I’ve never understood why applying a liquid solvent based substance on a rail would keep it clean.
I have always used alcohol, in part, because it dries quickly. Clean and wipe, dries immediately.
The dirt I find on my rails is easily removed with the alcohol.
I’ve never gotten hardened crud that needs an abrasive to remove, nor understand what the substance would be or how it got there.
I tried the ATF thing just to see. Didn’t seem to hurt anything but yet, intuitively, an oily substance on a surface is going to make dust stick, and the track dirtier, IMO.
My layout room is pretty much the same as yours. My biggest problem with dirty rails is that I am only running trains from about October to April. Once golf season begins in Ohio, I just don’t find time to spend in the layout room. That means almost 6 months with no activity. When I return, the rails need cleaning and the track eraser is the fastest way to do it. I used a Bright Boy for years but this past year I discovered another Walthers eraser that’s a bit longer and not quite as abrasive. I gave it a try and it works as well as the Bright Boy. The added length allows me to turn it sidewa
Thanks, but I’m gonna wait until they have another sale. That stuff ain’t cheap, ya know; so that sale price REALLY makes a difference!
The one 3 years ago: it was all sold out by the time I got there. Must be pretty good stuff, if so many people want it.
I know it might be a technical challenge, but I think they could really lower the price if they line-welded a platinum top onto a nickel-silver bottom. We only run trains on the top of the rail, after all.
How’s the stuff working out on YOUR layout? I assume you’re making your own switches–same question–how’d that turn out?
I blame myself for any controversary that I may have created by suggesting oxidation as the cause. But, I did put a question mark after the word “oxidation”. [(-D]
Whatever that “glaze” is on the rails, the Bright Boy did the trick. Locomotives no longer stall when running on the sidings.
All in good fun Rich[:)] Everything tarnishes to some extent, …even me[(-D]
I didn’t get my order in on time either Ed[:'(] That was the only time Goodman Rail supply offered Platinum Rail on sale with five years interest free financing combined.
That is a good idea of only putting a strip on top so it’s more affordable. For now I’ll just save my lunch money and wait for their next big SALE.
I got my Fast Track’s turnout Jigs sitting here waiting.
Yeah, especially if the kitchen floor is open steel grating.
My first layout had Atlas brass rails on fibre ties, and it was in an unfinished basement.
If I wanted to run trains, the first job was to clean the track. I used a crayon of jeweller’s rouge, which worked well and left no scratches.
On a later layout, with nickel-silver rails, it required far less cleaning, and for that, I used fairly fine sandpaper (1200grit) wrapped around a block of wood.
For my current layout, started in 1989, I use a mildly abrassive block meant for dressing contact points (like those in the distributor of an older car or on/off ones in electric motors). About the only time it’s necessary is if there’s glue on the rails from scenery work or if I’m cleaning used track or turnouts donated by friends. Every year or two, I use my shop vac to vacuum the track, using either the brush attachment (in open areas) or the crevice tool (in restricted areas).
My layout room is mostly finished, with all walls drywalled and painted and a suspended ceiling. The floor is bare concrete, with little to no dust, and gets vaccuumed regularly (especially after my “tree-making sessions”). I never sweep it.
The room is unheated (if visitors are coming, I do use a portable electric heater if the outdoor temperatures are particularly low). A dehumidifier is in-use year round, and while the rest of the house (main and second floor) is air conditioned in the summer, it’s not needed (or wanted) in the basement.
Well, This type of discussion can be interesting as this one has been. They ain’t boring, that’s for sure. Sometimes they seem to go in circles though.
I have a few theories but consider them more of a strong belief from experience of the type of things I know from what I have seen.
Number one is the fact that if you take a circle and put it on a plane, the surface contact area is very minimal. The same as our models wheels in contact with the rails. The contact is quite minut so the continuity is relatively poor. A wheel in motion greatly minimizes that contact as well.
A couple of wires twisted together in a junction box has far superior continuity compared to this. They are two circles in contact but contacted together in a spiral with a lot more surface area, also with provided pressure of the twist providing better continuity.
Most of the problem with dirty track has to do with the flow of electricity, but more realistically from the lack of. Lack of continuous constant ideal contact between the two surface areas. The twisted wires have (constant) contact but the rolling wheels on our rails does not.
Knob and tube and also aluminum wiring just to name a few was out-lawed for continuity issues among other reasons. I’m not going to get into all that but the problems were disasters waiting to happen and they did.
Have you ever seen two wires that shorted out in a junction box because someone didn’t twist them before they put the wire cap on. The wire cap is melted to oblivion and the wires are black as the Ace of Spades from the arcing.
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 (where the crevice separation occures under the rolling w
My ABA set of “F” units were running steady, pulling 15 Rapido coaches all day long. Third day in I noticed a little light flicker so gassed up the CMX and took it for a three-lap spin. Flicker gone, good for another 10 months of trouble-free railroading. The amount of time you guys spend talking about this makes me think you all work for the Government.[swg][(-D]
[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.&
If 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. [swg]
It takes the right kind of microscope to SHOW them, and the right kind of camera to document them ONCE AND FOR ALL at ‘magazine quality’.
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.
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.
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.
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.