American Flyer Track - Source of Gunk on the Rails

Classic Toy Trains Forum
1

Now that I have my American Flyer trains up and running, I have observed a curious problem.

I have taken care to clean the rails first with a Brite Boy cleaning eraser and then followed up with a rubdown of the rails with denatured alcohol. I have also thoroughly cleaned the metal wheels on my engines and the plastic wheels on my freight cars.

I have been running my steam engine without any problems. Then, I take it off the track and run my diesel (eventually I will set up two tracks, but for now…). When I place the steam engine back on the track, it starts and stalls, and I noticed early on that the metal pick up wheels on the tender are filthy with black gunk instead of the bright brass color that I had restored them to.

At first, I thought that it was the plastic wheels on the freight cars. So, I removed the freight cars and alternated running the engines alone. But, same problem .

The problem is essentially occurring on the outer track and I run the engines clockwise. I have taken note of the fact that the outer wheels on the diesel have the original Pull-Mor wheels with a rubber tire, so to speak, for added traction. Could this be the source of the gunk? If so, how do you clean them.

I have tried to clean the Pull-Mor wheels, but I am not sure if they are coming clean or whether I risk rubbing off the rubber or whether they are deteriorating after 53 years.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Have others had this problem?

Thanks.

Rich

2

It could be the steam engine traction tires as well are headed south.

4

It was defenitely not the plastic wheels, those wheels had no wear marks on them…it was dirt from either the track, wheels, or traction tires on the engines. I never found the source, I just kept cleaning the track.

5

Here is what I do. I have a heavy car and I fasten two folded paper towels to it with rubber bands. Then I moisten the towels with isopropyl alcohol and run it behind an engine for a while. It will clean the track and to some extent it will also clean the wheels. It takes several passes around the layout to clean the track as dirt is coming off of the wheels all the time. When I first started doing this it took several paper towels to clean the track. Now I usually can do it with just two. It is likely that part of the problem is the traction tires. They may clean up or they may not. Bruce Baker