the club has a track cleaning train with multi (4+) cleaning cars that is run around the loops multiple times until there is little residue on the pads. But it doesn't seem to take long for the track to become dirty again.
and while locomotive wheels are cleaned often, the metal rolling stock wheels are not and may be one cause for the track becoming dirty so quickly.
any thoughts on how to clear a long train (20+) of cars?
greg - Philadelphia & Reading / Reading
I'd make a powered jig, perhaps a couple of long continuously-looped strips of absorbent faced material or lapping film on an elastic substrate, arranged so the car(s) sit in gauge between them, with a fixed adjustable strip either side to act like a 'retarder' does in a hump yard, to restrict the wheel rotation slightly but not stall it. It may prove necessary to adjust individual truck or wheelset resistance 'separately' to get a good result.
One set with fluid, to clean the wheelsets of gunk on the treads and fillets.
One set with light lapping abrasive, to take down any pitting that might be trapping gunk or contributing to microarcing -- might be valuable to do more careful 'wheelset control' and go through some of the grinding stages of track gleaming, which might be up to 12000 grit since you're probably not going to try burnishing as the last step.
Intermediate and final passes as needed to remove any residual grit or dust and give a 'finish clean'. Those of you that swear by the clipper oil could arrange to put an appropriately thin coat as the very last step...
As I see the device, it would be able to run for hours, like the moral equivalent of a rock tumbler, to do very gentle and careful polishing rather than rapid 'stock removal'. You might even leave it unattended for periods of time, bulk-cleaning stuff during operating sessions, or between them.
The alternative is to have similar materials on a set of Dremel or equivalent tools, with jigs to hold your equipment and truck frames parallel, and clean treads upside-down while exerting careful pressure on the respective wheelset via a finger or pad. How you keep detritus out of the bearings would be something to watch.
I might be tempted to consider periodically taking wheelsets out of trucks and cleaning them separately. That is probably too tedious (and perhaps too risky) for larger clubs or people with many, many cars. Hold the wheelset in something like the tool we use to adjust watch balances, with something in the pivots that dresses and hones the axle ends or wheel points to very precise desired dimension and finish as you work... like the contrapositive or counterpart of a truck tuner.
Yeah I never understood the comments about polar and nonpolar. All the metal strippers and paint solvents are organic polar molecules and they remove dirt and grime extremely well.
gregcand while locomotive wheels are cleaned often, the metal rolling stock wheels are not and may be one cause for the track becoming dirty so quickly.
Of course rolling stock will redistribute 'gunk' from their tread surfaces back onto the rail, especially when softened with the use of mineral spirits or alcohol carried in cleaner cars such as the CMX wet pad car.
You participated in a discussion in another forum back in December of 2022, regarding wheel 'crud'. I was commenting at that time that I found it unusual that 'some' of my brass passenger cars and, indeed, occasionally freight cars would get an acumulation of crud built up on opposite sides of a wheelset on a single car.
To date I have no clue as to why this might occur but only that it DOES!
Challenger-wheel-gunk by Edmund, on Flickr
The bottom pair of wheel treads are caked with gunk while the top pair are nearly spotless. Strange, indeed. The brass carbody is 'hot' with the continuity of one rail while it seems the insulated wheel is the one that stays clean.
Challenger-wheel-gunk-crop by Edmund, on Flickr
I routinely cycle cars through an inspection and cleaning process. I have a padded tray that holds about ten freight cars or five passenger cars. I take a group of cars into the shop and pass them over a half-length of flex track that I cover with a folded paper towel and I dribble a little lacquer thinner onto the towel and place the car into the gauge of the track and pass it over several times, slightly offsetting the towel each time, until the resulting pass runs clean.
Then upon returning the car to the layout I check coupler height and 'rollability'.
Generally I have little or no problems with keeping the rails clean. Occasionally I'll do some ballasting or painting of the track but those days are pretty much behind me as the layout nears 'completion'. Still, certain cars seem to accumulate more gunk than others. I'm especially careful after weathering a batch of cars which includes painting of the wheel faces. This can be a major source of crud!
Trucks-rusty by Edmund, on Flickr
BradenDYeah I never understood the comments about polar and nonpolar.
It isn't the cleaning ability that is the issue. It is the tendency for more arcing to occur. The arcing contributes to a faster build up of black, non-conductive oxides. I used to use 99% isopropyl alcohol exclusively for track and wheel cleaning. About two years ago I switched to using mineral spirits and I'm much more satisfied with the results.
Good Luck, Ed
Whenever I get a derailment, one thing that I look for is crud on the wheels. Enough buildup will affect not only rolling stock but also locos. As far as crud on wheels only on one side of a wheelset, I get that too. It is probably occurring on curved portions of the track.
Rich
Alton Junction
I would think that if track is getting dirty from rolling stock wheels, then the same wheels got dirty from the track in the first place.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
richhotrainI get that too. It is probably occurring on curved portions of the track.
I've observed the crud on diagonally opposite wheelsets of the same car. Each end of the car goes around the same curve. Plus my layout happens to have a nearly equal amount of right hand and left hand curves.
I believe in the case of this lop-sided crud buildup that 'static' electricity or some kind of 'induction' from the always live DCC rails is causing 'micro-arcing' at the point of wheel contact with the rail.
Even though these cars are not lighted the car body becomes part of the electrical circuit as has been common practice with some brass models. I've observed the same crud buildup on certain other lighted plastic cars (the Broadway Limited California Zephyr cars in particular) and I have come to the conclusion that the root cause is the electrical path to the lighting circuits, which will include some array of electronic components in the regulation and 'flicker-free' circuitry causing the micro arcing.
Regards, Ed
gmpullman richhotrain I get that too. It is probably occurring on curved portions of the track. Regards, Ed
richhotrain I get that too. It is probably occurring on curved portions of the track.
Well, then, it must be a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, a sort of conundrum, perplexing to be sure.
Just goes to prove — DCC really IS too complicated!
Cheers, Ed
gmpullman Well, then, it must be a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, a sort of conundrum, perplexing to be sure. Just goes to prove — DCC IS too complicated! Cheers, Ed
Just goes to prove — DCC IS too complicated!
any thoughts on how to clean them?
do you think running them across some wet paper towel to loosen the dirt up followed by some dry towel where it hopfully comes of might work, or
do the wheels need to be impeeded from turning to rub them on the towel?
gregc any thoughts on how to clean them? do you think running them across some wet paper towel to loosen the dirt up followed by some dry towel where it hopfully comes of might work, or do the wheels need to be impeeded from turning to rub them on the towel?
For rolling stock, I use a small flat screwdriver blade angled to remove the crud without scratching the surface of the wheel. Then, I wipe the wheel cleaned with denatured alcohol on a clean white cotton cloth while manually rotating the wheel.
Hello All,
In a word, "Yes"!
There was an article on another website that described how to make a continuous track-cleaning station.
It described how to install a reservoir on one side of the tracks that dripped down on a thin strip of paper towel laid over a section of rerailer track that the locomotives and cars rolled over to clean the wheels.
This was installed on a runaround track in the staging area.
I simply moisten a thin strip of paper towel place it over a section of rerail track and manually run the rolling stock over it.
For locomotives I use the same method of a moistened strip of paper towel but power the loco and hold it in place over the paper towel so the wheels spin- -similar to the Woodland Senics Roto Wheel Cleaner- -only cheaper.
Hope this helps.
"Uhh...I didn’t know it was 'impossible' I just made it work...sorry"
the club just runs trains around two double track loops. after installing a speedometer, i timed a train and came up with 7.5 scale mile for the one loop. during a show, there are often 3 trains running on each loop.
i'm wondering if we can set something up to clean a whole train before a show and then remove it before the show. some trains are short, 10 cars. another might be 50+ 2 bay coal cars.
assume locomotives won't run over paper towels, so the trains would be pushed by hand across the cleaning setup
gregcassume locomotives won't run over paper towels, so the trains would be pushed by hand across the cleaning setup
According to the article I read, the moistened strips of paper towels across the rerail track are no wider than the wheelbase of the smallest trucks.
This presumes that the locos have all-wheel pickup.
Another option would be to make the strips of paper towel half the width of the wheelbase so only one set of wheels passes over it.
There was also a youtube video of how the Colorado Model Railroad Museum cleans their rolling stock.
Watching the video they use the 0-5-0 to run the rolling stock over the temporarily placed paper towel with the cleaning solution of choice.
The video does not show how they clean the track or locomotive wheels.
I try to visit as often as possible; I live in Colorado but it's two and a half hours- -one way!
When visiting I'm always amazed at how clean the track is and how smoothly the trains run at prototypically slow speeds.
Someday I hope to become a volunteer engineer and learn their track maintenance "secrets."
Never thought to consider rolling stock wheels could cause locos not to run. It makes sense. The nice thing is rolling stock wheels are often easier to clean since you can spin them 360 degrees easily.
Didn't I read somewhere about the value of running trains daily to keep track from getting dirty? I'm not there yet. Right now working on adding switch machines to turnouts. The way I check the track is run the locos and when loco slows down, that's the area to clean. I first clean the loco wheels.