Trains.com

Subscriber & Member Login

Login, or register today to interact in our online community, comment on articles, receive our newsletter, manage your account online and more!

"A POSSIBLE TRACK CLEANING SOLUTION"

18001 views
42 replies
1 rating 2 rating 3 rating 4 rating 5 rating
  • Member since
    January 2017
  • From: Southern Florida Gulf Coast
  • 18,255 posts
Posted by SeeYou190 on Tuesday, April 6, 2021 10:40 PM

Lastspikemike
Literally, heptane has zero anti knock enhancement (duh) because it has no anti knock additives.

This is another one of the topics where you are talking like an expert when you obviously are not.

-Kevin

Living the dream.

  • Member since
    November 2013
  • 2,776 posts
Posted by snjroy on Wednesday, April 7, 2021 8:59 AM

Overmod

 

 
SeeYou190
I spray the CRC onto a paper towel and wipe the track with that.

 

Be sure you're wearing gloves impervious to the solvents (probably at least 4mil nitrile or chloroprene) and be very careful not to breathe the overspray and spent propellant that the paper towel doesn't catch.  And wrap the "applicator" up in something like a plastic grocery bag afterwards to minimize 'human contact exposure' Smile...

 

 

That is precisely why I avoid these toxic products. My solution: keeping tracks accessible (a design issue), using rubbing alcohol and a rag to clean the track, and running trains daily to remove corrosion.  The last technique is my favorite Smile.

Simon

  • Member since
    September 2003
  • 21,669 posts
Posted by Overmod on Wednesday, April 7, 2021 2:42 PM

Once again, goddamned Kalmbach is erasing post after post as they screw with something, and I have no more family-friendly tolerance today for their demonstrated incompetence.

The one thing correct in this farrago is that it was not right to 'correct' Mike for posting that a product containing a considerable proportion of straight-chain heptane would not behave like 'gasoline' as a solvent.  Most gasoline does, in fact, contain a significant percentage of n-heptane, and many of the associated characteristics (and health risks) will be common between heptane and 'gasoline'.

Most of the rest is just wrong in a variety of ways.

Heptane is arbitrarily ASSIGNED a 'knock index' of zero, as a pure reference, representing propensity to knock if it were the only fuel fed to an engine.  Likewise the iso-octane with IUPAC name 2,2,4 trimethylpentane is assigned an index of 100, representing its behavior if it were the only fuel in an engine.

This does not mean that 'gasoline' bought as a fuel is a proportional mixture of those specific hydrocarbons.

Straight-chain octane is NOT the material used as the upper-end reference in these tests.

As with the Centigrade temperature scale, there are plenty of prospective 'fuels to be burned in a combustion engine' with detonation propensity far greater than heptane, or far greater than 2,2,4 trimethylpentane.

Additives are often provided in motor fuel that affect its "octane number" however that number is calculated or determined.  These may include promoters or 'antiknock additives' such as tetraethyl lead.  These of course have nothing to do with either heptane or any eight-carbon hydrocarbon.

  • Member since
    January 2017
  • From: Southern Florida Gulf Coast
  • 18,255 posts
Posted by SeeYou190 on Wednesday, April 7, 2021 2:46 PM

This thread was about track cleaning for our model trains.

Spraying contact cleaner, in small amounts, onto a paper towel and wiping the rails is a usual and effective way to do this.

TrainsRMe and CNR378 shared stories how this was successful.

All this chatter about heptane, gasoline, and anti-knock additives, has not been helpful.

-Kevin

Living the dream.

  • Member since
    September 2003
  • 21,669 posts
Posted by Overmod on Wednesday, April 7, 2021 3:00 PM

SeeYou190
All this chatter about heptane, gasoline, and anti-knock additives, has not been helpful.

Says half of the mistaken 'experts' that got the dumb discussion going in the first place... Whistling

One thing helpful that came out of it is that you don't want to use a product containing substantial heptane as a cleaning solvent for model railroading!  As I recall that was being implicitly recommended -- in fact, I think actively advanced as a good choice -- at one point in the discussion... Angel

  • Member since
    February 2005
  • From: Vancouver Island, BC
  • 23,330 posts
Posted by selector on Wednesday, April 7, 2021 4:42 PM

Doc Wayne swears/used to swear by lacquer thinner, and that is what CMX recommends.  I have just acquired that car and used a PCM Y6-b to shove a Walthers track cleaning car ahead of the two around my entire system.  From looking at both pads (went through three with the CMX), they're doing 'something', and my train performance has never been better.  

What remains to be seen is how durable the effect will be.  My train room is a mess now as I am finishing the yard and pouring dirt and spraying adhesives into it. It's generally not a dusty room, but....we'll see over the summer how things go.

Subscriber & Member Login

Login, or register today to interact in our online community, comment on articles, receive our newsletter, manage your account online and more!

Users Online

There are no community member online

Search the Community

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Model Railroader Newsletter See all
Sign up for our FREE e-newsletter and get model railroad news in your inbox!