Generally the layout track is quite clean. I use hand cleaning and a CMX track cleaning machine every couple of months, usually with no noticeable build up. I don’t run many hours in a month. Luckily the layout room is very very clean and has no dust build up at all.
Just recently while weathering cars that I’d had out running for a week or so, I noticed black buildup on their wheels. Sure enough, all the cars that had been out on trains most recently were similarly dirty. Now I have 100 or so cars to clean by hand. This seems new to me.
My cars are 95% equipped with metal wheels.
Now I had been running more trains than usual. But I had done gleaming and cleaning of the track before.
Oddly, the locos do not show dirt…just the cars.
Am I missing something? Is it possible I was dragging around some locked [maybe plastic] wheels or something?
The only other thing I can think of is that in the past couple of months I have been oiling the locos axles a bit before use, just as a regular lube, since I never have before. I try to get all excess off, but I bet I am messing up the track somehow because this dirt build up seems recent, surprising, and rapid.
I wouldn’t become overly concern with the dirty freight car wheels since like locomotives wheels they will get dirty.I suggest you clean your track and wheels as needed and not be consumed with track and wheel cleaning.
Yes, you are. You have not looked at them for years, and they have been building up. NOW you look at them and say “Where did that come from all of a sudden”?
It sounds like you may be overdoing the oiling. You don’t need to oil the loco bearings that often. The excess oil is probably getting on the track and on the rolling stock wheels.
I had a problem like that this time last year. It was pollen. I’d left the windows open with the arrival of spring, and found my track (and everything else) covered with the stuff. Normally reliable engines would stall on normally reliable stretches of track.
Close the windows. Use the CMX again. This too will pass.
First things first. We know you are lying because there is no such thing as a dust free room. [(-D]
Every room has dust.
But, seriously, I would dismiss the oiling as the culprit and focus on the plastic wheels. I had black gunk on metal wheels for years before I completely replaced the plastic wheels. It is odd though that there would be no black streaks on the loco wheels. That is where I noticed the biggest build up.
Replace the plastic wheels and see if that doesn’t solve the problem.
Generally, the trucks should need no oiling. I have oiled my Walthers metal trucks on my heavyweight passenger cars because apparently it’s the thing to do if you want them to roll more freely. Most of us tune our plastic rolling stock trucks with a reamer called the Truck Tuner…I think that’s what it is. It’s a tiny thick axle with a rubbery thumb wheel midway down the shank. Both sharp ends are inserted into either bearing of the truck, but one of them is a cutting tool. You gently squeeze the truck sides together to pinch the cutting tool and rotate the thumb wheel a couple of times. Then blow or brush out anything that has been reamed free. It helps many trucks to roll freely and you don’t have to use the oil.
I almost never find any black gunk on my rolling stock, but I do on the ones still with plastic wheels. It only takes a wooden matchstick end or a piece of scale lumber to scrape them clean, and it takes maybe a minute a car.
Finally, I dispute the claim that the plastic gunk is nothing to concern oneself. My cars with the gunk reveal themselves eventually because they wobble down the tracks. When I see a wobbler, and know it to have plastic wheels, off it comes and for good reason.
Of course, it’s purely an aesthetic thing, but eventually that gunk will accumulate to negate the effect of the flanges. Then what?
This looks like a problem that went unnoticed until it became an obvious problem. It’s happened to me a few times in the past. Dirt can slowly build up on the rolling stock wheels and go unnoticed through all but the closest inspections. Since 1995 all my rolling stock that’s been in use goes through a wheel cleaning at least once a year whether it needs it or not. The alcohol soaked shop towel over the rails works well for this. The locos get wheel cleanings as they need it but it’s at least once a year. I GLEAMed my track after I tore my layout down and rebuilt it to accommodate a new track plan some years ago. The only track cleaning that’s routinely done is I run a Bachmann track cleaning tank car behind the locos. It drags a dry non-abrasive pad beneath it. The pad is changed twice a year. Once in a while I put a little alcohol on the pad and run the train around the layout a couple of times. That’s the extent of the track cleaning. At any one time I can drag my fingertips over the rails and pick up only a very faint gray residue. This is the normal corrosion from the nickel-silver so I don’t get concerned about it.
Probably the oil. Use graphite instead. VERY easy to over oil. Oil collects dirt which will eventually run down the wheel & end up on the track especially if you don’t run often.
The thing to watch with Graphite is that it will invariably work it’s way down onto the rails and cause severe traction issues. It’s for this reason that I haven’t used graphite since 2004.
When the last plastic wheel disappeared from my layout, and after I cleaned the last black gunk left by those plastic wheels off the metal wheels, it never reappeared, so I remain convinced that the cause of the black gunk was the plastic wheels dragging on the rails.
I wouldn’t become overly concern with the dirty freight car wheels since like locomotives wheels they will get dirty.I suggest you clean your track and wheels as needed and not be consumed with track and wheel cleaning.
Graphite is conductive, but these lubricants are afine powder, which is not so conductive. The issue is volume. Like anything else, too much will do more harm than good.