Thanks for the offer, but a friend gave me a large supply about 10 years ago. [(-D] Many of them actually were junk, but I got enough good ones to get rid of the junky ones I had. I don’t change-out wheels unless there’s an issue with them.
I had an earlier layout in an older basement, but found that finishing the room (drywall, suspended ceiling, and a door) made it a lot easier to keep the track clean (no cleaning, although the layout was in place for only 5 or 6 years).
My current layout is in a basement built for it, but for some reason my wife insisted that I also build a house atop it. [swg] Even worse, instead of filling the basement as-planned, it occupies less than half - probably a good thing at the rate I work. [:-^]
While the whole basement is well insulated, the room is neither heated nor cooled, with the temperature remaining fairly constant throughout the year. I’m sure that the lack of a furnace contributes to the minimal layout maintenance required. I do vacuum the room occasionally, including the unpainted concrete floor, and the layout itself, but that seems an easier task than cleaning track and all those wheels.
Yep NP it’s arcing electricity between loco wheels and the track, It appears on both DC and DCC layouts but is more prevalent on DCC layouts because of Max voltage constantly running. (this was from an N scale magazine article a couple issues back)
OP, I guess plastic wheels make a mess but I’m not entirely sure. One day I’d like to have metal wheels because I like the clickety clack along the track. Plastic wheels do to but it’s not very audible. Either way my track was dirty, but sometimes little spots that were like gum spat out on a crosswalk on the track when a number of cars had primarily plastic wheel.
In this Vid, the CB&Q stock car and ULTX(blue) tank car have metal wheels the rest is plastic.
Agreed but,it just seems odd since plastic wheels picks up the residue and metal wheels don’t.I’ve notice some other oddities as well concerning freight car wheels both plastic and metal.
Not being electrical inclined(understatement of the decade?) I don’t fully understand such things I guess.[sigh]
Thankfully Athearn done away with those wheels on their RTR locomotives.They are still available as a replacement part though.
Another strange phenomenon is how some brands of plastic wheels seems to collect more crud then other brands.Same applies between brands of metal wheels.I notice my metal Athearn and Atlas wheels shines like a new dime after hours of operation while some OEM brands seems to gather a small light ring of crud between the flange and thread…
This is my situation and I have the same experience as you and I run N-Scale. Now after replacing most of the plastic wheels (with Atlas metal wheels) and using NO-OX, wow, what a difference. I only clean the wheels of any one engine about once a week, all most never the track.
This the conclusion that I have also come to. Clean the engine current pick up wheels often enough eliminates most problems in a not clean room environment, such as I have.
Not being in any way knowledgeable about materials science, but an astute observer of what I see at swap meets, the old sintered wheels must have some surface irregularities that encourage collection of crud, as many old Athearns BB engines I pick up are like that- crudded up significantly. The acetal plastic wheels on the same vintage old Athearn rolling stock BB’s also have a lot of crud, but it is a quick firm cleaning with 91 alcohol that restores them. This material may be less porous than other, cheaper plastic wheel compounds, accounting for it’s ease of restoration. However, that being said, I generally have abandoned all the rolling stock plastic wheels in favor of Intermountain metal ones. No crud build up, but that also presumes a track cleaning regime. I find the idea of gleaming the track interesting, as it may be a good bet as I move into DCC operation this fall. Cedarwoodron
I have been transitioning from plastic to metal wheels. On some of the older cars the plastic wheels were really gunked up and it seemed as though they showing signs of wear. Whether this will make a difference in track cleaning is probably still open for debate. My layout is in a basement and I know I have dust issues down there despite having a pretty good filter on the furnace. Maybe for me its more environmental so only time will tell.