General Discussion (Model Railroader)

Ralph:

I use the CMX clean machine for track cleaning, and I put Laquer Thinner in it.

The main gets the most traffic so the main gets the most cleaning (once a month). I also clean all the side tracks and spurs about every 6 months.

I've also tried doing some of the metal polish cleaning, but the jury's still out on that. I think you already have to have relatively clean track and wheels already for that to work well. I did a section of the layout with the metal polish (a very slow and tediuous job -- I used the scrap of cork method) and after a month of use, the metal polished section seemed about as filthy as ever.

I still need to experiment with the metal polish method some more, but it takes a lot of elbow grease to do. The one section I did (about 12 feet long -- did the main, the siding and all the spurs) took several hours work and lots of pieces of cork ... I could have cleaned most of the layout with the clean machine in that length of time (I've got 1200 feet of track on the layout -- I shudder to think how many years the metal polish method would take...). The cork pieces with the metal polish on them would get filthy fast and have to be replaced every few inches, as would the dry pieces of cork I used to burnish the polished rails with.

My layouts going on 15 years old -- perhaps all the years of built-up gunk on wheels just doesn't work as well with the polish method since even the polished track seems to get dirty again rather soon. I've never cleaned my rolling stock's wheels ever and I use mostly metal wheelsets. I clean my loco's wheelsets often -- every op session or two. Although in the last year I took apart some loco trucks for a thorough cleaning and found crystalized black gunk up inside the truck sideframes ... so that stuff gets everywhere!

Long story short ... the clean machine and cleaning loco wheels often seems to work best for me at the moment.

Joe... Does the Laquer Thinner ever cause a problem with weathered track sections?

I have been looking at the CMX for a while now, and your post makes it sound like what I am looking for. Thanks for sharing that information and for another great clinic.

Bob

Iron Goat wrote:

Joe... Does the Laquer Thinner ever cause a problem with weathered track sections? I have been looking at the CMX for a while now, and your post makes it sound like what I am looking for. Thanks for sharing that information and for another great clinic. Bob

The laquer thinner is merely damp on the "fuzzy" wiper pad, and I've never seen it cause a problem with the weathered track. You can control the drip rate, so you only want the drip to be enough to keep the pad damp, not soaked such that it starts to get all over the track.

The other thing to watch out for is when you stop (as in "done") make sure you shut the flow off, or you will soak your track with laquer thinner.

Otherwise, it works great!

jfugate wrote:

Okay, well it's not the next installment in this forum clinic, per se, but I have just finished my October Op Session Report (with photos), and it shows a real live op session applying the principles discussed in this forum clinic. Here's the link: http://siskiyou-railfan.net/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?2801 I try to give enough detail that you get some sense of what it's like to run trains using 1980's style track warrants and wireless DCC on a larger basement layout.

 

Excellent !  Finally took the time from RR construction to catch up on some forum reading.

Regards,

Hasn't been much posted to this clinic lately ... but at my last op session, on a whim, we ran the professional video camera just to see how live handheld available light video footage would look.

Well what do you know! It surprised us at how well the video turned out. Here's some of it posted on my web site. Kind of "reality video" for model railroading!

Joe, does a resounding "YES!" count? I am a somewhat rabid, but not obsessive, fan of operations. One hint, it is nice of you to put the warning on your clips, but they have to be downloaded and start in order to read them! A long wait for us dial-up users, yes, but for me at least, worth the wait! jc5729 John Colley, Port Townsend, WA