Cleaning track and n-scale locomotives

[Cooperbrad]

Hello,

 Looks to me like I have some dirty track and locomotives. Looking for advice:

1) I bought a "brite" pad (Walthers) for the track and it seems to work. How often do you need to clean your track. My layout is inside my apartment in a spare room.

2) The wheels on my locomotives have dirt on them. Best way to clean them is q-tip and rubbing alchohol?

How often do you find you need to clean?

 Thanks

 Cooperbrad

 

[stebbycentral]

MicroTrains Inc. makes a locomotive wheel-cleaning brush that is available in different sizes for different scales.  It's a brass bristle brush in a plastic case with electrical leads that attach to a train powerpack.  You hold the brush against the wheelset with the train power on, and the train's own motor spins the wheels to provide the cleaning action.  The thing is that you have to be very careful how you position the wheels. The brush is divided into postive and negative poles, if you get a wheel of the opposite polarity across the dividing partition you get arcing and possible damage to the wheel.  I bought one about a year ago and it works pretty well for me.  I wouldn't use it on anything that has traction tires though.