Howdy, I have decided to help my club out with its track cleaning problem by building a consist of track cleaning cars with Cratex extra fine bright boy pads under them…
I plan to use 40’ Hi Cube boxcars and 3x1 pads under them… I’m going to cut the frame past the trucks and replacing it with styrene… Then above the trucks I’m going to place 4 ounce weights at each end and then additional 8 ounces of weight on the pad… I want to build eight of these…
I will update you all as I proceed… please feel free to comment or give advice on this project…
Well for the time being I was going to pull it with my T-1, my RSD-15, my brothers RSD-15, and if needed four SD40s from the club… for my birthday I’m asking for a U50 and I’m going to buy another in February when I get a job, and eventually I hope to get Big John the boxcab, running with its 4 motors and B-D-B+B-D-B wheel arrangement…
Really. All in one consist? With that many cars with abrasive blocks under them, weighted with 16 oz, each car, one lap around the layout and you’ll change the code of the track. [(-D] You’ll have to run a vacuum car behind it all to clean up or that metal dust will get sucked up into the locos. [(-D]
Solvents generally do a better job of breaking down the dirt on the rails. On the club modular layout we use one of the CMX cars from Tony’s with acetone, and it is followed by a Centerline car with a handi-wipe on the roller to collect the moist and now loose dirt. The key is to just open the vale on the CMX car enough to keep the pad moist but not sopping wet, that way no acetone drops down onto the plastic ties.
This gets run more often than I think is necessary, as soon as someone has some control issues they assume it’s dirty track. The real problem is the older modules use the old method of removable fitter sections to connect the tracks together, and the joiners come loose on these and create 2-5" dead sections. Unless you have a long steam loco with both sides of the loco AND tender picking up power, you have to run multiple units so one can push the dead one over the dead spot. Newer modules use butt joints with no fitter pieces, and even when the cleaning train is running because someone things the track has gotten dirty, uou can run at creeping speed on those modules without stalling.
My club will only use 75% alcohol and dry methods of track cleaning… solvents are considered “bad ju ju” at the club… since I’m new I find it wise not to protest…
Let me remind you all that I am going to use the finest grit bright boy material there is…
By having a standardized pad it will be a simple matter to change them out when needed. Compared to the price of the regular “BrightBoy” pads, $5.50 isn’t too bad of a cost, either.
I had bought several of them with the intention of making my own “John Allen” style pad car. After weighing all the options, I finally broke down and simply bought the car they were made to fit… problem solved.
These take the pad I pointed to above. Several road names are available. The cars are well weighted (not quite one pound, though) and the dense pad also has springs pressing against the pad as well.
I run a cleaning train occasionally, similar to the setup Randy describes above. I use 99% Isopropyl in my CMX, followed by the Centerline, then the Walthers pad car.
Well alcohol is a solvent. I’m talking similar types of things that evaporate completely. i would NEVER use anything that leaves behind some residue to clean track. Acetone evaporates even faster than alcohol. Frankly, I never clean mine, except after painting to remove the excess paint that inevitably gets on the railhead. I then do the burnish step from the gleaming process, and that’s it, done. Only metal wheels and frequent running keep it clean.
FYI: Alcohol IS a solvent; it’s just not as aggressive as acetone, MEK, or lacquer thinner.
I’ve never been a fan of abrasives for cleaning track - including Bright Boys - because it abrades the polished surface of the nickel-silver track, which then traps more dirt. (And you still have to remove the abrasive with a cleaner.) Better to use a solvent to remove the troublesome gunk.
I use the same three cars as Ed. (old Pharts think alike).
Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. [#dots] [:(!] [|(] [sigh]
Use some proven methods, in the long run you will find is saves you cash and frustration and build time that could be better spent on better things.
Even the “Gleam System” that has been hashed and rehashed here ( BTW a system of Jeffrey’s whose name the Diner bears ) I found was going to be to labor intensive and I have never needed it going about things the way I have.
I can’t say for certain if my rail head is scratched, gouged or otherwise pitted.
I seem to recall some sort of highly-scientific certified clinical trials on the subject some years ago including SEM photos and all and if I recall correctly, the results of the study were inconclusive.
I can attest to the fact that my layout will be 25 years old in 2018 and the Shinohara code 85 NS rail has been cleaned with several makes of “BrightBoy” type pads and, more recently, the slider pad car.
I honestly can’t see any kind of degradation of the rail, nor do I suffer any kind of recurring problems with gunk accumulation. As far as the rail-cleaning train goes, I probably run it every two months or whenever I happen to give it any thought.
I will say that there are about a dozen different brands of “Abrasive track cleaning pads” out there all with varying degrees of “grit”.
There is one labeled “Perfect” (gold color) that seems to be more of an ink reaser than a grit pad, Peco makes one as does Shinohara, Cratex, Roco and Micro-Engineering. Each of these are what I would call “mildly abrasive” Walthers then is a next step up in the grit size and I have another one that actually looks like a piece of lava-rock. It is pretty stiff and you can tell by the action that it is “aggressive”. The original “Bright Boy” was an oxide color if I recall, and fairly aggressive, too.
There are SO many more considerations to clean track, probably 70 or 80 % related to environment and room dust (ceiling and floors!) that the occasional passing of an abrasive probably won’t have much detriment in the long run.
As near as I can tell, my rail will be good for at least anothe
If you are making your own pad type cars, there are options that affect car weight and pad force on the track.
One option is to weight the car fairly heavily and add down force to the pad (beyond its own weight) by adding appropriate spings between the pad and the car floor. Another approach is to have a lighter weight car and add pad downforce by adding weight to the pad or it’s vertical sliders above the floor. Of course, the lightest down force option is to simply let the pad and its vertical guides be solely their own weight, with no enhanced force.
I’m not sure that one way is better or more common than another. I built two masonite pad cars using springs for added downforce and thus weighted the cars to make up for the “lift” created on the car, the added weights ensuring proper tracking due to needed weight on the trucks.
Ok yes alcohol is a solvent BUT I am speaking of real solvents like paint thinner… most of the clubs troubles are because of no more climate control because it’s not in the budget… So I’ll weight the car 2 ounces an end and an additional 4 ounces on the pad… CMX units and others like that are out of the budget… I can build 8 of the Cratex EXTRA FINE rubberized abrasive cars for less… the cleaning block will be attached with hook and loop command strips…
Not trying to reinvent the wheel just the tire on said wheel…
And instead of eight cars maybe 4 would be plenty???
OK, thanks Ed. I just think the decades old method of the free floating set-up, as the masonite pad cleaner, was as about as simple as it gets, and could be used with the abrasive pad.
I get the spring set-up, if you think more down pressure is what you want.
I just sit back and smile at the track cleaning topics. I’ve been using a CMX car with ACT6006 to clean my rails for close to 10 years without any problems what so ever. The ACT6006 even cleans the wheels on my locomotives and rolling stock. I push the CMX with a pair of E7s and occasionally a mop up caboose at the end of a freight with a slightly weighted cloth covered slider. I change the pad on the CMX about once a year and the mop up slider when it needs changing.
If the ACT6006 has an odor neither my wife or I can detect it during the cleaning process.
To each his own, the CMX/ATC600 combination works great for me. [:)][:)][:)]
Mel
Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951 <
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