Rail cleaning is like barbequing. Everyone has their own way of doing it and insist that their way is the best.
I have a small N scale layout and with the small size and DCC I struggled with constant dead spots and constant isopropyl cleaning. Never using IPA again on the rails. This RTNTs video was very informative, explained the black gunk source, and I followed what was laid out and it works great! Have not cleaned in a while. One spot was dead and rubbed it with a clean tee shirt square and reapplied very thin layer of the paste and back to it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBYxjcTWCB0
Yes it is controversial indeed
It is I that began the Burnish method back in 2006. I am still studying the longevity of it, and at 16 years now I have garnered data positive and negative. Mostly positive.
It does require work to apply but only once; Dry wipe clean with cotton T-shirt rags; No abrasive or liquid cleaner or track clean cars.
Glad to see this thread generating more discussion!
The process of burnishI got emparts a hardenled skin that resists the arcing heat and thereby reducling the pitting and accumulation of nickel oxide.
Yes, here in Eastern Canada, humidity is a godsend... for gardeners.
Simon
That greenish film is the copper reacting. I expect the dampness helps it to ionize to do so.
I thought perhaps extreme dryness might be a problem because of MAYBE PERHAPS greater arcing between wheel and rail.
Besides, I HATE humidity, except in the shower. I grew up in DC and moved to California. We don't even have bugs in the air, here. Maybe they're too mellow, or something. I do miss fireflies.
Ed
7j43k snjroy 2) it will depend on the level of humidity and dust in the room. Simon Humidity? It DOES seem like it would make a difference, but that's only intuitive. I assume you think a HIGHER humidity is worse, but I could be wrong. I think it is beneficial to keep one's layout in conditioned space, both for the layout and the builder. If that's done, the outdoor humidity shouldn't be affecting the layout. Where I live, the outdoor humidity is rarely a problem, anyway. We don't have AC or humidity control, although there's usually 3 days a summer where we think about it. A lot. On dust, I absolutely believe that less dust is better. An easy one there, eh? Ed
snjroy 2) it will depend on the level of humidity and dust in the room. Simon
2) it will depend on the level of humidity and dust in the room.
Humidity? It DOES seem like it would make a difference, but that's only intuitive. I assume you think a HIGHER humidity is worse, but I could be wrong.
I think it is beneficial to keep one's layout in conditioned space, both for the layout and the builder. If that's done, the outdoor humidity shouldn't be affecting the layout. Where I live, the outdoor humidity is rarely a problem, anyway. We don't have AC or humidity control, although there's usually 3 days a summer where we think about it. A lot.
On dust, I absolutely believe that less dust is better. An easy one there, eh?
Not intuition, experience. Our club installed a dehumidifier at some point and the track had a lot less oxidation issues. It was so damp before that our fascia would warp during the summer months! The track would have a greenish film after only two weeks of sitting iddle. The dehumidifier made a huge difference.
Cheers.
dehusman According to the chemists that MRH talked to, alcohol has about 10 times more "polarity" than mineral spirits so is more likely to cause micro-arcing, leading to more crud on the rails.
According to the chemists that MRH talked to, alcohol has about 10 times more "polarity" than mineral spirits so is more likely to cause micro-arcing, leading to more crud on the rails.
Alcohol will evaporate long before most or all of your train running. So it's kind of hard to envision how something that has evaporated is "more likely to cause micro-arcing". Polarity or not.
Could you post a link to these statements by MRH? I'd like to read every word.
Actually a lot of "dead rail" people do have or want to have current in the track, in order to drive charging circuits and signal or detection systems. There has been a suggestion to call "dead rail", "power on board" instead, since power on board is more inclusive.
Hmm. That's the same thing as DCC people using "keep alive", except more power is stored. They could certainly use much smaller batteries if they can continually recharge. Or maybe even a capacitor, like the DCC folks. It looks like then the big difference between DCC and dead rail is that the former uses a line carrier signal, while the latter uses direct radio.
People have been suggesting using Wahl Clipper oil for decades and that article explains why it works (same di-electric value as Mineral Spirits, but not as dangerous as gasoline or diesel).
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
MRH certainly has opinions.
By this reasoning, it would appear that people who run "dead rail" have clean track. Of course, they don't CARE if they have clean track, that being a major point of dead rail.
However. It would be interesting to conduct such an experiment.
Mineral spirits can leave a residue of slow-evaporating hydrocarbons, which can then coat all surfaces. This may be good or bad. I use alcohol, which fully evaporates very quickly.
In Model Railroad Hobbyist they published an article on track cleaning. The black crud is caused by arcing of the wheels as they go around the track. As the powered wheels roll on the track there may be tiny electrical arcs where the wheels make and break contact with the rail.
The tiny amounts of burned material from the arcing is picked up by plastic wheels moreso than metal wheels.
The suggestion is to clean your track with mineral spirits, highly non-polar and then give it a coat of graphite (VERY lightly rubbing a H or 2H stick of graphite over the rails.)
If you are getting enough crud on the wheels to derail a car you have really bad dust problems or horrible arcing problems on your layout. That's not normal.
Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine
1) for locos, the old Athearn blue box diesels would collect a lot of gunk because of the non-polished wheels they had. Keep in mind that loco performance is also affected by things like the number of wheels that pick up power.
Wow! I never expected this thread to generate so much interest in folks. The discussion about gunk, physics, and engineering is enjoyable!
More food for thought:
1. Are certain types of locos or manufacturers more susceptible to "gunk" or dirty cars?
2. How often is necessary to avoid running locos that you don't need to clean the track (e.g., daily, 2x/week)?
7j43kThey are probably afraid to say anything.
LastspikemikeWell, thanks for clarifying all that. The physicists among us will be relieved it's not all that complicated after all.
They are probably afraid to say anything.
Now how would you explain a set of MTH hoppers run as a group that I put on the rails straight from the factory. Started getting derailments at one point on a run around track. Picked up offending car and it had black gunk and only on one side of the car and only this car, cleaned it up and all is fine but why one car and one side out of 6 cars?
I have a completely unscientific theory that the crud begins as a nearly invisible film on the rails that gets picked up by the wheels of passing trains. Over time, it accumulates until it becomes a problem with tracking. That said, I just randomly checked a number of pieces of rolling stock and many of them have at least some crud on them. I then walked the entire layout and found no accumulations of black gunk.
Rich
Alton Junction
Living the dream.
I'd look into the potential resemblance of that finely-divided nickel deposit to Rieke nickel, and its ability to affect oil or other ambient organic contamination on the layout, as potential origins for the gunk and its binding. That might be overkill, of course, but it might account for 'black' plastic-like crap of otherwise 'mystical' origin.
Actual results from people who experience the 'black crap' are needed. Why this should apparently easily transfer to wheels and then be hard to remove requires some analytical thinking.
gmpullman One of the downsides to continually runing cars with that much gunk is that the offal gets re-deposited onto what is thought to be "clean" rail.
One of the downsides to continually runing cars with that much gunk is that the offal gets re-deposited onto what is thought to be "clean" rail.
Whether it begins on the wheels or gets picked up by the wheels, does it get deposited, or redeposited, on the rails? In other words, can black crud on wheels get transferred to the rails?
Which wheels are more susceptible to black crud? Locomotive wheels or rolling stock wheels?
Lastspikemike To an engineer the world looks different than it does to most of us.
To an engineer the world looks different than it does to most of us.
And to an astronaut, even more different.
Electrons aren't particles. Or are they?
electron: a stable subatomic particle......
Metals share their electrons throughout the alloy.
Are you sure? Note that only 7% of nickel's electrons are in the outer shell, and those are the ones involved with electricity. Maybe the remaining ones stay snug at home.
So, is the nickel in nickel silver still nickel electrically speaking?
Yes.
Is the mass of shared electrons just a cloud of electrons?
Does it matter?
Are they even really there?
If they're not, our trains don't go.
If so, where are they exactly (that's sufficiently a trick question as to be rhetorical).
Heisenberg can tell you that. Exactly. Ba-da-bum!
Salt conducts electricity if it's mixed with water, you'll recall that water is an insulator. Until it isn't at around 100volts.
Yes it does. But you, sadly, did not say that. What YOU said was, uh, wrong.
Ben Franklin confirmed that air conducts electricity. Or was that air just plasma by then?
I'll go with plasma for $80!
And so on. I can out pedant the most determined pedant you know. I have the stamina.
And so on.
I can out pedant the most determined pedant you know. I have the stamina.
You certainly have the stamina. But you don't really know much about what you're talking about. So I'm not sure you can really call yourself a pedant.
Point of this thread was supposed to be about cleaning crud off the rails and now we're just off the rails.
Not really. Some of us have been having a parallel conversation about the real subject. This was just a bit of fun.
gmpullman richhotrain It is easier to just wait for a piece of rolling stock to misbehave and then clean the offender. If you're dealing with a buildup of gunk on the wheel tread that actually causes derailments I have to believe your "rail/wheel hygene" needs to be stepped up a notch, Rich.
richhotrain It is easier to just wait for a piece of rolling stock to misbehave and then clean the offender.
If you're dealing with a buildup of gunk on the wheel tread that actually causes derailments I have to believe your "rail/wheel hygene" needs to be stepped up a notch, Rich.
But, I'll tell you what. I will meet you halfway, so to speak. I will remove the other 11 covered hoppers and inspect the wheels for crud.
richhotrainIt is easier to just wait for a piece of rolling stock to misbehave and then clean the offender.
I, too, probably have in the neighborhood of 200 freight and passenger cars on the layout, possibly that many more in staging or off-layout storage. Sometimes I'll pick up a random sampling of cars that have been recently active for an evaluation of wheel condition. Most times the wheels are clean and shiny.
Oddly enough I sometimes come across a few cars that are beginning to show the buildup of the gunk. All my cars have metal wheels. Probably 75% of them are Kadee. Many of the others are plated brass. Some wheels seem to like to collect gunk while others seem to never need cleaning.
I was suprised recently when I started gathering some of the fourteen cars of a PRR Congressional Limited consist that I have been running quite a bit lately.
These are brass cars and have one wheel insulated and they had been installed incorrectly from the factory. Instead of the leading pair picking up from rail A and the trailing pair from rail B the trucks were installed with all four insulated wheels on one side and the "hot" wheels on the other.
The reason I mention this is that after maybe ten hours of total running time I discovered that the right-front pair of wheels (when the car is flipped over, so actually the left side of the car) and the left-rear pair were accumulating the gunk while the opposite wheels were staying factory-plated finish clean.
All fourteen cars. Why? There are forces at play here that could confound mere mortals! What effect does the constant voltage on the rail have with the deposition of the gunk? Other forums have looked into the various cleaning fluids and resulting composition of the micro-arcing spent oxide detritus. The proponents there have suggested that cleaning fluids be "non-polar" in order to battle this "micro-arcing".
I switched from using 99% isopropyl to mineral spirits in my track cleaning fluid. Maybe it is too soon to evaluate but I really haven't noticed too much of a difference in the results. I generally don't have much of a problem with keeping rails sufficiently clean.
I believe one big contributor for me is the fact that I have painted the sides of the rail and I paint the faces of the car wheels and sometimes the backs. I'm sure there's a percentage of this paint residue that gets rubbed off and is picked up on the wheel treads eventually.
I just wonder how much of your black crud has been picked up by wheel treads only to be redeposited on the rail head repeatedly? Maybe you should spend a little more time to systematically cycle your rolling stock into a wheel cleaning routine.
I keep a length of flex track handy and lay a piece of heavy paper towel over it, lightly soaked with mineral spirits and give the car a few passes until the dirt trails have disappeared. I usually grab a random sampling of five or six cars at a time to get this treatment every few days.
Regards, Ed
Lastspikemike 7j43k Merged? Ed Yup.
7j43k Merged? Ed
Merged?
Yup.
merge: combine or cause to combine to form a single entity.
So you think that all the electrons merge to form a single entity, kind of a giant humongous electron big enough to have a name, like Mike. Yes, Mike the (giant) electron. (And you also think that table salt is conductive.)
I will disagree. I say the electrons do NOT merge into a single entity. I say they all stay their happy little individual negative selves. At least on the scale we're talking about (electricity, conductivity, and insulators)
Ever wonder why metals conduct electricity while other materials do not?
Not after it was explained in my chemistry class.
Think about the conductivity of air. All will become much clearer.
Think about the conductivity of air.
All will become much clearer.
OK. I'm thinkin'. I'm thinking that if air was conductive, we'd all have some pretty nasty shorts between our two rails.
Then you can consider the conductivity of semi conductors.
Did that too, in my electrical engineering and my materials science classes.
And super cooled materials.
Didn't spend much time on that in school. Perhaps you did. That was a more specialized course of study I didn't take.
And salt water.
Again: that chemistry class.
And my favourite: Plasma......
Your favorite, eh? I bet there's an interesting story behind THAT!
Common experience shows that nickel silver alloy conducts electricity despite being coated almost immediately with oxides.
I did just say that a post or two ago.
Technically, pure nickel oxide does conduct electricity just not so much at model railroading temperatures. Even those achieved in Athearn motors.
7j43k richhotrain With over 100 pieces of rolling stock on my layout, that would be quite a task to pick up each and every car to examine the wheels, and how often would I have to do that. It is easier to just wait for a piece of rolling stock to misbehave and then clean the offender. Rich Not actually an unreasonable approach, when you put it that way. Ya know, that can simulate pretty effectively a run-down poorly run railroad. Derailments would be a fact-of-life. An option for SOME people (say those who are more into operation than train watching) would be to try to recreate the derailment recovery. You might simply have to tote a rerailing frog over. Or you might have to bring in something more, uh, intimidating. Ed
richhotrain With over 100 pieces of rolling stock on my layout, that would be quite a task to pick up each and every car to examine the wheels, and how often would I have to do that. It is easier to just wait for a piece of rolling stock to misbehave and then clean the offender. Rich
With over 100 pieces of rolling stock on my layout, that would be quite a task to pick up each and every car to examine the wheels, and how often would I have to do that. It is easier to just wait for a piece of rolling stock to misbehave and then clean the offender.
Not actually an unreasonable approach, when you put it that way.
Ya know, that can simulate pretty effectively a run-down poorly run railroad. Derailments would be a fact-of-life. An option for SOME people (say those who are more into operation than train watching) would be to try to recreate the derailment recovery. You might simply have to tote a rerailing frog over. Or you might have to bring in something more, uh, intimidating.
7j43k richhotrain Do we really care if the black crud is conductive or not? My problem with the black crud is not conductivity. My problem with the black crud is derailments. Whether the black crud is conductive or not, I have never experienced a problem with power loss because the spots of black crud along the rails are too small to make a difference. However, when black crud builds up on wheels, particularly on rolling stock, I begin to experience derailments because the wheel surfaces can no longer hold the rails. Rich My suggestion is to clean your wheels before the buildup gets that thick.
richhotrain Do we really care if the black crud is conductive or not? My problem with the black crud is not conductivity. My problem with the black crud is derailments. Whether the black crud is conductive or not, I have never experienced a problem with power loss because the spots of black crud along the rails are too small to make a difference. However, when black crud builds up on wheels, particularly on rolling stock, I begin to experience derailments because the wheel surfaces can no longer hold the rails. Rich
Do we really care if the black crud is conductive or not?
My problem with the black crud is not conductivity. My problem with the black crud is derailments.
Whether the black crud is conductive or not, I have never experienced a problem with power loss because the spots of black crud along the rails are too small to make a difference. However, when black crud builds up on wheels, particularly on rolling stock, I begin to experience derailments because the wheel surfaces can no longer hold the rails.
My suggestion is to clean your wheels before the buildup gets that thick.