Clean track for happy trains.

Charlie,

At our club, we run a Bright Boy along the rail, then a flannel cloth moistened with alcohol, then a dry flannel cloth. The Bright Boy breaks up the dirt layer. The alcohol pulls it off the rail. The dry cloth wipes off any remaining residue. We try to clean as much of our 500+ foot mainline in this manner. There are hidden parts that do not get all the steps, but these areas at least get the Bright Boy treatment.

We also try to have a few box cars in operation that have masonite pads mounted underneath. These can help keep a polish to the rail during an op session or an open house. We have also moved to all metal wheelsets on almost all of the rolling stock.

Lastly, once the track is clean, all loco wheels should also be cleaned. Cleaning one aspect and not the other will not help long-term ops.

We tend to have one or two sessions of prep before we hold an operating session. Anywhere from six to twelve members will be there to clean track, or loco wheels, set up trains in staging, complete switchlists, or sort out the yard. All of these tasks need to be done before the clock begins on the operating session day. One person cleaning all the track is depressing, but several people working to clean all track at assigned towns along the main line makes for a quicker job.

I've been pining for the day when our locos can hold a battery with enough juice to do the job. After one or two assignents, the loco or loco consist needs to go to the fuel track or engine house to recharge. Once we can get away from depending on the rails to carry power and DCC signal, then things may get very interesting. I think this will be the next big breakthrough for the hobby.

Eric

Mon Valley RR Club of W. Va. web site

I meant to include the web site. There is no trackplan at this time, but you can get the idea that the layout is a pretty good size.

http://www.mvrrc.org/

Brightboy

     I think you got it right with the brightboy. That's all i use to clean the track. I make it a point to run the brightboy along all the rails once a quarter (or if i know i'm about to have visitors over to check out the layout) and it works just fine.

        I've practically tried them all, goo-b-gone, alcohol, metal polish, pastes, my ol' lady's vanishing cream, and those foam rubber thingy's dipped in whal's clipper oil and i always go back to the brightboy as my single track cleaning medium.  One thing that did help though is that I use all metal wheels on the rolling stock. They just don't pick up the "glop" {TM} like the plastic wheels can....chuck

I hear you

Hey Charlie,

I had trouble with dirty track too for a long time but the Clean Machine from Tony's fixed the issue for me. I have about 700 feet of track and like Chuck I tried about everything including the Centerline rolller. The Goo-B-Gone had the same effect for me as alcohol is having for you...loosens the crud and efficiently distributes it all over the railroad. When I bought the Clean Machine I decided to use Acetone as my cleaning agent and was astounded at the job it did. It was much better than the alcohol regardless of the application method and I now clean tracks no more than twice a year if that. When I do use the machine, I make many passes over the road. Since I am able to run continiously, I just turn it on and let it go. I was concerned about damage to ties and rollling stock as well but it has never been an issue for me. Acetone (fingernail polish on steroids) evaporates so quickly it has never caused concern with either damage to equipment or fumes. Some guys run the Clean Machine and then a Centerline behind it. I've never tried it but it might be worth a shot for you.

Mike

I use mineral spirits

I'm using mineral spirits in my Clean Machine and it seems to do a good job.

Alcohol is awful because it leaves the track bone dry once it evaporates. The constant high voltage of DCC on the rails coupled with bone dry rails leads to a lot of sparking, which puts micropits in the rails and wheels. Just run trains on your bone dry rail some time in the dark and you will be appalled at all the sparking.

The micropits make it so the wheels and the track accumulate and hold dirt at a rapid pace, and the microsopic metal particles that get blasted out of the wheels and rails (leaving the micropits) turn to black oxide dust, which when combined with oil and plastic residue on the rails results in the black gunk we're all familar with.

When I clean the track with mineral spirits, it leaves a light layer of mineral spirits on the track, which reduces sparking, so there's less micropitting of the wheels and rail - and thus a much slower buildup of the black gunk. If you clean the loco wheels with mineral spirits, clean the track with mineral spirits, and then run trains in the dark, you will see much less sparking.

I won't touch alcohol for track cleaning any more and am sold on mineral spirits for cleaning track and wheels.

I also don't use a bright boy any more because the grit is fairly coarse and it puts microgroves in the rails, causing them to accumulate gunk faster. I find 600 grit wet-dry sandpaper works much better than a bright boy. It polishes the rail, leaving it shiny and gleaming, not with the slighly duller brushed metal look you get when you use a bright boy.

An old Layout Design Special Interest Group (LDSIG) post

I dug up a post from February 19, 2005 on the LDSIG YahooGroups list. This is message #56810 in case you decide to do some searching in the message archives there. Don Mitchell detailed the track cleaning process for the HO scale Tehachapi exhibit. I recall it was a most interesting discussion at that time and Don's comments were quite enlightening. Hope it helps you, Charlie.

Here are Don's comments:

Tehachapi runs 6 days a week. Here is the track cleaning regimen that
has evolved from our experience. Once a week we run a cleaning train
over the main line, sidings, and unoccupied yard tracks. The train
consists of a TTX CMX clean machine followed by 3 or 4 Centerline cars.

The TTX car is filled with mineral spirits after having tried various
fluids, including Goo Gone, with less than stellar results. The
Centerline cars are run dry to immediate clean up any residue left by
the TTX car. The cloth on the Centerline rollers is strips of kitchen
mesh cleaning rags (Handi-Wipes) affixed to the rollers with a dab of
hot glue. The cloths are changed after each run. (3-4 cars are
needed to wipe everything up, as evidenced by the dirt on the first
few rollers.)

Before our 6 or so TTTO sessions per year, _all_ the track is cleaned.
This extends the cleaning to all yard tracks, the engine facility,
spurs, etc.

Masonite under-car pads are also used. They were initially specified
to run at least 1 per train, but we have found that random
distribution gets enough of them over the layout. Consider, though,
that we do that 6 days a week running, most all of which is
continously circling the layout for the public visitors.

Bright Boys are now restricted from use, except possibly when
something like glue gets on the track during construction.

Everybody seems to have their own favorite track cleaning method.
Hopefully the above experience with track cleaning over the past 20 or
so years of frequent running will prove useful to you.
 

Yeah, 4 centerlines...

Thanks Eric,

yeah, 4 centerlines sounds about right. Gotta get the glop^TM off the track after its loostened up.

The La Mesa club certainly doesn't do things halfway!

I'm think about trying to make my own brite boys by wrapping 600 grit emery paper around erasers. have to see how that works.

Cheers,

Charlie Comstock

CRC 2-26

I have tried CRC 2-26 - an electronic cleaner. Seems to work quite well. I have read about this on some of the yahoo mr groups.

Wax

 I use Mothers Mag Wheel cleaner. 

If you you metal wax to clean your track you won't have to clean it for a couple of years....

Rich

So Rich, what's the technique

Rich:

Metal wax, aye? What technique do you use to apply it/clean the track with it?

I like the Maas metal polish.

Since I temporarily lost my tube of it, I now own enough to last the next century. When I bought it online it came with a pair of polish impregnated gloves that I'm very interested in trying out.

I'll probably do the masonite thing as well, and if it wasn't obvious in the video I was looking very longingly at the Dapol track cleaning car at the National Train Show.

Oh yes - I think the only plastic wheels I've got left on the layout are under some LBF chip cars. Need to get those replaced.

+

So I learned something tonight.. metal polish,  on rails.  Searched it and found several people beleive in it.

Metal polish is just kaoline (clay) or mineral spirits  and aluminum oxide.  Go figure.  Most metal polishes don't even have wax in them.  Seems to me this is just the same as using extra fine sand paper.

Marc

Yes WAX

 Joe

It only stands to reason that nickel silver track is a metal and so metal polish/cleaner is in order.

You can use most anything to apply.  I use small blocks of homosote to remove the build up and then i apply the was with a clean block.

I havn't cleaned my track in 2 years.  The wax puts a protective coating on the rail-head.  Works for me...

The trick is not to run too much and remove the wax applied.

Rich

Yes WAX?

It seems to me that by not running too much you are defeating the purpose for having a layout in the first place. It's sort of like buying and expensive sports car and keeping it in only in your garage so it won't suffer the wear and tear of driving it.

Irv

Metal wax?  Now you got me

Metal wax?  Now you got me curious -- how do you apply it, what brand etc...  Please explain further...

Chuck

Lacquer Thinner

I got a can of lacquer thinner and used it in my Tony's clean machine Thursday. Tonight's an op session so I'll see if this will work for me. Joe F's been using it for a while and it's worked for him so hopefully it'll work on the Bare Creek also. I let y'all know how it works...

Charlie

The lacquer thinner in the

The lacquer thinner in the Tony's clean machine appears to have done a reasonably good job with getting the rails clean. It also seems to have potential for cleaning locomotive wheels (but having the loco push the track cleaning car around a bit the loco runs over the 'wetted' rails which appears to clean the loco wheels a bit (although probably leaving a layer of loco wheel slime on the rails.

At any rate it appears the L.T. experiment is worth repeating. I did use a fresh cleaning pad on the Clean Machine.

Charlie

Yes WAX?

I sure am glad you know when I operate and when I don't.  And I don't own a sports car I own a RR.

Rich 

Charlie, you have to couple

Charlie,

you have to couple another cleaning car after the loco, so it will clean the residue left by the loco

Rich, I think your sentence

Rich,

I think your sentence "The trick is not to run too much and remove the wax applied." is not clear. That's why you got that answer.

For cleaning track...

 I prefer to use Rail Zip. It is supposed to penetrate existing corrosion, retard the rate of corrosion, does not scratch or pit the rails like brite-boys do, and be safe for plastics. For my indoor layout a cleaning lasts four months.

 I don a rubber glove, wrap a dampened piece of old lintless t-shirt around my finger, add a few drops of Rail Zip and wipe it on the rails. The directions say you don't have to rub or scrub because it is a chemical rather than a mechanical process, but I can't resist the urge to scrub the track over and over until the cloth comes up fairly clean. I move fast, changing to a clean spot on the cloth often and get all the track covered in one session. After ten or twelve hours (when the stuff is doing its 'magic') I return with a clean cloth dampened with water only and go over the track, a process that goes fast because I was so thorough during the previous session.

To clean the track in tunnels and through truss bridges I use a wooden dowel cut long enough to reach at least halfway attaching to one end a cross piece a little longer than the width of the track rails. I wrap several layers of the t-shirt around this end and finish by securing the end of the cloth to the long section of dowel with a wrap or two of masking tape. The cloth end is then dampened with water and Rail Zip and it's now possible to reach these more confined stretches of track.

Loco wheels are easy. Lay a paper towel over the rail, dribble some Rail Zip along where the rails are and run your locomotive wheels up on top of the towel holding it there for a few seconds while the motor runs. Back it off with your hand, move the towel to a clean spot, then allow the wheels to run on top of the towel again, this time to dry them off and remove the balance of the crud. Repeat for the other set of wheels. Do this to all your locomotives and you're all done!

Rolling stock is another matter. I turn on some music or the TV and sit there at my workbench and clean each wheel by dipping the tip of a toothpick into the Rail Zip and applying it to each wheel scrubbing the crud off and drying with a bit of paper towel. I am in the process of converting to all metal wheelsets, because they don't seem to get very dirty and don't need to be cleaned every time I do the track which is nice. Wheel cleaning makes for a pleasant afternoon or evening when I can plan future projects or meditate on practically anything else.

Note: If I had tons of rolling stock, I would eschew the toothpick process for the Acetone that Mike offered in a previous response dousing it on a paper towel laid on top of a section of track and rolling the wheels back and forth until they became clean. Charlie's lacquer thinner suggestion might work for this too.

 What I was trying to get

What I was trying to get across was not to remove all the wax when you start to clean it off.

leave some on.  Sorry mis took your comment. I run my layout a lot.

Track Cleaning Consists

I'm still playing around with track cleaning methods, but have avoided all abrasive types.

The latest and best so far is to run a masonite (hardboard here in the U.K.) slider car, with a lot of weight mounted on the slider guide bolts inside the car, in front of a pair of locos. I place Rail Zip on the slider, I found Goo gone made the track worse. I then run the train with a Centreline car running dry behind the locos picking up any gunk left on the rails, and it does! I also often run a magnet car (a Kadee magnet hung under a car just above the rails) to pick pick up bits of spikes etc. It is surprising what this car picks up at times.

This combination seems to be cleaning the track well and works well in my tunnels and hidden storage tracks. The amount of black stuff that builds up on the cars indicates they are working well. The next addition to the train will be a vacuum car to remove any dust on the track bed.

I also use lightweight sliders under some cars running in trains.

Mike Ruby

Mike, I'm pretty curious

Mike,

I'm pretty curious about masonite usage. I suppose you run the smooth side of masonite against the rails. Doesn't it swell (even if just a little) if you wet it with liquid?