the Cratex to a piece of foam core that just fits into the Centerline hole, then glue the weight on top.

I make one pass with this pair.

Then I take out the magnet, and put the Cratex block in the lead car. I add a centerline roller to the second car. I replace the roller when it gets dirty. I run as many laps as needed until the roller comes out fairly clean. Usually three laps are enough

Finally, I put a very small amount of Sanchem NO-OX-ID A-Special Electrical Grade Grease on the rails.

Sanchem No Ox Id

Scroll down the web page unntil you get to the part about cleaning track. Just a very small amount, where I can get to the track easily. And not on uphill grades. I smear it along the rails with my fingers in four foot lengths. I don't worry about uniform coverage, but I try to get every 12 feet or so.

Now run a locomotive with clean wheels around the track.

The whole process on my layout 22' x 31 ' with three main loops, takes about an hour. And only a few minutes of that requires my active involvement

FACT: This works great for me

OPINION: It may work for you

NW2124,
Well, regardless of residue, abrasiveness, plating, etc, I won't use anything that I have to scrub or wipe every foot of track. It would take me 3-4 hours to do it manually. Just too time consuming even if I only need to do it once a year. I've been using rail-zip for over 5 years now and don't have any reason to change. I apply 2 drops every 4 or 5 months and that's it. So, the rubber track cleaner just isn't for me.

John: The Centerline cars are fantasic! You are right they do save a lot of time. They do recommend Goo Be Gone. PS Roco does make a Rubber pad for a rail car. nw2124

Progress - either you are for it, or get out the way!"... SLR

A few comments....
A good friend many years ago recommended using an ink eraser to clean track. Office Max still sells these, although probably not for long. The ink end is only mildly abrasive, probably less than 400 grit sandpaper, although I am not sure. My friend's reasoning was that anything that would not harm paper could not be too abrasive.
The ink eraser works well for me, but I use it only every 3rd or 4th time to clean track. The contamination actually imbeds into it. The rest of the time I use alcohol and of course there is no abrasive action. When I use alcohol, I make sure that I wipe down the rails well as i am not sure that traction tires like alcohol.
I also have a track cleaning car, but ideally you should use two, one to lay down the fluid and the second to pick up the dirt before it gets spread around. I have not considered use of goo-gone for a cleaning fluid as I believe it is a concentrated citus acid.
Another friend who is an HO guy highly recommends rail zip. I have a bottle and am tempted to try it. It supposedly improves conductivity and surely some of the rail dirt is the result of electrical arcing.
And I am convinced that the best way to greatly reduce rail contamination is to also clean the wheels of ALL engines and rolling stock. This is, as you all know, a tedious and time consuming job, which is why I don't do it more often....

Hey guys,

Way back when I was in 'O' scale I used the 2 centerline car approach. One in front wet and one trailing dry. One trick is to glue something in the opening on one side so the roller is at an angle which makes it slide as well as roll. The Aztec cars have that angle built into them (that's where I got the idea.

Speaking of the centerline cars, here's how I made mine look better than just the brass brick they come new.






And if anyone is interested I'm about to evilbay this so if you're interested in buying it I'm interested in selling it, just contact me.

Brian B.

The points rails on current Atlas switches are nickel plated brass. I found this out the hard way. The rest of their track is nickel silver.

quote:

One trick is to glue something in the opening on one side so the roller is at an angle which makes it slide as well as roll.

Now there's a clever ideea! Thanks for the tip

That's a really nice camouflaging job on that Centerline car.

TT

Thanks for visiting!!!

I've made a short track cleaning train based on Brian Scace's writings. The first car in the train is a hopper car with a magnet on the bottom that adjusts up and down. It picks up some crud. I run several centerline cars in the train. I also built 2 centerline type of cars out of a few hoppers I wasn't using. The whole train runs dry. 

 

I've added some resistance (beyond the weight I've already added in the roller) to one of the Centerline cars in order to clean the tracks better. I configured a piece of sheet brass with the fuzzy side of velcro attached which contacts the roller, and with brass tubing on top so I can add weight on top on the brass tubing. This helps the roller to drag along more, but roll easily when it hits something like a switch or frog.

 

The two cars I made work better than the straight Centerline cars. I cut the bays out of some hoppers and put in some brass sheet on the sides and some brass tubing on the front and back where the bays were . The weighted roller sits in the hopper and rolls like a Centerline car, but all I have to do is add another unweighted Centerline roller in the hopper on top of the weighted one to add some resistance and they drag along more. The cars are not just rolling over dirt anymore. It works like a charm.

 

Guys, these photos show the difference in how the rollers pick up the gunk with and without some added resistance. The first and last rollers have nothing added except weight inside the rollers.

 

 

I must say very nice track crew trains for cleaning the rails. I am still contemplating going with battery operation. There are battery shops about town that make custom battery boxes unit and I wish to install a battery into the next car and plug into the engines Trying to install a battery into the engines means a lot of batteries also it is down while charging. Or a thought of having a 3rd unit on each train that is a battery unit then I can unhook it and hook another.

Trying to think of ways of not having shorts, switching problems, or reversing polarity.

Hi,

Has anyone tried any of the Aztec cars? If so, how effective is it and can you compare it to the Centerline car?

Thanks,

Ed

I seem to remember that there where some CRC products that are really good for track cleaning, and good electrical contact? maybe someone remembers what they where?       (cTr.....Choose the Right) & (There's power in Service)

Ed,

 

I had both Centerline and an Aztec car. The advantage of the Aztec was that the roller is canted at an angle that causes it to both slide and roll. The Centerline car is square to the rails so it rolls easier, even with the BB's in the roller, but as big as the opening is on the Centerline car it's easy to glue something on one side in the opening to cause the same angled effect as the Aztec car. Both work about the same then.

 

I hope I explained that well enough.

 

And to Bill Berresford....yes I still have it but can't reply to your message (not a premium member)....send me an email to b-m-b'at'att'dot'net....change the 'at' and 'dot'.

DTI989,

Thanks. That is just the information I wanted to know.

Regards,

Ed