In August I began to clean my freight and passenger car (wheels) and service some locs. To clean the wheels, I use Iso and a sponge/cloth that my wife buys at Pathmark. It's spongy with thickness of 25 sheets of paper. I cut 1/2 strips and dip into the Iso. Apply this to the wheels and then use a flat edge srew driver to scrape of the dirt.

Every thing worked fine. In October, I decided to swap some locs that were sitting unused for around 6 months. In particular, I swapped in my ML2000 CC (39302). I cleaned the wheels (those that turned freely). It ran poorly - many herky-jerky sessions. So, re-cleaned the wheels and slider but no improvement. Opened the loc and either I caused it or it happened then but the red wire to the slider separated. So, fixed that. But still no improvement. Then tested other locs and found same situation. Since I hadn't cleaned the tracks (M) thoroughly, I decided to do that. Used the same (Iso, sponge) approach but after wiping all the tracks I took a dry sponge and rubbed the tracks down. This solved the problem and all he locs work well.

While working out this probem(s) I did run the Marklin track cleaning car but found that derailed easily. The thought I had (finally, to the question) is whether it would be better to have sliders run over the outer rails. The continuous rubbing along the tracks could (?) help keep the tracks clean. My thought is that the slider continually going over the 3rd rail does keep that relatively clean and so why not do the same for the tracks. I envision a flat car with two 'outside sliders' and with some cargo (to apply pressure and prevent derailing).

Has any one tried this? Any companies marketing this? I can foresee some issues (turn out tracks may create shorts).

Regards,

Harvey

Hi!

I've heard that wheels or outer rails should not be cleaned with screw drivers, sandpaper or other abrasive methods. The results are small scratches and the dirt will stick even better.