Track cleaning and more

[dinwitty]

I have been up and down the track cleaning biz, in the club I was in created a track cleaning train involving a Ulrich track cleaning car which uses a tank filled with alcohol dripping or sending it down to the pad to cover the rails with alcohol then had these roller cleaner cards (2) leading car I drizzed with alcohol, rear was mop up. This worked pretty well, being pushed by a couple of club diesels. I have my personal layout which is double deck being built, using my own modular design modules, it double deck for now, the lower is more or les snap tracked to test some layout design and it also test equipment out, its basic modules on flat module design slap-edged against each other, its not a perfect fit, but works, some edges are a little rough making the layout a little lumpy, but I have seen some prototype lumpy track. Anyways the lower level has no wire feeds, just one point where I power it, it has a long dogbone loop curving around a corner or 2. The track between modules is joined with short track sections which are removable should I need to remove a module to work on. I have used the burnishing Walthers track cleaner (you know the one), I have applied RailZip with the idea to improve electrical contact. I get the Gleaming biz. I read an old article in MR somewhere someone applied transmission fluid to the rails and swore by it, saying all the dirt mushed about and couldnt soliidify anywhere. I hadn't touched my layout for a few months so I recently got back down to try out my new engine (Scale Trains Big Blow Turbine), I knew I needed to clean track, I paraded around some other diesels but in the back loop the muckled, hesitated, stopps, I ran another engine around to rescue it, it muckled, hesitated, stopped, ran another rescue engine phooey, hand rescue. The other problem, I have a part of the loop "blocked" with insulated rail joiners because of turnouts in the loop so not to short out. I ran an engine into the blocked section and it died. I fiddled with the turnouts which were power routing PECO, nope. I got suspiscious about one of my short module track pieces connecting track, poked and fiddled with it, that sorta got the engine to run, but then...didnt. Wots Up Wit Dis? I pulled out the shorty track section and there it was, RailZip gunk/dirt/whatever on the joiners and at the connecting point of the rails. It seems the railzip collaberated with the dirt into the joiner creating semi-insulation points preventing good current flow. The joiners were half loose anyways from all the fidgeting work thru time so I put new joiners on and cleaned the rails at the joiner points. No probs now. Now back to dirty rails. I have this Ulrich track cleaning car like the one I used in the club, Looking at my rails I had serios black dirt blobs on the rails really killing operation, I hand cleaned the near track, did some alcohol cleanup, so I revved up the cleaner car with alcohol, put one diesel behind it, and off I run to clean track, but it got to the back track and it muckled, hesitated and stopped, tried a 2nd engine, nope, okay now what, it cant get past the dirt. I realized each engine had only 8 pickups each. Thats serious dirt on the rails to do that. Whut now....I look at my BLI Y6b 2-8-8-2....it has pickups on the engine and tender with a large pickup power base..I said...HECK YEA. On went the Y6b backing up pushing the cleaner car and off it went several times around the layout. The moral of the story is, I am no longer very positive about oils on the track anymore. If you have a large layout, your better with a cleaning train or gleam your rails but you should clean your rails every so often, a good bet is one of these cleaning cars in a train that brush the rails with some kind sandpaper something that keep scrapping up the dirt as you run. Sitting track over time will still collect dust on the heads, the second you run an engine the dirt and electricity just muggle up on the rails and you get black baloney encrusted on the rails. Now I have to go into my turnouts and clean out RailZip gunk. My club was right in making homemade turnouts, they...WORKED. (all rail frogs, points always powered to near rail).

[SeeYou190]

Wow. The wall of text was very hard to read.

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I have always been an advocate (well not always, but at least for 20 years) of using Kato Unitrack for all hidden trackage. It is rock solid and very reliable. Mine seems to require less cleaning, but I have no idea if this is actually true or not. It can be held in place by guide blocks glued next to the track so it is easy to replace if necesary.

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As far as track cleaning... All of my layouts have been in climate controlled rooms in the main part of my house. I have never had bad dirty track issues.

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-Kevin

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[doctorwayne]

dinwitty

...Sitting track over time will still collect dust on the heads...

That's why my track cleaning involves only the occasional use of a vacuum cleaner, although it does help that my layout is in its own finished room, not used for other activities.  I only clean track, in the conventional sense of the phrase, after ballasting or adding scenery near the tracks.  After that, a shop vac with the brush attachment or crevice tool is all it takes, and not too often, either.

While replacing the loose rail joiners may have helped clear up some the the problems which you encountered, they will eventually cause problems, too.  You can eliminate that by soldering them in place.

Wayne

[dstarr]

From the sound of it, you have two problems.  Your rail joiners are not reliable current carriers, and you have some kinda crud on your rail heads.

  You cannot depend upon rail joiners for solid electrical connections.  Corrosion builds u[ inside them and eventually they go open.  There are two fixes. 

  Solder all the rail joiners.  This will solve the electrical intermittant problems but any movement of you benchwork, winter shrinkage, summer swelling, can throw your track out of guage or even cause it to buckle.

  Or, run a good sturdy power bus underneath the layout and run feeders from the bus to every piece of track on the layout.  Actually, running feeders to every other piece of track will do the trick.   I use #14 solid copper house wire for the bus and #22 telephone wire for the feeders.

  As for the crud or goop on the rails people use alcohol, mineral spirits, or GooGone to cut it.  My layout is small enough that I can run over all the track with a rag faster than I can get a track cleaning train on the track and running.   After cleaning the track, you need to clean the wheels on all your rolling stock.  The wheels pick up crud from the railheads. I have seen wheel cheese so deep that the flange was covered.  Anyhow, when you run dirty wheels over clean track, you have dirty track pretty quickly.