Track Cleaning?

[MisterBeasley]

A month or so back, I had a dirty track problem.  All of a sudden, nothing would run well.  As it turned out, we had such bad pollen here that my railheads got covered with the stuff.  Some cleaning fixed the problem, but I'm more careful about keeping the windows open now.

[richhotrain]

Nice work.  Congrats.

Rich

[mwcohio]

Success! After much more reading I noticed that many railroaders dont have just one set of wheels for power pick-up. So I made both sets of the Tender wheels power pick-up and added 1/4 oz. of weight over both. When I power up, my Steamers run just as well as my Diesles. Thank you all for your suggestions and knowledge! Mark

[MonkeyBucket]

I clean my loco wheels the old fashioned way. I have BoBo engines and no steam configurations so a pot scourer under one end and the wheels on track at the other end works quite fine for me.

I think he has the Roto wheel cleaner... I was looking at the track wand below...

Cheers though, it was an interesting and very detailed read.

[richhotrain]

MonkeyBucket

 

By the way has anyone managed to have a go of the new Woodland Scenics Tidy Track, "Rail Tracker" cleaning kit"?  Any other Reviews? I read the MRM review and it seemed like a pretty cool idea.

See this link:

http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS/forums/t/207641.aspx

Rich

[MonkeyBucket]

Boise Nampa & Owyhee

Rule:  Do not run plastic wheel sets on your freight and passenger cars on DCC rails.  There is some oil or something that comes out of the delrin or what ever they are and it is insulative and DCC really doesn't like it.

 

Cheers for that Bob. I am considering going over all my old rolling stock an replacing any plastic wheels.  

 

By the way has anyone managed to have a go of the new Woodland Scenics Tidy Track, "Rail Tracker" cleaning kit"?  Any other Reviews? I read the MRM review and it seemed like a pretty cool idea. I am still not sold on the price though. out of 5

Cheers again

[Boise Nampa & Owyhee]

Diesels will run acceptably on fairly dirty track as they have all wheel pickup capability.  Steamers however are almost universally wired when moving forward, pick  up on the right side drivers and ground on the left side tender.  If it is a light steam loco it will have even more trouble with marginal track.

You did not say what sort of steam models but I've cleaned a lot of Bachmann locos for people and often do some direct wiring for improved pick up.  Especially on the tender. Friction connections across the truck bolsters is not very dependable

I run very light brass steam locos, mostly from the 60's and 70's.  I have converted them all to can motors and all wheel pick up..........loco and tender.  Great operation including my narrow gauge locos.

Rule:  Do not run plastic wheel sets on your freight and passenger cars on DCC rails.  There is some oil or something that comes out of the delrin or what ever they are and it is insulative and DCC really doesn't like it.

see ya

Bob

[mwcohio]

Very helpfull advice! As I am without power for possibly another week(storms hit us bad here in Ohio) Ill do lots of pickup cleaning and try them out again when the electric comes back on. (for some reason my wife frowns on me running an extension cord from the generater to my layout, something about priorities)LOL.   Mark

[mobilman44]

To expand on Richhotrain's post.........

Keep in mind the current must go from feeder wires to rails to wheels to pickups to wires to the motor (brushes).  

Years ago I had similar problems, and yet my rails were clean.   Turns out the problem was the loco's / tender's pick-up wheels.  Some really picked up a "circle of dirt" which caused the problem.

 

[richhotrain]

mwcohio

Im constructing my first layout since I was a teenager(30+years ago). All of my track is laid, and I Run my Engines almost daily for the pure joy of it. The issue im having is that I can power up(DCC) and run my Deisels right now, however my Steam Engines wont move unless I clean the track first. My layout is a 16X23 shelf. Just curiouse if this issue is common.

 

Mark

Is this a common issue?  No, not really.  Steam engines ought to run just as well as diesels.

Trying cleaning the power pickup wheels on the tender of each steam engine.

Rich

[mwcohio]

You know, Johnboy, I had a History Teacher just like you. He would never just answer my question. He would tell me where I could reference the information I was looking for. What a great Teacher he was. So I spent the last few hours reading numorous posts on the subject and,just like back in School, Ive learned more than what I originally needed.  Thank You my friend, lesson learned.  Mark

[last mountain & eastern hogger]

Hi Mark,

Go up on the right hand side of this page in the green block  "SEARCH THIS SITE" and type in track cleaning, track cleaning cars, gleeming etc.

There are dozens of articles on this that have been described and discussed many times.

I think you will find what you want there.

Good luck,

Johnboy out....................................

[mwcohio]

Im constructing my first layout since I was a teenager(30+years ago). All of my track is laid, and I Run my Engines almost daily for the pure joy of it. The issue im having is that I can power up(DCC) and run my Deisels right now, however my Steam Engines wont move unless I clean the track first. My layout is a 16X23 shelf. Just curiouse if this issue is common.

 

Mark