All I know is, every train club I've ever been a member of would be grateful to have an energetic young member who showed an interest in cleaning track.
None of you are members of his club, so none of you have a dog in this fight. Let's stop trying to discourage the lad, shall we? I'm locking this thread so you all can move along.
--Steven Otte, Model Railroader senior associate editorsotte@kalmbach.com
yes, heard of gleaming before, never tried it ..
prefer no-ox, once every five years or so, just vacumn in between
Gleamed with 600 grit, burnished and polished in 2006. touched up a few areas in 2015, Run DCC, masonite pads and steel wheels. Love it.
Different strokes for different folks though. Hard to see how this experiment, as described, will provide reliable results. Odd that none of the club members had never heard of gleaming.
NWP SWP It's a combination of window units and portable units.
It's a combination of window units and portable units.
Window units are notorious for having extremely poor filtering systems. You can improve them by using cut to fit filter material. Most of this material is washable and is available in big box stores.
Bayfield Transfer RailwayMy opinion, based on ACTUAL EXPERIENCE, is that simply running trains frequently is the best method of track cleaning.
I fully agree. I switch cars on my ISL daily and use a Bright Boy as needed which isn't to often.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
SouthPenn What type of HVAC system do you have? If it's forced air, what kind of filter is in the system? If it's one of the el-cheapo angle hair types, you are just blowing the dust and dirt around the room. You need one that cleans down to allergin level, the best you can get. You might want to look inside the ductwork to see how dirty it is. The environment the layout is in has to be clean or you are just wasting your time cleaning the layout.
What type of HVAC system do you have? If it's forced air, what kind of filter is in the system? If it's one of the el-cheapo angle hair types, you are just blowing the dust and dirt around the room. You need one that cleans down to allergin level, the best you can get. You might want to look inside the ductwork to see how dirty it is.
The environment the layout is in has to be clean or you are just wasting your time cleaning the layout.
We put a high-end air cleaner on a new furnace eight years ago. With six Golden Retrievers, we needed it. Since we have had it the dust level in the house and thus the layout is next to nothing, well worth the investment. Made my wife's allergies all but disappear as well. I have four components of it to clean using the compressor every two months and the amount of dirt it collects is amazing. I just inspected our ducts as well and after eight years they are spotless.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
My opinion, based on ACTUAL EXPERIENCE, is that simply running trains frequently is the best method of track cleaning.And putting Tomar track pickups on a few locomotives will make contact troubles simply disappear, and the phosphor bronze shoes will keep track clean. This is again from experience, on a layout where some of the track is over 50 years old and has been in continuous use on a weekly basis."Track gleaming" is a LOT of unnecessary fuss and work to solve issues that have been more easily solved long ago.If you really, really want to help your club, convince them to install Tomar track shoes on some engines.
Disclaimer: This post may contain humor, sarcasm, and/or flatulence.
Michael Mornard
Bringing the North Woods to South Dakota!
Is it more of a problem when those portable AC units are being used? That in itself can be movind the dust about the room. Humidity/ temerature changes within the space also can contribute to dust "sticking" on the rails and everything else. Don't know the space or the climate control in that trainroom. Early on before we had decent climate control, we had "fits"with benchwork/ backdrop expansion and some minor buckling as well during extreme humidity changes in the room. Now climate controlled and have very few issues.
Modeling B&O- Chessie Bob K. www.ssmrc.org
Steve
If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough!
The club thinks anything on the rails is bad juju, so polishing was omitted.
Plastic wheels are strictly verboten.
mbinsewiThe way I understand "gleaming". http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/212742.aspx Scroll down and read Jeffrey's post. Mike.
Note that Jeffrey's gleaming summary included polishing (he used Blue Magic, I used Simichrome) and buffing, after burnishing w/stainless steel.
It could be argued that the gleaming intent is to do the process only once, followed only very infrequently with less rigorous touch up, such as dusting, masonite cars, etc. I presume that the polishing effect could have an initial, incremental effect that eventually would fade at least partially. So I suggest that an cool experiment would perhaps include 2 gleaming variations, with and without polishing., and include observation over time if the polished approach came in first, to see how that marginal help would sustain.
An alternative idea, for what it's worth. Find a club member who has DCC w/sound and used bright boy type periodic cleaning and has a worst section of track. Have him clean it with the BB and then log how long it takes for a noted amount of trouble to recur. Then do the gleaming w/o the polishing step and have him compare, operating the same train and the same amount of use. Then again with gleaming including polishing. An issue would be other variables that occur, of course. Ideally, he would repeat the cycle enough times to establish decent averages to have faith in any differences in results. This experiment could take awhile!
Paul
Modeling HO with a transition era UP bent
NWP SWPThe process, I am going to start by cleaning the track with alcohol and acetone, then I polish with 400 grit sandpaper, increase grit by 400 all the way up to 4000, then I will take a razor scraper and lightly scrape the track, then I'll use a piece of stainless steel to burnish, then clean again and let sit.
The link to Jeffrey's method only went to a grit of 600. If you have the patience to go to 4000 grit, well more power to you, but why then scrape it with a razor?
Internet wisdom is that burnishing with stainless steel fills the pores. Sounds reasonable but how do we know this, short of an electron microscope?
Given the number of responses so far, I think there is actually a lot of interest in a real experiment.
An electron microscope is a bit of hyperbole. It needs something more than a blown up cell phone picture, but a magnified picture of 20 or 40x ought to be achievable with minimal expense.
I would suggest
Compare close up pictures. Presumably the rail is progressively more smooth. I have an open mind whether burnished or 4000 grit is smoother.
The second part is to run trains. Now we have to prove that there is a relationship between smooth rail and clean rail. Here we have some who run mixed metal and plastic wheels vs all metal wheels.
In the ideal world, we would have two clubs. Both have similar train density, one runs all metal wheels, the other mixed plastic and metal. Both would have a place where a 3' piece of flex track could be installed. Each club would run an untreated rail, a mid shiney rail and the smoothest rail, for the same period of time.
The period of time would be an experiment unto itself. We need to wipe, say 6" of track with an alcohol soaked paper towel and moderate pressure and look for differences.
Nobody has a section where you can drop in a piece of rail, so the second half of the experiment will probably never happen. The close up photo half of the experiment is easily doable.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
Two more comments..........
While the track buss is 20 ga, what about the feeders? Are the 3-5 feet apart or ?
Living just north of Houston for 37 years, I know a lot about "flooding". With 2 feet of water absorbed into the benchwork and the humidity effect upon the layout, I'm not surprised there are track cleaning problems.
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
The contaminated, dirty track could be from member equipment both engines and rolling stock. I belong to a rather large club, www.ssmrc.org . We have set standards to help with keeping the track clean. With 60+ members and thousands of pieces of equipment on a DDC layout, we will from time to time experience poor operation from dirty track. All rolling stock must have metal wheels (could be debatable the plastic vs metal, I feel plastic with static charge attracts more dirt), members will always clean locomotive wheels quite often. We do run track cleaning cars on a regular basis. Before any show or open house do a full cleaning of all mainlines and yards.
This seems to work for us and have very little issue with the dirty track. It is a completely finished building with climate control, if this is part of what keeps the RR running so well.
A bit of track and it does manage to stay rather clean.
Isn't that the goal of an experiment? To test the outcome of a theory?
The layout is roughly 20 years old, I'm not sure of the track brand but it is nickel silver flex track.
One of the theories is that the new flooring, foam rubber tiles, which was installed after the flood, (the building got about 2 feet of water but the layout survived) are causing the gunk.
If I remember correctly this is the same layout you were cleaning with VOCs until people started to get sick, correct?
.
This layout should not have the operational problems you are describing. Every club layout I have seen that was operated regularly had no such problems. I doubt gleeming will do much of anything to the trackage.
How old is this layout? What brand track is it?
If all the track, rolling stock, and locomotives were cleaned recently, and it is that bad again, you have deeper problems.
Good luck.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
RR_Mel I find it very hard to believe that a well established club would let a teenager with no experience even near their tracks or give them advise on track cleaning if they have followed his post on this forum. Mel
This is why young people get discouraged from the hobby. Let the young man try to do this, successful or not. Also, not everyone reads the forums. If he fails; lesson learned. If not, he's helping his club. Let's give him suggestions, not berate him for something no one else in his club wants to do.
Let's hear how he makes out..
Neal
The track bus is 10 Guage wire so I don't think it's a wiring issue.
Yes it is DCC.
I assume its a DCC operation........
Is it certain the problem is "dirty track", vs. inadequate wiring/feeders?
All over stalls, the contaminant is of unknown origin, the layout room is completely finished, walls, floors ceiling, the entire layout and the locomotives and rolling stock wheels were completely about a month and a half - two months ago.
Ok, I've watched from the sidelines long enough......
How dirty is the layout track (i.e. occasional stalls, localized or all over, or)?
Where did the dirt come from (i.e. open room, unsealed floors/ceiling, etc.)?
When was the tracks last cleaned? How?
While the "best" method could be debated until the bayous drain, the fact is the tracks will have to be cleaned by hand all over the layout to be effective. So instead of redoing research and looking for "new and different", the club members would likely be better off just working on the process itself - using tried and true methods like alcohol on a rag with an occasional swipe of a fine bright boy.
And don't forget, all that track cleaning effort is worthless if the loco and rolling stock wheels are not cleaned at the same time.
Again it's a preliminary test to demonstrate the process, the ultimate goal is to do it on the layout and run trains, its not my personal layout so I can't just do it on layout.
NWP SWP 1 the old run your finger on the rails and see what get picked up
1 the old run your finger on the rails and see what get picked up
And this will just be from track laying around for awhile? Seems to me the same amount of dust would fall on either piece of track. Almost kind of has to, don't it? So you should then get the same amount of stuff on your finger for each.
2 a electrical conductivity test
Of what? Conductivity is measured between two points. Which two points do you have in mind?
Ed
OK let me spell it out.
The club president isn't to keen on new ideas especially trying them on the layout, so I am using a extra piece of track to demonstrate my idea, if it works well enough the process will be applied to part of the club layout, we'll then run trains over it and see how that goes.
I'm also going to be trying cork roadbed as a pad for Masonite cars.
I'm having a real hard time trying to understand this so called experment.
Gleeming has been know for many years, and I'm sure, been prefected by now. There are many,many ways to clean track, all been proven to work, or not.
The idea is to promote reliable preformance,thru better wheel to track contact.
By taking a piece of track, and doing ''whatever '' to it,then having it lay around for an unknow amout of time, proves nothing
A train didn't run on it before,and is not running on it now.
What's the point ????
If upon visual inspection the track is cleaner than the mainline then I will try to convince the club to test the process on part of the layout.
NWP SWP If the results are unsatisfactory I will change the process and try again.
If the results are unsatisfactory I will change the process and try again.
What is the process you will use to evaluate your results?