Zinc Pest

You can try soaking it in CA or resin as a stop-gap but in reality I don't think anything can be done to stop it. It is a metallurgy problem.

Tommy posted:

Is there any treatment to apply to prevent zinc pest, or stop it in its tracks?

Not that I have ever heard of, since it is related to contamination within the base material.

You learn something every day.  I knew of the issue with old toy trains, but didn't know it had a name.

I'm not aware of any preventative treatment.  But since moisture has been known to trigger zinc pest or make it worse, storing your trains in a dry, humidity-controlled environment is a good idea.

Some people buy only brass locos because brass is supposedly more "permanent."  But even brass can corrode in the presence of certain reactants, and there are plenty of Lionel castings dating back to the 1940s which are still sound.  So assuming there were no impurities in the batch, a die-cast loco made today will almost certainly outlast me!  I wouldn't shy away from a die-cast model that I like for fear of zinc pest.  Heck, if I were to get 10 good years out of it, I'm sure something else would come along in that time that I would rather play with.

For the sake of our fellow hobbyists though, it's important to point out defective batches when problems arise.  The manufacturers (importers) must be held accountable for the purity of their processes and materials.  If a fairly new $1700 loco develops zinc pest, you can bet I would seek a refund or replacement!  A few episodes like this in a short time, and that manufacturer would be boycotted faster than Volkswagen!!

Think about how Standard Gauge guys must have felt when the die-cast wheels on their prized 400E's began to crumble.  A lot of those have been re-wheeled and are now back on the rails.  As long as the tooling exists, there's the possibility of replacement castings.  And with today's 3-D scanning and printing technologies, I'm sure there will always be a way to restore that prized beauty!