I tried all of the different cleaning cars, drags, abrasive blocks.
And YES they all worked, to a point. I was back cleaning the track again in 2 weeks to get ready for my Thursday night OPs session. If I didn’t my operators were cleaning the engine wheels several times during the evening.
I tried the metal polish on a whim, figuring that it would work no better than the clean machine (meaning I would have to redo it in 2 weeks).
Well I did one section and the engines ran well all night with no wheel cleaning. In 2 weeks the same section worked smooth all night. And then again in another 2 weeks they still worked great.
So I tried another area of the layout and my Atlas RS1 smoothed out all night until I went onto a section of track on the mainline that had been cleaned with the clean machine earlier and the engine started jerking and stalling. I figured that I would have to clean the wheels but I wanted to clear the mainline and get back up the hill to the yard. Once the RS1 was back on the metal polished section is smoothed out and ran smooth for another ½ hour.
At that point I shut down the layout and all of the operators helped clean the track, which took all of 2 hours by my limited crew of 5.
That was back in July of 2003. I figured that if I had to do the polishing again in a couple of months it would be well worth it. As 2 months went by and all of the sound engines kept working with no sound drop outs. I figured I would keep on running the layout waiting until it would not run the engines like it did back when I was using the clean machine and the other types of flapper cars (as I had several types).
Well I am still waiting for the layout to stop running and it is now June 2007 (one month short of the anniversary
I used Blue Magic (liquid) only because Wal-Mart had it on the end of an aisle and I grabbed a bottle weeks before I ever decided to try the metal polishing my track.
When I was so frustrated with my layout and decided to try something new I just grabbed the Blue Magic and put it on a piece of HO cork and rubbed it on the rails. Used a clean piece and buffed the track and that was it. I would clean about 10 feet at a time and buff.
It really goes fast (considering having to do it all by hand). But you can be sure that you actually get a section clean as you can see the rail is shiny and bright and if you miss any it shows up dull.
Also using the cork as a buffer you can feel how easily the cork slides and if you have missed a spot it will drag enough that you feel it.
I tried using a cloth and it left too much lint at all of the rail joints. Also tried a piece of Homasote and it just left dust pieces too!
Now others of our group have used Mother’s Mag wheel polish, any type of silver polish paste that the wives had up stairs (naturally there were repercussions from that)!
Just about any type of polish will do except the ones that leave an oily film to them (Brasso and some Chrome cleaners).
Bob H, if you say you haven’t cleaned your track in 4 years then hey, who am I to disagree. When you say you had to clean your track every 2 weeks when you had the CMX Clean Machine then I will have to disagree with you. Either your layout is in a very dirty area or you used the wrong cleaner in the CMX Clean Machine. Just draging it around with a pad dry would keep it clean for longer then two weeks. Anyways if polishing works great for you then good, it does wonders for my cars and yes they do stay cleaner longer after I wax them. I prefer the Clean Machine and for me it works very well. Like I said earlier I clean my track every six months and that is only for preventative maintenance, not because of poor running loco’s.