I have a ton of brass atlas track that has been in storage for 15 years. I soaked it in track cleaner, scrubbed it with a tooth brush & used a Bright Boy on it. I'm still getting poor conductivity. Any tips?
Te Joe
Te Joe - Welcome to Trains.com!
Darren (BLHS & CRRM Lifetime Member)
Delaware and Hudson Virtual Museum (DHVM), Railroad Adventures (RRAdventures)
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If you have a Radio Shack or some other electronic component store near you, see if you can get a can of contact cleaner, spray some on a cloth, and wipe it on the rails.
Also check if your locomotives' wheels need cleaning.
Dan
I'll add my Welcome to you Joe. I have Atlas brass track on fiber tie strips that I bought at least 55 years ago. It is working very well. Your problem may be in the rail joints. I see that you have cleaned the track well but have you cleaned the sides and bottoms where the rail joiners go? That could help.
I hope that you get the jproblem worked out.
My best regardes
Brass as a bulk metal has the same conductivity regardless of age. You are concerned with only surface tarnish/corrosion and then only with the top surface of the rail where wheel contact is made. If it is shiney on top of the rail, it is fully conductive as a piece of track.
As mentioned above, the big hassle will be at the rail joinersthe area around the joners needs to be pristine and bright and then you will have to solder the joiner at the joint if you really want ideal electrical link up, rail section to rail section.
Only an abrasion of the top of the rail to full brassy brilliance will restore the track to train wheel connection. If it isn't golden along the enitre piece of track, on top, you will have problems.
Abrasive green "Scotch Brite" will do the trick.
Richard
If I can't fix it, I can fix it so it can't be fixed
Also on the brass track make sure where you wire your power source to the track is also clean and shiney and if you use a snap on power leadsmake sure they are clean too, of course if you solder it must be clean and shiney.
I've never used any abrasives on rails regardless of metal types, it will leave microscopoic scratch's that dirt and metal particles love to fill in, I only use Flitz metal polish and haven't had to clean it in 5 years, I have a layout that's small at 17' long and it's U shaped with 10' x 7' wings but with a subway with double track under, of course I can't get one mountain tunnel. I do use alcohol at times with once a month wipe up.
A lot of modelers use bright boy and other abrasive type autobody fine grit cloth on their rails but I don't.
Anyplace where you rely on rail joiners to carry the current, use new joiners. Clean the track sides and bottom until it is shiny brass.
Depending on how big your layout is, you may need multiple electric drops.
If you're using the old terminal tracks, make sure the screws connectors are cleaned. Test for resistance between the screw terminals and the track.
Good luck
Paul
Hello and welcome!
I agree with the others here -- what you've already done is basically overkill as far as conductivity of the individual pieces goes. You could bury them for 100 years, and polish off the surface corrosion, and they'll conduct electricity just fine. I have some pieces of brass track on my layout that are much older than your 15 years, and they work just fine. Your real issue, I suspect, is getting the electricity from your transformer to your locomotives. Assuming that the contact surfaces of your rails are all bright and shiny brass color, look at a few other things.
As someone else suggested, the rail joiners are a likely culprit. If they're brass and have been in storage too, they're just as gunked up as the track. Relying solely on them to conduct electricity from segment to segment is probably not helping. Contact cleaner may help, but soldering the segments together is a better option. New joiners might work, too, but you've still got to get the track clean where the joiners sit.
If you're using a terminal track piece, chuck it. If you don't want to get fiddly with under the table buses and feeders (which is your best option, really), buy a set of terminal joiners. But still, if any part of your layout is more than 10 track feet from your power input, electrical resistance is what's killing you.
Finally, has your motive power been in storage for that long? If so, they will also need a good cleaning and lubricating to perform properly. Don't neglect that.
Good luck!
Connecticut Valley Railroad A Branch of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford
"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." -- Henry Ford
Hi Paul, I don't remember if I ansered U or not. but I just noticed U R modeling the Duluth & Superior railroad. I was stationed at Finlnd AFS, MN back in the late 70's & belonged to a model RR club in Silver Bay. Most of the guys worked for Reserve Mining Co. & we modeled the Duluth, Mesabe & Iron Range railroad. Boy, did we ever have long ore drags!! I'd like to see pics of UR layout if possible.
TTYL,
TeJoe
My question is what do you plan to do with the track?
If you get it working to your satisfaction, then I can using it as part of the considerable other investment in time and money it takes to build a layout.
If you still experience erratic operations on it laid on the table top or floor, then you'll want to consider whether it might be wiser to try nickle-silver track.
Believe it or not, I'm trying not to start the brass vs N-S argument again, that's so
However, I would have left the hobby if I hadn't learned of the redeeming qualities of N-S. It's true that many have success with brass track and you've got some good guidance above on restoring and maintaining it. If you find it frustrates you, change the track before you drop the hobby, is all I'm saying.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Personally, I would just get rid of it and go to Nickel Silver track. It has less corrosion value and isn't quite the pain that brass is.
I know you may have an investment in it, but if you try all the above suggestions and find it still failing, then I would seriously consider transfer to the new track.
i, too, am not trying to start a brass-NS war, but sometimes older stuff can be salvaged, and sometimes, like a building, better to tear down and build anew than to try to renovate!
-G .
Just my thoughts, ideas, opinions and experiences. Others may vary.
HO and N Scale.
After long and careful thought, they have convinced me. I have come to the conclusion that they are right. The aliens did it.
I agree with most posters to keep the brass, there are still a pile of us out there, and the cheapest I saw N/S track was 5 peices, 36'' for $30.00, so that can be a considerable expense when you have a lot of track to replace, I wish more people who are abandoning brass track would make it available to all us brass track users instead of shipping it off to the dump.
Joe, new rail joiners will more than likely do the trick. While I don't like the color of brass track, it works fine. I have some on my layout for over 2 years now and gets no dirtier than my N S track. But, I do run the trains everyday.
Ken
I hate Rust
If that old brass track was used heavily in the past, perhaps it had been overly abraided when cleaned and thus there are too many small scratches that are catching dirt. Alternatively, while brass resists sparking, if metal wheels sparked excessively when the track was previously used, there might be numerous small pits in the railhead that, again, are catching dirt. Study the rail top carefully under magnification. I find that rubbing the rail head with something like balsa wood (smooth, and no resins in it) can really polish the railhead nicely without adding new scratches.
It is not just a matter of better and tighter rail joiners, or soldering the track connections, although those are important, but also adding enough feeder wires in remote locations. Whether you go the Andy Sperandeo/Tony Koester route of adding a feeder to EACH piece of flex track -- which assuming you solder skillfully and use the right gauge of copper wire should make things just about bullet proof -- or or not is up to you, but more feeders can overcome a multitude of problems with any kind of track, not just brass rail, and not just old brass either.
This is slightly OT -- but even when thoroughly cleaned and polished, very old brass rail -- by which I mean stuff from the 1950s and before -- just looks different than brass track from the 1960s on forward. I know brass is an alloy mix of copper and zinc, with some lead thrown in -- and I wonder if the proportions were changed with the more recent brass track, perhaps to make it cheaper. While very old brass track does not look any more like steeel than the newer stuff, and while it oxidizes readily and needs to be cleaned, it seems to me that layouts from an older era with brass rail did not seem to have as many problems.
Dave Nelson
With the high price of copper today and the fact brass is about 50% to 70% copper depending the grade used for track, what would the price of new (2012) brass track be today? Maybe this would solve the brass verus N/S question?
Hi, Dave. Thanks to U & everyone who gave me advice . I finally figured out what I was doing wrong. I'm wiring a yard layout & was trying to run one Common wire to the lead track & was losing my ground on some of the tracks. So, I'm going to put a common on each track. This should solve the problem!!
Thanks again,
Ned,
Hate to be a stickler on facts, but nickel silver track is still way more expensive than brass, metals wise.
The amount of $3.80/lb copper in both brass and NS track is virtually the same amount. - 60%
1.00/lb zinc makes up the rest of brass in brass track.
However, NS track has 20% nickel in it at ~$10.00/lb. and 20% zinc. The solving issue with brass versus NS is the fact that anyone making brass HO track today would be out of business tomorrow. Nobody wants it. Cheaper or more expensive, we are living in a N.S. world on small scale track.
You see a lot of brass G gauge track as in its more massive size, brass is cheaper metals wise than NS.
In short, people either buy what they like and is available or follow the crowd to buy what is in vogue. NS is in vogue and what most all dealers and stores carry in HO and smaller gauges. I'm not an N gauger, but has anyone ever seen brass N gauge track? If so, its gotta' be collectable.
narrow gauge nuclear I'm not an N gauger, but has anyone ever seen brass N gauge track? If so, its gotta' be collectable. Richard
I'm not an N gauger, but has anyone ever seen brass N gauge track? If so, its gotta' be collectable.
AFAIK, nickle silver was always used for N scale track.
nedthomas With the high price of copper today and the fact brass is about 50% to 70% copper depending the grade used for track, what would the price of new (2012) brass track be today? Maybe this would solve the brass verus N/S question?
How? Nickel Silver is just a different formula copper alloy.
My sly and cunning trick is three-fold:
It seems to me that brass rail stays adequately clean where the wheels roll on a regular basis. Much of its bad reputation arose from its use on clubs in humid, dusty environments which only scheduled an operating night every month or so.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)