This subject has been discussed to death here over the years: Use of what cleaners; Use of abrasives vs. liquids; Track cleaning cars; Environment issues... etc.
//RANT ON//
I have a single issue: CLEANING THE CENTER STUDS.

Here's typically what happens to me. First, My layout lays "fallow" for months at a time. Then, I finally have a few days to work on it. I turn on the power, I put a loc on the rails and press the GO bar. 1 or 2 jerks of the loc (sometimes none) later and it stops. I try another loc. Same thing. Doesn't matter which loc I use. GROAN! Gotta clean the track. Issue: Gotta clean the track by HAND because locs won't run. I take a cloth and rub down the outside rails by hand. Locs STILL won't run. GROAN, GROAN! Now for the fun part... I gotta clean the $#@&^ center studs.

This is the hallmark of my railroad: It's always the center studs that need cleaning. The rails have NEVER had to be cleaned nearly as often as the studs. I don't know why. I guess because I don't run the layout regularly, or my environment is screwy somehow. It doesn't matter. It's what I have to work in. (It is a climate controlled attic room BTW...)

Can't use cloth because it snags on the studs and never cleans the studs well anyway. I've tried all different kinds of cloth. I don't want to use abrasives because of wear, however, I've found that a slim ink eraser is the only thing I have that actually works! Now for the fun of cleaning every single $#@&^ center stud! If I miss one or two, I'm likely to get a no-contact jerk out of the loc. When I reduce the jerkiness to a dull roar, I can hook up my rail cleaning car to dust off the main rails, pulled by one of my heavier locs that tend to coast for a bit if they lose contact. Fortunately, I have a LUX vacuum and rail cleaner. I DON'T have the center rail cleaner. ($300.00 US! Are you kidding me?)

It seems like an impossible task: I can't use rail cleaning cars because the locs don't run. The cleaning cars won't clean the center studs hardly at all anyway, although they do some. I seem doomed to clean the center studs by hand, stud by stud.

Has anyone found something that is on HO trucks that had a center MILD abrasive that I can push around the track to clean the center studs?
\\RANT OFF\\
I did get an idea from one of the forum posts, that there is a 1200 grit fret cleaner "eraser" that looks promising. 1200 grit is only a polishing grit and would seem to be the least abrasive while cleaning surface issues without removing metal. I know this because of the metallurgy I learned as a gunsmith. If I had oodles of money, I'd just go buy the LUX center rail cleaner car and be done with it. However, it's been a while since center rail cleaning has been discussed very much and I'm wondering if any other procedures or products have come to light. I found a new track cleaner car from DAPOL, who normally specializes in O and OO scale product (They're out of Wales) but they have a DCC rail cleaner/vacuum car for less than $100.00 US. I'm just wondering if there's anything else out there.

Thanks for reading.

Yes, This is pretty much what I'm doing now. I have a thin ink eraser that has enough length to "skid" over the studs. I thought I'd try the fret cleaner because it's a bit thicker without being over-wide on the rails and less abrasive. Do you lube your rails at all? I keep seeing forum members using a light lube to reduce slider wear and to keep hard dirt off rails/studs. The lube also seems to keep the dirt from adhering. I don't know if this would work for me because of the long time lengths between use.

Do you mind me asking what track type(s) you're using?

My original layout was M track, and my locos including a particular Roco Tauras loco ran fine on this.

When I got some more space, I expanded the layout using C track. Despite having feeder tracks every 2 metres or so, many locos ran badly and the Roco mentioned above couldn't run much more than a metre with out stopping.

Getting to the point of desperation with this, I ripped up all the M track (a sad day for me, but necessary) and replaced it with C track, so that the layout is now all C track.

The Roco now runs fine with no issues or stuttering or sudden stops, as do other locos.

Ask me for a technical / scientific reason for this, well I can't give you one but the fact that these locos are now running fine leads me to think there is some sort of incompatibility between the two track types when used on a large (5.4m x 4m) layout.

I have a Lux track cleaning car which member xxup sold me, it can work wonders with dead spots. I also use a track rubber (well I did, but it seems to have grown legs and wandered off somewhere.....). I've also used an electrical contact cleaner on bad spots, this can fix persistent dead spots. As stated in the next post following this one, the problem is often the outside rails rather than the centre studs, so keeping the outside rails clean is important.

As per my post in this thread:

https://www.marklin-user...n-t-the-pukos-made-of-SS

Use a 2B graphite bar on the studs and you shouldn't have anymore problems. As for cleaning them first, I use the Roco track cleaner.

ps. its not the rails (unless you got dirt on them, if so just wipe them with isopropyl alcohol)


The only other issues that can cause dropouts are design related (ie. K track wide radius turnouts and DKW with centre hole sliders or small short wheelbase locos that lose ground connection)

I use C-track exclusively. Right now, I have a simple long oval with a dead-end siding on one long side and 3 passing tracks on the other. I'm going through the CS3 book examples on automation and experimenting with shuttles, yards, and blocks. My older layouts were using M-track and I only ran block signals on the layouts.

I hadn't really thought of graphite. It's electrically conductive, so I thought graphite particles might cause shorts. Also, I don't know where to get decent-sized graphite bars to use around here. Maybe large wooden pencils?

The disk in the article above is a really good idea, it's a long time since I have it on the todo list. Though I would give it a try alone, without any abrasive cleaning. How about a request to M* for one? Or maybe as next year's MRU wagon? :)

To start the process you could use a keep-alive equipped loco.

Cheers,

.costin

ebay, $5 from China:

https://www.ebay.com.au/...kAAOSw4CFYt8PL:rk:5:pf:0

I use the Centerline track cleaning car with free-floating brass weight, non-abrasive cloth strips and goo gone. It does a great job on the rails and cleans center too. I don't fasten the cloth with the bands, rather let the end flip free which helps with the center studs. I run with the wet cloth, then follow with a dry cloth on the weight.

https://www.centerline-p...scale-nmra-specification

You can order with Marklin couplers.

- Bill

I would agree. I need a loc and the special car with the Marklin coupler. I can find only expensive My World sets, nothing else, not even on eBay (USA)

There’s this loc:
Marklin 36101

Our sets do not use this newer controller so I’m unfamiliar with its performance. We have two adapter cars and they work rather well.

Heck no! I fact I found a source of graphite and I ordered a few bars. Since I haven't yet had the chance to use the graphite and experience the results, I'm keeping my options open. As long as I have open track, I believe your suggestion for using graphite is good. If I have covered or inaccessible track, I may need other options. No offense intended.

Check both Reynaulds and AJCkids.

I personally use 5000 grit and ATF on tracks and studs, I run digital on M-Track and so far it is trouble free.

5000 grit is good for use on car paint, it wont scratch the rails.

Regards

Henrik Schütz

Here at Amazon you get the loco.

https://www.amazon.de/dp...g=SdoxMEkOGy7hcKpa9WG7gg

The dealer is bwbahn in Munich.

http://bwbahn.com/epages...-14dba60cae51/Categories

Bwbahn is well known here in the forum. I myself even visited the shop personally in Munich this year.

An option for those that have powered catenary on thier layout is to fit one of the Eloks with a ski and run it off the wire and let the ski polish the studs for the steam and diesel style engines to use. I did this when I would first power up my layout after it sat most of the summer with little to no use. I would also run with both front and rear pantographs up to help with power pickup off the catenary which itself would have dust and such on it. Mike

So what graphite did you order, from where?

Nevermind, it varies by country. Found a set of 2B sticks in the US .... Amazon Prime, no shipping fee for me.

Here is my attempt at a center stud cleaning wagon. It combines a collector and a cleaning wheel. Made of 10mm acrylic glass the wheel is 41g and the rest of the wagon is 69g.

For now the central collector has the original metal surface, I'll try to see if it's enough to create some contact points. I'm also considering gluing a piece of paper to it, to which I could apply the graphite to help spreading on the studs (and the paper itself is a bit abrasive...).

Anyway, it was a lot of fun to create my wagon from scratch, I've learned quite a bit on dimensions and on how to work with acrylic.

OK. I was successful in getting a My World loc and adapter car for less than $100.00 USD. I can pull the Marklin track cleaning car with no problem. I don't have a heavier Centerline cleaning car to test with yet. The My World magnetic couplers are surprising strong. Marklin claims the locs rechargable batteries will let it run 1.5 hours on a complete charge. I'll continue to test with it but my priority right now is to replace all the C track I bought back during the late 90's spastic plastic fiasco. I've probably replaced 50 track sections already. I'm about to try replacing 60 more.

Here is my attempt at a cheap motive power for the above cleaning wagon.

I found a very well kept, very cheap Roco DC loco and adapted it to 3 rails, adding a mLD/3 (more than doubling the original price but hey, it's still cheap, ~80CHF in total, shipping costs included).

It has current pick-ups on all wheels and two new shoes. All 4 axles powered. Runs very quietly and so far is unstoppable :)





Cheers,

.costin

I use engine degreaser and those tiny teeth cleaning pipe brush things to clean the wheels, works very very well.
They are sold as Piksters, very useful.
I then dry the wheel with a cloth while the loco is running, its actually super easy to clean loco wheels if you can use aligator clips to power it up.

Another option is a Fleschmann track rubber, it is shaped in away, that the broad side will clean the rails and the narrow side will clean the studs.

They only cost around £8 to £10.

Give it a try

Harry

I've finished putting together the track cleaning cylinder, here's how it looks like in use or just carried around:




And in action:


Cheers,

.costin

If you can't find a track rubber, I found you can get "fret erasers" that are normally used to clean and polish frets on musical instruments. If you live in the US, you can get them from StewMac (stewmac.com) at about $7.42/ea. I bought 3 and shipping was about $10.00. The good thing about these is that you can get them with different grits: 800 (Blue), 1200 (red), and 2000 (green). The finer the grit you use, the more rails and studs are polished rather than ground down.

Applor suggests using graphite as a cleaner. It has a dual purpose: 1) cleans rails (especially center rails) and 2) is also a conductor so residue will not interrupt power. It also does not abrade/polish the rails/studs. I suggest care in how much graphite you use because conductivity is a two-edged sword. Too much graphite in the wrong place may cause shorting, so, use graphite when track power is off, and vacuum up after yourself. I have lately used graphite very successfully to tune up track conductivity. The only warning I have is the same for rubber or graphite. You may not be able to use either on hidden track because of track access. I had no problem finding graphite on the web and in different dimensions. I finally chose 1/2" diameter rods. Others prefer thinner and rectangular dimensions. EDM electrode scraps are a good source.