Track cleaning pops up regularly and I always see the same responses. Here in central California we have a very dirty brown crud that forms a nasty layer on everything 24/7. We have the dirtiest air in the US caused by the tons of Bay Area SMOG that is blown here by a constant 8 to 10 MPH breeze.
That being said as you can guess I have had problems with my track. The problem was bad conductivity not the black crud talked about here. I have never had the black crud, my trains just wouldn’t go. Over the years I’ve tried everything discussed here, all worked for few days. I was into trying everything advertised to see if it would help. After many years I finally found a system that worked, ACT6006 Track and Wheel Cleaner from Aero-Car Hobby Lubricant in a CMX Track Cleaning car. I use it about once every two months now in my CMX and I’ve never had another problem.
The bottom line for me is I think that each location or area where the layout is located has it’s own distinct problems for causing the “crud”, mine is SMOG and ACT6006 fixed it. Like I said I tried everything talked about on this thread and it didn’t work for me here in Bakers
I’ve tried many chemical methods of track cleaning (short of Gleaming). In my case all of them had short term success of a few hours to a few days.
Some of my “vintage” rolling stock had plastic wheels from the '70’s that I just upgraded to metal. I suspect that these “vintage” plastic wheels contributed to the condition of the track- -that black gunk being described.
On the sections that I’ve used this product; just over a week now, I’ve had no recurrence of dirty track. Not sure if it’s the track cleaning solution, the metal wheels or a combination of both.
This product also touts that it improves electrical contact without leaving a slippery residue. Eventhough I only used this product on a few sections of trackage I’ve noticed better performance on the entire pike. Again, I’m not sure if this increase in performance is due to this product or because of the cleaner rails- -time will tell but so far so good.
Might that be me? I’ve used this stuff for at least 10 years on my DCC layout and usually do not see any degradation in slow speed/sound performance between spot applications (about once a year or longer). I also do not operate my railroad as often as I’d like and things may sit silent for weeks or months at a time, but when I fire up my steamers, they all run without a hitch.
This was not always the case in the past when I was using 90% isopropyl alcohol to clean nickel silver rail.
Needless to say my bottle of ACT-6006 has been around a long time and may well last my lifetime.
Again, ACT is good stuff. I recommend it if you have the opportunity to buy.
The majority of my rolling stock has plastic wheels, so I doubt very much that they’re the source of the problem, although they may exacerbate the effects of something else - dust, fr’instance. [swg]
My observation of black gunk on the tracks is that is has a certain moisture content to it. Its not dry and flakey like dust, but has some sort of oily component to it.
Its either previous track cleaning attempts not totally dried or wiped off, or its some sort of lubricant from a locomotive getting spread around. It only takes one over lubed loco to cause the problem, with the other 30 simply spreading it around later. Then the dust sticks to the rails.
I can’t see how either plastic or metal wheels have anything to do with creating the gunk, but I’m no chemist.
jjdamnit
…Some of my “vintage” rolling stock had plastic wheels from the '70’s that I just upgraded to metal. I suspect that these “vintage” plastic wheels contributed to the condition of the track- -that black gunk being described…
The majority of my rolling stock has plastic wheels, so I doubt very much that they’re the source of the problem, althoug