I have a small layout and this past weekend I painted the track and I put ballast down on a small stretch of track, trains ran well before hand and now they stall in that area. I have cleaned the track with alcohol and mae sure the wheels are clean on the loco. Any suggestions???
Thanks in advance
My bet is that some of your glue has dried on top of the rails. Don’t think alcohol will easily remove it by just wiping. Some really fine wet-dry sand paper on a sanding block and light sanding should help clean the rail heads. That’s part of the “gleaming” process I have seen a couple people post on here about. Light sanding, burnish with stainless steel washer and then polish with some metal polish.
will try that, could the glue and paint have gotten in between my rails and not allow for sufficient connections???
I was able to get “stuff” off my rails with just a finger nail. Of course, that was small sections. If I had a larger layout or did more track in one timeframe, that wouldn’t be a good idea.
Another thing to check for is to make sure your ballast isn’t above the ties or up against the rail where it would contact the wheels and possibly causing them to lift.
Two things spring to mind:
Paint/glue residue on the railhead. I use a Peco cleaning block to clean the railhead after such work.
There is ballast on the web of the rail. Check the inside of the rail, and remove any ballast. To prevent this, I tap the rail with a screwdriver or the handle of my ballasting brush to settle the ballast between the ties and vibrate it off the rail.
Nick
I assume you mean at the rail joints. The answer is yes, it could, which is why relying on rail joiners for electrical continuity can be a problem. You may have to add some feeder wires soldered to the rails or solder some of the joints. I normally have a feeder soldered to every individual piece of rail (I use either flex track or hand laid track)
Though hinted at, it has not been said directly that not only the top of the rails need to be clean, but also the inside edges and the wheel flanges. Sometimes the wheel rides up on the flange a little and it is the flange and the inside edge of the rail that provides pickup.
BTW, welcome to the club. Weathering track is more than putting the paint on. Taking it off can be a much harder problem.
I would suggest the same. Paint and glue get down into the unsoldered joints and causes trouble big time.
Now you know why I hate ballasting track. It’s not the process, it’s the clean-up afterwards. Alcohol may help remove the paint, but it will not work on most scenery glues. That stuff has to be removed mechanically. I always have to follow up ballasting with a Brite-Boy.
Thinned white glue or WS Scenic Glue always dries transparent and makes the railheads look as if they’re just fine and clean and ready to go. I always wipe down the railheads with a fine cloth IMMEDIATELY after ballasting, and then go over them with a Brite Boy after the ballast is dry. Now I know a lot of modelers don’t care for a Brite Boy because it’s an abrasive cleaner, but for getting the residue off of the railheads, I haven’t found anything better.
Also, as several other posters have said, ballast can work itself up into the rail-web and make both locos and cars ‘bounce’ on the track. After the ballast is dry, I always go over the inside of the track lightly with a small screwdriver blade to loosen the ballast particles, then over the whole thing with a small vacuum cleaner.
And before you do any painting or ballasting, I can’t re-iterate strongly enough what other posters have said–SOLDER your track joiners.
Tom [:)]