Track fiddlerBATMAN The amount of time you guys spend talking about this makes me think you all work for the Government. But I thought you did back in the day.
Yes I did, so who would know better. My eyes would glaze over at those meetings.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
Sometimes my eyes were glazed over the night before because I knew it was the next morning
TF
Track fiddlerBecause of the poor continuity between the wheels of our locomotives and the rails, what happens is nano arcs are created every millisecond the continuity is broke. Basically the exact same thing as arc welding only on a microscopic scale. These nano arcs create microscopic pits in both the rails and the wheels of our locomotives. The more it happens the more the byproduct of this builds on our tracks until you clean it again.
[Note: the Optical-Apparatus Induced Translucency Induction Alliance WG13 guidelines suggest a MEGO warning be appended to the following reading material]
To add a little here: air breaks down to plasma at electric field strengths that are very high per centimeter... but there are very few centimeters in track irregularities that momentarily interrupt conduction, vs. the inductance represented by, say, motor windings that increase current as such interruptions and re-establishments occur.
A plasma is one of the best conductors known, with virtually zero resistance. Unfortunately its temperature happens to be very high, so it erodes metal surfaces it comes in contact with...
This is where the longitudinal scratching from Bright Boys and the like comes in. In addition to the nominal 'line' contact between a roughly-cylindrical wheeltread and longitudinal railhead, the transverse contact area then becomes more restricted to the 'points of the (normally longitudinal) scratch ridges', which also poke up out of any oil or other 'insulating' material (don't bring up that 'conductive lube' again, as we know none of the popular ones in model railroading literally are) but are not consistent. If there is any 'chatter' in the scratch-ridge formation, or the heights are irregular, you're setting up for en masse make-and-break over time.
Oh, yes: when you heat metals to plasma temperature in air, they can oxidize. Copper oxide is black. Nickel oxide is very dark green to black.
Incidentally, platinum is over 7 times worse a conductor than silver; its advantages as rail or OTM lie in different directions. I pointed out years ago that true finescale rail could be rolled in silver or silver alloy at not-unreasonable (by modern RTR equipment as comparison) prices, right down to correct railhead profile and correct web markings -- I'm surprised nobody British has marketed it by now (silver bullhead rail in white metal or epoxy chairs, anyone?)
The 'experimental' procedure still begins with an examination (using a metallurgical microscope or functional equivalent) of various types of as-drawn nickel-silver railhead. I expect to find the contact area woefully crummy compared to reference NMRA tread, not just in contact patch but in the presence of hard corners that act as longitudinal line contact to start wearing wheels improperly. This becomes a first target for gleaming operations: correction of the railhead profile at the contact patch to at least an approximation of proper shape... again, as assessed, observed, and 'microphotographed' through the 'scope.
We then look at the surface quality of used rail. This will show in detail what sorts of oxide vs. crud there are, the extent to which electrical micropitting is observed, and if it preferentially occurs on some parts of the railhead.
Then we conduct various kinds of pre-gleaming sanding/grinding/lapping with the usual range of grits. This will show the progressive refinement of scratches in the railhead, and the degree to which the process needs to be carried to get TOR damage 'ground out'...
BUT remember that the 'next step', the burnishing or washer trick, is going to remove or flatten some of the surface irregularity, and might be introducing irregularities of its own. The experimental process will document exactly how far lapping with finer and finer grits has to go before diminishing returns net of subsequent burnishing set in. Burnishing also work-hardens the railhead in ways that 'subtractive machining' with laps doesn't provide, so just polishing down to 30K equivalent may not be the same thing...
The initial research and photography might involve less than a week of work for anyone with the right microscope and supplies and the right high-resolution camera setup. Much of the effect of aging can be studied, and presented, in the form of periodic updates rather than an ongoing thread.
Overmod The initial research and photography might involve less than a week of work for anyone with the right microscope and supplies and the right high-resolution camera setup.
The initial research and photography might involve less than a week of work for anyone with the right microscope and supplies and the right high-resolution camera setup.
Rich
Alton Junction
richhotrainf it takes the right microscope, not just any microscope, and the right high resolution camera setup to spot the rail imperfections, I will take my chances with an occasional rub with a Bright Boy.
You could do it with a cell-phone camera with a macro lens attachment fixed in some appropriate frame, with proper bright lighting from an increasing range of LED task lighting.
The track features may be small, but they have potent effects on operations quality (and, if you're someone like me that cares about finescale appearance of the track as much as rivet count and true weathered appearance in rolling stock, on appearance).
If someone is going to establish an objective and reproduceable (i.e. scientific and technical) basis for track gleaming, I think it makes sense to do the work with tools that simplify the actual setup. A metallurgical microscope is set up to analyze the surface of metal objects at high magnification. A camera that does not accurately record the high-magnification details clearly, or with limited pixel resolution, is better than nothing, but it is nearly as easy nowadays to 'shoot' with high resolution, then convert the images to lower resolution as desired; the entire documentation even in RAW form would probably fit on a $15 32GB memory stick. I was looking at a 45MP 4x3 rig on eBay for under $800 (for indie movie production) that ought to easily handle the research needs in its sleep.
Note that a glass slip and a few pieces of self-adhesive lapping film would definitively cure any issues from using a Bright Boy in just a few seconds or minutes... the issue being how many pieces of film, and how many seconds.
Here's a real experiment:
Put together an oval of brand new out of the box track. On one straight section, Bright Boy the bejabers out of it. On the other side, either leave as is or do your favorite Gleam process. Run a train around that loop until it stops due to bad contact. Record where it stopped. Keep doing that. If it stops more often on one side than the other, you have hard data about which is the superior method, if any. Actually doing the work of conducting this experiment will generate more ideas for experiments. I expect it would be very useful.
I am not going to be the one to do it. I've already paid my dues by doing the work that created the photo-chart I presented earlier, which has been uncommented on so far. I have also done an experiment proving that, not only is Wahl's Clipper Oil non-conductive, but it's level of non-conductivity is roughly the same as several other oils. It is somewhat WORSE than 10W-30 motor oil, for example.
It's time for one of you folks to step up.
For my own trackage, I am happy with the processes I use.
Ed
Without doing any scientific experiments, it seems to me that any dirt particles that would be trapped in these microscopic scratches would also have to be microscopic and I have a hard time believing that this is going to cause conductivity problems.
I'm open minded enough that I could be swayed with some compelling evidence, but until such time I have a lot more important issues to deal with than whether my track is scratched up.
John-NYBWI'm open minded enough that I could be swayed with some compelling evidence, but until such time I have a lot more important issues to deal with than whether my track is scratched up.
I clean my car. I clean my house. I clean my trainroom. Cleaning stuff that I own just comes with the territory.
Stuff that's in the open and gets used more needs cleaning more often than stuff that doesn't get used and is stored, like track compared to a boxed up tank car in a cabinet.
Sometimes its really not worth the effort to try to avoid one of life's little realities.
- Douglas
Doughless John-NYBW I'm open minded enough that I could be swayed with some compelling evidence, but until such time I have a lot more important issues to deal with than whether my track is scratched up. I clean my car. I clean my house. I clean my trainroom. Cleaning stuff that I own just comes with the territory. Stuff that's in the open and gets used more needs cleaning more often than stuff that doesn't get used and is stored, like track compared to a boxed up tank car in a cabinet. Sometimes its really not worth the effort to try to avoid one of life's little realities.
John-NYBW I'm open minded enough that I could be swayed with some compelling evidence, but until such time I have a lot more important issues to deal with than whether my track is scratched up.
Clean track is a seperate issue from scratched rails. Of course track needs to be cleaned periodically, especially if it goes with being used for a period of time. That is true whether one has scratched the railheads with an abrasive cleaner or not. I remain unconvinced that microscopic scratches on railheads has a negative effect on conductivity.
John-NYBW Doughless John-NYBW I'm open minded enough that I could be swayed with some compelling evidence, but until such time I have a lot more important issues to deal with than whether my track is scratched up. I clean my car. I clean my house. I clean my trainroom. Cleaning stuff that I own just comes with the territory. Stuff that's in the open and gets used more needs cleaning more often than stuff that doesn't get used and is stored, like track compared to a boxed up tank car in a cabinet. Sometimes its really not worth the effort to try to avoid one of life's little realities. Clean track is a seperate issue from scratched rails. Of course track needs to be cleaned periodically, especially if it goes with being used for a period of time. That is true whether one has scratched the railheads with an abrasive cleaner or not. I remain unconvinced that microscopic scratches on railheads has a negative effect on conductivity.
Well, it all comes back around to the effort put into cleaning track, and thereby the time and effort needed to avoid it if one desires.
I've sort of taken the approach that if the amount of time and effort needed to prevent a problem exceeds the consequences and remedies of the problem, I'd just let the problem happen and then remedy the consequences.
To prevent track from getting dirty, I wipe it down with alcohol. To clean track after its dirty, I wipe it down with alcohol.
I used to wipe it down regularly to prevent the track from getting dirty. Then I realized that I was spending about 5 times the time doing the same thing as if I just wiped down the track after it got dirty. LOL.
DoughlessThen I realized that I was spending about 5 times the time doing the same thing as if I just wiped down the track after it got dirty. LOL.
You make a great point.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
SeeYou190 Doughless Then I realized that I was spending about 5 times the time doing the same thing as if I just wiped down the track after it got dirty. LOL. You make a great point. -Kevin
Doughless
Then I realized that I was spending about 5 times the time doing the same thing as if I just wiped down the track after it got dirty. LOL.
John-NYBW I remain unconvinced that microscopic scratches on railheads has a negative effect on conductivity.
I remain unconvinced that microscopic scratches on railheads has a negative effect on conductivity.
Scratches in the railhead MIGHT "attract" dirt. Nobody here has provided proof one way or the other.
"Not-scratches" in the railhead CAN'T "attract" dirt, because there aren't any.
There is a potential downside with scratched rail that does not happen with unscratched. It would make sense to avoid scratched railhead until it has been proven not to matter.
Which it has not.
Sulfur in the air produces sulfides, not oxides.
As the OP of this thread, I will take it back to Square One for a moment.
My original point was that the lesser used sidings may give oxidation a better chance to work than on the more heavily used mainlines. This thread quickly morphed into a discussion of micro-abrasions caused by Bright Boy. That was my bad for mentioning the Bright Boy in the first place when I could have simply said that after cleaning the rails on the sidings, the stalls disappeared.
But, here is something to consider. This is a new layout which I only recently completed. I had initially cleaned all of the sidings with my CMX car after ballasting and never once used the Bright Boy on the sidings until just recently while testing loco performance on the sidings for really the first time since installing and cleaning the track. The track was brand new Atlas flex track at the time of installation. So, the Bright Boy was never even a factor on these sidings. So much for micro abrasions, at least in this instance.
richhotrain John-NYBW I remain unconvinced that microscopic scratches on railheads has a negative effect on conductivity. So do I. The argument seems to be that the microscopic scratches attract dirt and then the build of dirt has a negative effect on conductivity. Whatever. Rich
So do I. The argument seems to be that the microscopic scratches attract dirt and then the build of dirt has a negative effect on conductivity. Whatever.
Your railheads are going to collect dirt and grime whether they are scratched or not. The question then becomes whether that will result in poorer conductivity on railheads which are scratched as opposed to those which are smooth. I see no reason to believe that is true. I'll keep using my track erasers because to me it is the most thorough and fastest way to remove whatever has built up on the rails.
LastspikemikeYou really can't tell if the track needs cleaning just by looking at it.
Agreed.
With sincerity, its probably a good idea to clean the track on a regular basis whether or not the trains have stalled.
But trying to prevent the black schmutz on the cloth is an overreaction, IMO. And trying to predict the amount of extra schmutz you might get by different cleaning methods, pretty futile.
richhotrain So, the Bright Boy was never even a factor on these sidings. So much for micro abrasions, at least in thi instance.
So, the Bright Boy was never even a factor on these sidings. So much for micro abrasions, at least in thi instance.
Yes, those of us who don't use a Bright Boy have found we still have to clean the track. Did anyone suggest otherwise?
You initially cleaned your sidings with your CMX car. Immediately thereafter, dust starts to accumulate. Perhaps other stuff, too. Your choice of words implies that you didn't do your test running right afterwards, but waited some amount of time.
You said you had an unfinished basement. This would imply an open ceiling (without sheetrock). This type of construction will result in much more dust on the layout than if there is a smooth ceiling.
For some reason, you chose not to use your CMX car, which quite possibly would have cleaned the track well enough so your trains would run.
Clearly, using the Bright Boy solved you contact issues. That does NOT mean the CMX car wouldn't. But now you have scratches on your railhead, which may or may not be bad.
My view is that IF you can clean your track without adding scratches to the railtop, there is no downside. There MIGHT be if there are scratches--I prefer not to find out.
7j43k My view is that IF you can clean your track without adding scratches to the railtop, there is no downside. There MIGHT be if there are scratches--I prefer not to find out. Ed
richhotrain 7j43k My view is that IF you can clean your track without adding scratches to the railtop, there is no downside. There MIGHT be if there are scratches--I prefer not to find out. Ed Ed Ed, thank you for your rant.
Ed Ed, thank you for your rant.
Yeah, when I see repeated examples of ignorance and illogic, it does kind of get me started.
Probably would have been better to have just played with trains instead. On my clean track. That never sees Bright Boys. 'Cause it doesn't need them.
DoughlessThat's a great, straightforward answer! Edit: However, do you think the rails we have on our layouts are pure NS alloy, or do they still have a decent amount of brass mixed in?
Edit: However, do you think the rails we have on our layouts are pure NS alloy, or do they still have a decent amount of brass mixed in?
No brass that I know of.
[edit] I just read the rest of this thread. Quite a bit of misinformation here, and even more misleading information.
Nickel silver can be considered a brass alloy with nickel added?? Yeah, sure, whatever. Making such a statement is akin to saying 17-7PH Steel is just pig iron with a few impurities added.
Alloys don't oxidize? Sorry, not at all true. ALL alloys oxidize. Go take a look at the appropriate section of a Mark's Handbook for Mechanical Engineering. Or better yet, look it up in a Materials Handbook.
Even the most corrosion-resistant stainless steels will oxidize over time, albeit very slowly in some compositions in "normal" conditions.
Mark P.
Website: http://www.thecbandqinwyoming.comVideos: https://www.youtube.com/user/mabrunton
I have a CMX machine which I love for cleaning my track. However, it's a PITA for doing stub-end sidings with all the back and forth motion of the locomotives driving it.
My solution is to just use the CMX car by itself and propel it with the old 0-5-0 on sidings. It's much faster and does the same good job.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
PruittNickel silver can be considered a brass alloy with nickel added?? Yeah, sure, whatever. Making such a statement is akin to saying 17-7PH Steel is just pig iron with a few impurities added. Alloys don't oxidize? Sorry, not at all true. ALL alloys oxidize. Go take a look at the appropriate section of a Mark's Handbook for Mechanical Engineering. Or better yet, look it up in a Materials Handbook.
Great points.
Unfortunately we have a participant in here that insists on answering when he should be asking, and has no problem posting innacurate information.
He believes it adds value to the conversation to post incorrect on purpose, and has stated so many times.
We all must tolerate this.
I sure wish that anyone replying to this thread would go back and read my initial post. I said that my best guess is that the lesser used sidings gives 'oxidation' a better chance to work than on the mainlines. Maybe it is oxidation, maybe it isn't. Maybe it is something else. I did originally follow up the word oxidation with a question mark.
But, I can tell you this. Whatever it is, it is the not the result of using a Bright Boy. In hindsight, I made the mistake of even mentioning the words Bright Boy. Those sidings never saw a Bright Boy until I used it on Thursday to solve my stalling issues on the sidings. Until then, the track in question had only been cleaned once with my CMX car, no Bright Boy.
No one has yet responded to my suggestion that the little used sidings were the problem, not the more heavily used mainlines. So be it, but it makes sense to me.
I thought my original answer indicated I thought it was organic buildup of some sort, and that different solvent/cleaning techniques might have worked. The whole Bright Boy discussion, including digressions into gleaming technique, is unrelated except insofar as mechanical removal of "any" unconductive or crappily-conductive material on the railhead 'works' to remove the deposits... which of course it did in this particular case.
My issue with it is a little different. If I used a 360-grit disc in a polisher to remove road grime and bird turds from my car, I'd assuredly see the color better. But I might also ask if there are 'side effects' other than getting that dirt off pronto... What I was trying to say in some of the prior posts is that something less aggressive than the Bright Boy might do the same at removing the crud, but not scratch up what may already (from no fault of your own) be a non-optimal contact patch.
I think the discussion of oxide/sulfide/whatever deposits is a red herring in this specific context. You might have spot conditions in your home or train room, like some other posters in the past, that cause accelerated reactions with the metal in all the railheads -- but I hear the hoofbeats of zebras.
A concern here is how effectively non-abrasive cleaning actually removes deposits as opposed to smearing them more thinly. Anyone who has tried to clean a mirror knows how stubbornly the surface holds even small traces of grease that no amount of 'glass cleaner' seems to get. That's because solvents only suspend grease; ammonia only modifies the grease molecules... the only thing that actually gets it off is for the cloth or whatever to absorb it away from its attraction to the glass surface. I suspect the same thing goes on wholesale in solvent-and-pad track cleaning, and is a factor in how John Allen's Masonite-backside pads are so effective.
Of course, the immediate thing to note at this point is that the dissolved crap is extremely good at clinging to fine abrasives as well as to mirrors or railheads... having the effect of clogging them comparatively quickly. So replacing the Bright Boy with 12K or finer lapping film is, I suspect, more a kind of technometallurgical virtue signaling than an effective technique you could apply to a cleaning car or to quick periodic maintenance passes on relatively long lengths of track. You would need to clean the crud completely off before the finer points of gleaming are done in any case.
This is actually covered in most discussions of this part of gleaming -- note that we are back in a digression at this point, but there's a reason -- but it is concealed in discussion of a different subject. When polishing with sequentially finer grits, it's usually important to remove all traces of a coarser grit, including any particles of it that might have embedded themselves in the surface, before commencing with the next finer one. This implicitly involves cleaning methods that would remove organic crud on the surface.
To get to the TL;DR here -- I'd at least look at an effective combination of 'track fluid' composition and mobilized-sludge removal that dissolves and removes the glazing on those sidings. In principle that would be like a no-rinse cleaner followed up by a clean microfiber wipe-up in home cleaning -- a solvent or cosolvent mixture, a small amount of surfactant/detergent, perhaps some very gentle abrasive, followed by wiping and a final pass with the Masonite.
This would facilitate mechanical cleaning with the less-abrasive alternative to the Bright Boy or the quad-ought steel wool or whatever if it turns out that just eliminating the wrong kind of surface contamination isn't sufficient.
richhotrain I sure wish that anyone replying to this thread would go back and read my initial post. I said that my best guess is that the lesser used sidings gives 'oxidation' a better chance to work than on the mainlines. Maybe it is oxidation, maybe it isn't. Maybe it is something else. I did originally follow up the word oxidation with a question mark. But, I can tell you this. Whatever it is, it is the not the result of using a Bright Boy. In hindsight, I made the mistake of even mentioning the words Bright Boy. Those sidings never saw a Bright Boy until I used it on Thursday to solve my stalling issues on the sidings. Until then, the track in question had only been cleaned once with my CMX car, no Bright Boy. No one has yet responded to my suggestion that the little used sidings were the problem, not the more heavily used mainlines. So be it, but it makes sense to me. Rich
I think that Mike's raising the question of sulphur content in the air is an interesting one. The oxygen interaction O causes whatever oxidation there is. But I wonder if a higher content of Sulphur, S, (which is defined as a nonmetallic chemical element belonging to the oxygen group) impacts the oxidation process enough to matter.
As we know, Sulphur is a "dirty" element, in that low sulphur coal is better than high sulphur coal.
Might have nothing to do with it though.
Sulfur is a red herring; the problem is with real silver, not nickel "silver", and it has long since ceased to be a major issue in many respects.
In the bad old days when high-sulfur coal and fuel oil were dominant fuels, the days of acid rain, the sulfur dioxide in room air could be high enough that table silver would blacken in a matter of weeks, and everyone had a can of Wright's and a bottle of Tarn-X so that any time you actually wanted to eat without that awful taste you could polish up your place settings and stuff.
Then coal went out as a fuel, you could actually see farther south than 72nd St. from the George Washington Bridge, and the tarnish rate slowed down.
More recently, the big push to ULSD reduced atmospheric sulfur content still further.
If there is any question that sulfiding is some kind of issue, just get a bottle of Tarn-X and wipe some along the railheads per label directions.
OvermodSulfur is a red herring; the problem is with real silver, not nickel "silver", and it has long since ceased to be a major issue in many respects.
It never shouild have been mentioned.
Overmod Sulfur is a red herring; the problem is with real silver, not nickel "silver", and it has long since ceased to be a major issue in many respects. In the bad old days when high-sulfur coal and fuel oil were dominant fuels, the days of acid rain, the sulfur dioxide in room air could be high enough that table silver would blacken in a matter of weeks, and everyone had a can of Wright's and a bottle of Tarn-X so that any time you actually wanted to eat without that awful taste you could polish up your place settings and stuff. Then coal went out as a fuel, you could actually see farther south than 72nd St. from the George Washington Bridge, and the tarnish rate slowed down. More recently, the big push to ULSD reduced atmospheric sulfur content still further. If there is any question that sulfiding is some kind of issue, just get a bottle of Tarn-X and wipe some along the railheads per label directions.
Overmod Track fiddler Because of the poor continuity between the wheels of our locomotives and the rails, what happens is nano arcs are created every millisecond the continuity is broke. Basically the exact same thing as arc welding only on a microscopic scale. These nano arcs create microscopic pits in both the rails and the wheels of our locomotives. The more it happens the more the byproduct of this builds on our tracks until you clean it again. [Note: the Optical-Apparatus Induced Translucency Induction Alliance WG13 guidelines suggest a MEGO warning be appended to the following reading material] To add a little here: air breaks down to plasma at electric field strengths that are very high per centimeter... but there are very few centimeters in track irregularities that momentarily interrupt conduction, vs. the inductance represented by, say, motor windings that increase current as such interruptions and re-establishments occur. This is where the longitudinal scratching from Bright Boys and the like comes in. In addition to the nominal 'line' contact between a roughly-cylindrical wheeltread and longitudinal railhead, the transverse contact area then becomes more restricted to the 'points of the (normally longitudinal) scratch ridges', which also poke up out of any oil or other 'insulating' material (don't bring up that 'conductive lube' again, as we know none of the popular ones in model railroading literally are) but are not consistent. If there is any 'chatter' in the scratch-ridge formation, or the heights are irregular, you're setting up for en masse make-and-break over time. Incidentally, platinum is over 7 times worse a conductor than silver; its advantages as rail or OTM lie in different directions. I pointed out years ago that true finescale rail could be rolled in silver or silver alloy at not-unreasonable (by modern RTR equipment as comparison) prices, right down to correct railhead profile and correct web markings -- I'm surprised nobody British has marketed it by now (silver bullhead rail in white metal or epoxy chairs, anyone?)
Track fiddler Because of the poor continuity between the wheels of our locomotives and the rails, what happens is nano arcs are created every millisecond the continuity is broke. Basically the exact same thing as arc welding only on a microscopic scale. These nano arcs create microscopic pits in both the rails and the wheels of our locomotives. The more it happens the more the byproduct of this builds on our tracks until you clean it again.