Some folks are concerned about the ‘smell’ of Mineral Spirits or Lacquer Thinner. The CMX track cleaning car as a ‘precision’ metering valve - You can set it to drip a single drop every every second or even less. We use up to three track cleaning trains on our club layout, and if I have my nose really close to the track - I can smell a ‘whiff’ of Lacquer Thinner as the car goes by.
I have had several Centerline cars(and the supplied sample of ‘Goo Gone’ included with it). Goo Gone leaves a ‘scum’, and I will never use it again. I lot of the electronic ‘tuner cleaner’ stuff has a lubricant that promotes ‘gunk’ build-up. ATF, Whall Clipper Oil and most of the other suggestions give immediate electrical pickup improvement, but eventually attract ‘gunk’. And using too much usually reduces the pulling power of engines. The Centerlines were sold off because of the issue of attaching a thread to the roller. The new roller sleves address that issue.
Arcing with alcohol? You did not clean your engine wheels as well? Or maybe you are still running a fleet of Athearn ‘BB’ engines with those ‘sintered iron’ wheels. NWSL sell good replacement N/S wheel sets.
Paint stores are selling odorless mineral spirits these days. I’ve used it to clean track and plastic wheels. I have turnouts with plastic frogs and haven’t had any issues. My current layout is five years old. Recently I stopped running trains for a few weeks. Even though I had a dust cover on the layout, when I uncovered it the rails were badly tarnished. I went over everything with a Bright Boy abrasive track cleaning block. This eraserlike product does a great job of shining up the rails but it leaves little crumbs behind, so I always vaccume up afterwards. I ran trains and everything was smooooth. Then the next day the trains were jerky again. The track had tarnished overnight! So I went over it again with my girlfriend’s nail buffing block. after everything was clean I put two tiny drops of transmission fluid on each rail at opposite ends of the layout. Then I ran trains around, making sure to enter into all the spurs and sidings. That was three days ago and the rails are super shiny and my trains are running smoothly once again.
I used to use alcohol, but I had to clean the track at least one time per week. I admit that my layout is in just about the worst possible environment, an open garage subject to whatever the humidity may be and the temperature extremes found in a garage. (yes I operate with a propane heater and wearing a sweater!)
I discovered Rail Zip on or about October 1 of this year. I have not had to treat the tracks since then! No, the wheels are not getting dirty, but the only issues I have had in a couple of cases, was the backside of the wheels where the power pickup wiskers touch. I have had to treat them with Rail Zip and no more problem.
