Any of you guys know (perhaps those inside the industry) what the future may hold for rail materiale.?
I guess I am thinking mostly about Oxidation/Maintenance. Is there somethinmg that would cut down on cleaning (especially for clubd and individuals with BIG layouts) and scrubiing.? Does aluminum oxidize less than…what is the formula for track…does anybody know that.?
Anyway…you guys know what I am trying to assk.
btw…where is the search function.? i am probably staring right at it.?
Thank You
also (sorry about the short story here) I cannot get spell-check to work inside the message box. It works in the Subjest Line, and the Tag Line.
But…when I right click the message box, I do not even get an option to check spelling (sorry if I missed a bunch of words)
To answer your question I just typed “what is the compund of HO scale Nickel silver rail?” into my search engine, and found a link to this from a model train related site:
The metal known as Nickel-Silver is actually an alloy of several metals, including copper, but despite the name, silver isn’t one of them. The name comes from the color, which is a shiny silver, readily distinguished from brass. The principal elements are copper (50% - 60%) and nickel (15% - 30%), although others including zinc, tin, iron and lead may be included in small quantities. According to Wikipedia, all modern formulas include a significant amount of zinc, and the most common formula is 60% copper, 20% nickel and 20% zinc
Aluminum does get a “haze” of crap on it too. here is what I found by typing in my favorite search engine “does aluminum corrode?”:
Aluminium corrosion resistance is very good in untreated aluminium. Untreated aluminium has very good corrosion resistance in most environments. This is primarily because aluminium spontaneously forms a thin but effective oxide layer that prevents further oxidation.
General “cutting down on cleaning” tip is get metal wheels, and run trains pretty regularly.
Keeping a layout clean is kinda like having a car – if it sits for extended periods, it starts to rot … best way to keep it in good shape is to run it regularly.
Aluminum is a good metal for model track and has been used a small number of times. However aluminum oxide is a very good insulator and can be difficult to remove. Aluminum also has an inherent weakness in that it doesn’t have an indefinite fatigue life. An example is as follows: If you have a bar of steel able to withstand a flexing force of 1,000 pounds it won’t break until that limit is reached. However if you have a bar of aluminum with the same limits you can expose it to a force of 100 pounds with only a small effect. The breaking point is now 100 pounds less than it originally was. This effect is cumulative and eventually you’ll end up with two pieces of aluminum. This made it unsatisfactory for use in the manufacture of automobiles. The history of all-aluminum vehicles is replete with stories of vehicles breaking into two or more pieces. This lack of fatigue life also effects it thermally. Every time the metal heats up and cools down it loses some resilience and will eventually break. It was for this reason that aluminum was banned for use in household wiring.
Kenny, this may be one of those “if it won’t go, get a bigger hammer” situations. I have about 600 cars on my layout at any given time and about half have metal wheels, the rest plastic.
I only clean track about once a year. That is a good vacuuming and then a quick wipe of the rail tops with lacquer thinner or alcohol. A little contact enhancer in the switch points now and then.
I am blessed with a pretty clean basement. Finished ceiling, painted concrete surfaces, and hot water heat instead of forced air.
The point I am trying to make is if you have a clean environment, very little track cleaning is required. If you can not keep the dust and airborne crud off your layout, it doesn’t matter what your track is made of.
And yes, nickel silver rail is still the least likely to corrode or give you trouble of other sorts.
Although - I used the Metal Polish (MR magazine - Jan 2003) and POLISHED the track once in 2003 and
it is now 2014 and STILL HAVE NOT had to Clean the track again!
I have 4000 feet of track down - so far - and even thinking about having to clean that much track would take weeks!
While some like to clean track - I don’t - I am so glad I tried that Metal Polish method back then.
As before I did the Metal Polish - I had to clean the track before every OPs Session which I have twice monthly!
Now - I just go down to the Layout and turn on the power and 20 of us run trains for 3 hours or so!
No Sound cutouts - just smooth running.
We occassionally have to clean the engines wheels - but I can’t - right now - remember when the last time I did!
Do what you want - but NOT having to clean the track is way more fun than running a track cleaner car!
(which can’t get back into every Industrial siding - so the cars just pick up the dirt there and spread it around the layout the next time they are moved) -
Unless you have to find a reason to run that expensive car!
I am use to seeing the Search Function up at the top of the page somewhere…just did not look hard enough on the side, obviously.
Yeah…I read that same Wiki Info. But my Know-It All neighbor (he works for Applied Materials) had me convinced if the steel was made like THAT…it would be so hard, no hobbyist could cut it …"without aid of a diamond impregnated saw’. I should have known better.
Thanks for the spell check tip. I, unfortunately do not have that program on this computer. Will substitute.
Regarding aluminum…I had No Idea. Aren’t airplanes heavily made of aluminum.?
I have heard guys claim that Auto Trans Fluid is a great track cleaner…
Our Local Model Railroad Club - used that on our old layout back in 1985 or so.
YEP! - It worked great - We NEVER cleaned the track (building layout right next to the finished part of the layout - dust - dirt etc.)!
We just put a few drops on the rails and ran the old Atheran engines - 2 or 3 as they just wouldn’t go with all the dirt
(Clean track - NEVER - just put the oil to it)!
Soon the engines would smooth right out and would run during the shows!
Did this for a couple of years -
BUT!
Then we began having the cars just derail in the middle of the straight sections of track for no reason - they went through there several months earlier at the last show !?
Got to looking at the wheels - the dirt had built up so much (from the ATF on the track) that there were NO Flanges left and the cars just fell of the rail heads for lack of a flange.
We had to Hand clean ALL of the cars which took weeks as each wheel set had to be hand scraped to remove the dirt o-ring!
Guess What?
The members didn’t think it was so bad anymore to just clean the tracks before the Shows!
OH! And we banned any use of any type of OIL on or near the tracks after that!
So go ahead and use it!
But don’t be surprised if you have to clean all your Rolling Stocks wheels by hand.
The club I belong to has also used ATF on the rails. It works great! Especially if someone forgets and brings a lot of cars with dirty wheels to the Open House. We also clean the tracks and wheels before each Open House and have had no problems with build up.
Performance is nice and smooth, with reliable pickup, even our locomotives with only 4 or 6 wheel pickup (can you say “Thomas”?) It does evaporate, though and needs to be reapplied - another thing we do before each Open House.
A combination of ATF and regular wheel cleaning will result in smooth running.
I am not sure if liquid in general is a bad idea. But anything with enough % of petroleum or vegetable might get gummy. Denatured Alc or lacquer thinner are probably pretty safe…and they go off fast.
track cleaning tank car. I wet the pad with 91% alcohol then run the train as usual.