I wanted to see what is more effective in cleaning my ME Code 83 track: 70% Isopropyl Alcohol and a Briteboy. For me, the former works more effectively. Great to my friends who swear by Briteboys or other methods. I wish to avoid that food fight here pls.
Here’s my experiment approach:
I put the rubbing alcohol on a paper towel and ran two fingers along the track (one on each side). Cleaning the loco wheels was more effective by running the loco than putting the loco on the paper towel and increasing speed while holding it.
My Qs:
Is 70% alcohol more effective than the 90%?
For those w/ finished rooms, is there an RP for how often to clean the tracks or loco wheels?
Should I use a rag over a paper towel to clean the tracks?
Thanks!
It is… for denaturing the SARS-CoV-2 virus on surfaces. I would think that if you have good prompt absorbent pickup of what the alcohol dissolves, the 91% will act as a better cleaner than 70%. Be careful not to use a ‘rubbing alcohol’ that has other ingredients, like wintergreen or emollients, unless you know what those will do to the track and you agree to let them do it.
I defer to those with operating layouts, and those specializing in gleaming, for the respective interval. The best ‘received wisdom’ is to run continuous maintenance with something like an Allen weighted-Masonite-backside pad car. At the least this will extend the time between required hand cleaning.
Much depends on both the amount and the type of schmutz in the ‘ambient environment’. Clean air is an advantage, but many layouts are in places where dust blows in when doors are opened and closed.
I’d be tempted to do just the opposite: use the rag to get the distributed pressure, and the paper towel as the absorbent surface with a little ‘tooth’. Change the active ‘track’ on the paper towel surface frequently to keep the absorbed dirt and oils from having the chance to redeposit. This also simplifies washing rags afterward.
A quick comment about the Bright Boy: if you use it with enough pressure to work as desired, you’re very likely to score or gouge the rail surface longitudinally. These gouges can be easily dressed out… but you have to take the time and effort to dress them out. Normal running won’t tend to level these down or burnish them out, but they make nifty channels to accumulate co
OK, 70% isopropyl alcohol versus BriteBoy. I don’t use one to the exclusion of the other. Generally, I use 70% isopropyl alcohol on a white cotton cloth. I never use it on a paper towel. I do use a BriteBoy first in spots where there is a build up of black crud. Yeah, I know, there is a lot of discussion how BriteBoy is too abrasive. I have never found that to be a problem. Also, I sometimes use denatured alcohol instead of isopropyl alcohol on particularly troublesome sections of track.
When I find a need to clean loco wheels, the gears keep the loco wheels from turning freely. So, I use alcohol on a piece of cotton cloth and running the loco wheels over the alcohol soaked cloth. Works like a charm!
I have only had two layouts in dedicated finished rooms.
The “Dream House” layout was in N scale, and it operated frequently. Track cleaning was only neccessary in areas where there was layout construction.
Most trains were powered by three or four Kato locomotives, so I believe any dirty track was overcome by all those excellent motorized units forcing their way through.
My HO scale “Spare Bedroom” layout where trains were only powered by a single locomotive needed more attention to the track. Also, this layout was smaller, so construction anywhere in the room got the whole layout dirty.
Layouts that shared the Master Bedroom or Dining Room always had dirty track!
All I’ve done for 20 years is run my CMX track cleaning car around my layout once or so a month using ACT-6006 cleaning fluid and never have any problems.
Mel
Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951
To this day, I still don’t know what that black gunk is or what causes the black gunk on the rails and on wheels. It reminds me of gum on a sidewalk. Some say that it is caused by arcing. Others say that it is dust that combines with natural body oils.
Whatever it is, and whatever causes it, it is a pain to remove.
Boy, do I agree with the idea of no bun fighting… Anyway:
Question 2. For those w/ finished rooms, is there an RP for how often to clean the tracks or loco wheels?
My response: I clean my track when some of my locos start misbehaving. I believe that the electrical arcing factor makes that the more you operate, the more it will get dirty. And my operations are not regular on the layout, so it will vary. It will also depend on what I am doing on the layout - projects involving wheel or track painting, for example, probably contributes to the crud. It will also depend if you have good control on the level of humidity and dust in the room. That might be seasonal for some.
Question 3. Should I use a rag over a paper towel to clean the tracks?
My response: I use a rag. The best is an old handkerchief, that is made of a tight and tough textile. Paper towels tend to break down on little cracks and kinks. I use a Brightboy (gently) at the club when some sections get REALLY oxidized. I think that a gentle use of it won’t harm the track - the damage is already done due to the oxidization. And rubbing that track would take a lot of effort just with a rag and alcohol.
When I clean track, I usually use a paper towel, either plain or alcohol soaked.
I’ve experimented with wrapping an alcohol soaked coffee filter around a wood block, but not done it enough to have an opinion. I chose the filter material as it seemed like it would shed a lot less than a paper towel.
I believe that the less dust in a room, the less dust on the track. So I try to keep the floor vacuumed (which is smooth wood, NOT carpet). There is a real ceiling above, so “stuff” filtering down from upstairs isn’t a problem.
Smoking in the train room is contra-indicated, as the exhaust will coat everything in sticky goo, which doesn’t like to let go of dust.
The coffee filter should work very well. These have proven handy for all kinds of things beyond filtering coffee, but I have never used one on track. I am interested to hear how this works out.
I didn’t know there was contention between the 70 percenters and the 91 percenters, but I always enjoy a good food fight between the DCers and DCCers or the HO guys (forum word cops won’t let me write HO ers) and the N Scalers.
But seriously though . . . I tear up old cotton T-shirts as rags; the older they are, the softer and fatter the cotton threads become. Then roll the rag into a tight ball about 1" in diameter. A ball that size contacts the upper and inner quadrant surfaces of my DCC-controlled N Scale track. Then soak the ball with 91% isopropyl alcohol (highest number wins) and rub every inch of track I can reach, turning the ball constantly to avoid the dark streaks and skid marks. I do this fairly often whenever it seems like I haven’t done it in a while. Kinda like flossing my teeth. For inaccessible areas, I rely on the CMX car dribbling and wiping the rails with the same aforementioned 91% stuff.
In general, I take a multi-pronged approach: 1) wet rag ball wiping, 2) CMX tank car semi-automatic wet wiping, 3) Centerline car wet- and dry- and rubbery-drum-abrasive wiping, 4) floating-gleaming-weighted masonite pad, and 5) polished agate cabochon burnishing similar to the masonite pad thing.
And 6) and 7) . . . Bright Boy and/or 1200-grit sandpaper dry abrasive scour . . . let the Apple Brown Betty fly.
The wood block may not have enough compliance to let the filter absorb in the ‘pressure’ area; you’ll want to back it with at least one layer of something soft and absorbent: rag, paper towel, even cotton batting. Remember that there is stuff that builds up on the face of the cleaning pad, and also stuff that wicks up and away from the surface before the solvent evaporates and leaves a film. Anyone who has had to clean chrome or polished stainless understands how important both actions are.
Smoking of course is a nameless no-no anywhere near precise anything. But of even greater importance is avoiding cooking or food vapors. It is astounding to see what builds up from even a little casual frying in the morning, over time – and how far from the kitchen the effects go.
My father and I were delighted to learn the actual technique for pan-blackening fish in a cast-iron skillet (which involves the Leidenfrost effect and is actually levitated superheated-steam cooking more than ‘pan frying’). We happily heated up those pans and fried those fillets and reveled in the steam blowing out… until we started changing picture arrangements in the living room, 300 feet away behind 3 sets of sliding-panel or French doors, and discovered our Williamsburg Palace Ballroom Blue walls were… no longer the color they were. Who’da thunk it?
And typical kitchen hood arrangements actually exhaust or capture far less of the schmutz than ‘expected’ in many cases…
The only time I have to “clean” track, in the conventional sense of the word, is after ballasting or adding scenic effects in close proximity to the tracks. For that, I use a mildly abrasive block which was originally intended for cleaning the distributor points in older vehicles. It’s also useful for cleaning electrical contacts in larger electrical pumps (not model railroading stuff, although I suppose it would work there, too).
For maintenance cleaning of the track, I use a suitable attachment on my Shop Vac, either the brush, or the crevasse tool.
As for cleaning wheels, only my older locos with brass wheels require cleaning, and those are dwindling.
If I were to use alcohol for track cleaning, I’d use the 99% stuff that’s readily available here in Canada - all of the lower-concentration alcohols are diluted with water.
Since the black gunk accumulates whether you run trains or not, and I’ve even found it on ME turnouts in factory sealed packages, I conclude it 's nickel silver corrosion from the atmosphere. The black is an oxide.
Water is useless to clean rails and possibly contributes to corrosion.
Various solvents would work and isopropyl alcohol is certainly one of them. No point using 70% diluted if you can get 99%.
Best results I’ve obtained is when using ACT 3753 track cleaner fluid. It reduces friction markedly until it completely dries. Cleans beautifully though.
Thanks for the informative comments everyone! Your answers help many in figuring out what way to clean track effectively and what causes track gunk. Given that it appears regardless of what happens, does running trains daily clean the track better than using a Brite Boy or rubbing alcohol?
Using an abrasive helps today, but the scoring of the rails, for some, raises concerns about junk accumulation, thus my jump to “gleaming” the rails.
I bought into the “gleaming” approach as part of a “system” (which invests some significant one-time initial effort), combined with running a CMX car rather occasionally (if DCC sound hiccups arise) with denatured alcohol or, most recommended, lacquer thinner, running a John Allen masonite car regularly in freights (has anyone done it with a passenger car?), maximizing metal wheelsets on rolling stock (to minimize gunk pickup and re-distribution), and running trains at least occasionally.
My experience has been very good with the above, though in a climate controlled home. I have a small layout but usually run freights with multiple locos, which may help with any minor continuity issues since only one loco is affected (DCC sound hiccups) at a time.
There are many(!) opinions and variations, so no “right”, established answer. This is not “settled science”. Next you get into what rail conditioners might best help, which I have not considered exploring. From what I read, DCC with sound is more sensitive to continuity issues than straight DC, so…
The OP might enjoy perusing former threads via a search:
Good luck with that. As an alternative, if you run trains daily, you could just spread some alcohol on a small, accessible, section of the mainline, run the locos, and wipe again. This will allow the loco wheels to spread the alcohol around and pick up some of the gunk before it builds up. When I’m in “operation” mode, that’s what I do.
