I'm following this thread with interest to see what expertise and experience comes out, as I'm just starting to plan a layout. One thing I've taken to heart from the various youtube videos on layout building I have watched and articles I've read is that one should always have some means of access to any track section - for cleaning or derailment or other issue clearing. That said, a periodic run of a cleaning locomotive that can scrub the center posts and tracks to remove buildup would be easier than climbing under a layout and poking one's head and arms up into a helix with a cleaning stick to scrub some rail.

Hi all,

I have so far not done any manual cleaning on my centre studs, apart from regular vacuum cleaning.

In my experience the continuous friction from the slider helps to clean the centre studs.

The real issue is the black deposits on the outer rails caused by a combination of oil, dust and the slowly degradation of your rubber tires on the loco's.

The best solution is really manual cleaning with a bit of white cotton rag and some alcohol based cleaning solution.

If you analyse how much effort you have to put into it when using a rag and cleaning solution, you can easily see why a dry pad put under a wagon, with minimal downward pressure is not really going to clean your track properly.

If I had to use cleaning cars I would opt for something like this:

http://tonystrains.com/cmx-o-clean-machine/

And then of course once you have cleaned the tracks it's equally important to clean the wheels and the slider on the loco's.

Brgds Lasse

I agree with Lasse that the real problem is with the outer rails getting "gummed up". The centre studs can be kept clean by running a locomotive around the layout at high speed. The slider will clean the studs very effectively.

The deposits on the outer rails are much harder to clean and will affect the transfer of power to the loco much more severely. Any sidings on my layout that are not regularly used will become unusable after about a week unless I clean the track thoroughly with a solvent. If I stop using the layout for more than a week or so I find I need to clean the whole of the track. I've also found by experience that the little felt pads on track cleaning wagons are useless!

Hidden parts of a layout will be partly protected from dust accumulation, but will get dirty eventually and will need cleaning manually. I've made it a point to avoid such areas on my layout, but if I ever feel the need to have a tunnel I will make sure I can get to the track from behind or through a removable section of scenery.

I think it would be nice if someone would make a rubber style track block that fit the Marklin track cleaner car!

Chuck

I also use a track rubber and find it very effective, but beware that they also abrade the track so should be used sparingly.

You also find bits of rubber are pulled off and litter the track....

Hi guys
Could I also suggest a light weight dust sheet, I find this helps to stop dust etc from landing on the track and adding to the oil, grease etc left by the locos.
Harry

I have used the peco rubber , another similar type of rubber, think it is made by Bemo or Roco. , whal oil , trakmagic , isoprop , "M"track cleaning wagon , & Schienen boy wagon. The peco rubber tends to break up on stud contacts ,the other rubber is much more resilient too studs , whal is good but very thick in density , isoprop is a very light fluid & evaporates quickly , Trackmagic seems to be the best fluid I have found at present , in between whal & isoprop . The M track wagon is only useful on the running rails ,no good on studs , The Schienen boy is a strange thing ,made of brass so plenty of weight ,has track pads for the running rails & a ski device similar to a pick up shoe with a slim strip of rough emery paper attached to it . There is also a similar attachment for the overhead using a pantograph with emery paper rubbing on the overhead pickup cable. There has been mention on here & possibly the old MML where some one used a strip of Masonite attached to a pick up shoe to clean studs & track .


We live about 300 meters from a very large salt lake ,high temps in summer [over 40 c some days ] . Last year we were in Europe for over 3 months & before we left I did a run with the M track wagon using track magic . When we arrived back home I ran a loco on the layout & found there was no problem with contact on the studs or catenary. I am still in the layout building area at present so there is plenty of dust around but still run a train around about once a month & have not had any problems . Main thing is very minimal oil on locos when servicing , check the rubber adhesion bands on wheels that they are not breaking up with age & don't worry too much about dust & grime as the first trains running will usually give a reasonably clean pick up surface .


Cheers Tom in Oz

The subject of dirty track has been discussed on this forum before and has again raised its ugly head. What appears below I wrote when it was last discussed but it was never posted as it took so long for me to write and interest in the subject had appeared to wain. Now might be the appropriate time!

Let me begin by saying that I prefer not to have to clean the track on my layouts or the wheels of my locomotives or rolling stock at all. I apologise in advance for the length of this post, but I feel that the members of the forum might benefit if I relate my experience over the past 12 years. During this period, I have never had to clean my track or the wheels of any locomotives or rolling stock, and I don't expect it will be necessary for the next 12 years or even longer.

I live in Lithgow which is located about 126 kilometres by rail west of Sydney (in Australia). The winters are rather cold here as we are about 1000 metres above sea level (occasionally it even snows here), and it is necessary to heat houses from April to September most years. The house I am renting has coal fired central heating which must be ashed and fuelled three times a day. The ash is dumped over the edge of the escarpment, and if the usual prevailing wind from the south west is blowing, it carries the ash cloud over (yes, you guessed it) the train shed. This is an old shed that was erected by the former owners as a temporary residence while the main house was being built. It is not dust proof and the roof leaks. It is now used for my layouts, and I soon discovered I had a major dust and dirty track problem after I erected my first layout, especially in winter. The ash settles on the layout, and on any locomotives or rolling stock left on the layout for an extended period of time. The layout should be vaccumed regularly (but isn't), and the dust must be brushed off the locos and rolling stock (which it is).

The problem became most severe when I began to experiment with DCC (not Marklin digital. Why? Well that's another story.) I found that it was necessary clean the track every three days to obtain satisfactory running. Initially the layout was used for 2 rail operation, but was later converted to run 3 rail as well using the old pressed metal Marklin catenary. This did not improve running reliability, and manual cleaning with a Peco track cleaning rubber under the catenary was difficult. I tried Peco electrolube, Wahl clipper oil and Rail Zip. These worked for 2 or 3 days, but because they were liquids, they attracted the dust, and when they dried out, they stopped working and the track had to be cleaned.

I had almost come to the conclusion that DCC was too unreliable compared to analogue DC when I was at Punchbowl Hobbies in Sydney one day in the third week of June 2004. I was talking with some of the other customers about our hobby when one of them remarked that he never had to clean his track. This caught my attention immediately and I asked how he achieved this. He ran HO models in 2 rail DC , and apparently used graphite mixed in a solution of methylated spirits on his track.

When I got home that night, I went down to the train shed. I had graphite but no methylated spirits, so I decided to use mineral turpentine instead. I made several applications of graphite and noticed an immediate improvement in the running of my locomotives. I continued applying graphite the next day, and after 2 or 3 hours there was a grey film of graphite on the track and on the wheels of the locomotives and coaches I had been running. I had made one mistake though: I did not clean the track before applying the graphite, and as a result there were two places on the layout where I still had unreliable pickup. I quickly cleaned these with the Peco track cleaning rubber, after which I had no further problems for 33 months. I then began to experience pickup problems at the same two places I had previously cleaned. This time, I cleaned them thoroughly, and I had no further problems till the layout was taken out of service.

The only “ongoing maintenance” that the layout required was to apply more graphite to the track every two months or so. This only required a dab or two of graphite with a paint brush on each rail, and took no longer than 2 minutes. It took longer to find the turps to mix with the graphite (it tended to evaporate between applications) than it did to put it on the track.

As noted earlier, this occurred in June 2004. A week later, I applied graphite to the layout of my friend John who lives in south west Sydney. Unlike my layout, John's layout is located in a bedroom in his house. It is 2 rail HO scale and uses DCC. It has two 21” radius curves both situated on 1 in 33 (3%) grades. Because it is situated in a cleaner environment, it had only been necessary to clean his track every fortnight. Twelve years later, the layout is still working, and apart from the periodic application of graphite, it has not been necessary to clean the track or the wheels of any locomotives or rolling stock in all that time.

I have since built a second layout which was planned for exhibition use. It was initially built as a 2 rail layout for steam locomotives, but was later modified to operate as a 3 rail layout using live catenary as the third rail. It has been taken to at least 6 exhibitions (2 of which were held by the Marklin Modellers of Sydney). If anyone has had experience of exhibitions, they will know that it is a real test of a layout's reliability, as the dust generated plays havoc with rail to wheel contact, and frequent cleaning of the track is necessary to maintain operational reliability. An application of graphite at the start of each exhibition is all that has been necessary to maintain reliable operation. The layout is now 8 years old, and apart from cleaning the track to remove glue and plaster after doing scenery work, there has never been any need to ever clean the track, or any locomotive or rolling stock wheels.

How does it work? The mineral turpentine (or methylated spirits) serves only as a carrier to bind the powdered graphite together so it can be placed on the rails where it is picked up by the wheels of locomotives and rolling stock, and distributed around the layout. The turps or metho evaporates, leaving the graphite which is electrically conductive (just like the graphite brushes used in most of the motors that power our models) to improve contact between the rail and the wheels. When the locomotive first runs over the graphite, it sounds as though it is running over gravel, but the graphite is soon ground down by the wheels of the locos and rolling stock as it is spread around the rails.

Using graphite to keep track and wheels clean as I have outlined above is not without its problems, which are as follows:
1. Graphite is a lubricant, and it will affect the adhesion of locomotives. The loss of adhesion is worst immediately after graphite has been applied to the track. After a couple of days, things settle down and adhesion improves, but there is still loss of adhesion. I must note, however, that Peco Electolube, Wahl clipper oil, Rail Zip or other similar products to improve electrical contact, will also cause a similar loss of adhesion, as they are all basically lubricants. The problem with all these other products is that they stop working when they dry out, while the graphite continues to work as it is a dry lubricant.
2. Adhesion is also affected by a second factor: the turps I use to bind the graphite together affects the rubber traction tyres on the locomotives. It causes the tyres to expand slightly, and to harden. Eventually, they begin to slip on the wheels. This mainly affects the locomotives used to initially distribute the graphite along the track, as the turps quickly evaporates. I suspect that if I had used metho instead of turps, it would have been less of a problem. In an effort to eliminate this problem entirely, I am now using iso-propyl alcohol, but it will be at least a year before I know if this works, as I only have to apply graphite on my two layouts every two months at most, and then only in small quantities. I run locomotives mainly by Marklin/Trix and Hag, but also Fleischmann and Roco. The locomotives that were most seriously affected by loss of adhesion were Fleischmann tender steam locomotives, as they are tender driven, usually (but not always) through only 2 axles.

How big a problem is the loss of adhesion? On a scale of 1 to 10, I would personally rate it as a no more than a 1. This will of course depend on the nature of the layout, but most of us don't have the space for very large layouts and as a consequence, don't operate large or full size trains. I have no problem running 5 or 6 coach passenger trains and even longer freight trains, and my mate John is able to operate prototypical trains on his layout, even with its curves and gradients.

I have found the benefits of using graphite as outlined above are as follows:
1. I never have to clean the track on my layouts. This has saved me countless hours over the past 12 years.
2. My locomotives run more smoothly with graphite on the rails than they otherwise would if the track had only been cleaned.
3. I never have to clean locomotive or rolling stock wheels. Apart from the time this has saved me, it has one other great advantage. Modern locomotives and rolling stock are usually highly detailed with plastic parts that can be quite fragile and easily damaged, especially when cleaning wheels. If you don't have to clean the wheels, then models are far less lightly to suffer damage to detailed parts.

There is only one further matter to discuss and that is the type of track used. I use either Peco or Atlas code 100 nickel silver flexible track, and Peco points (switchs or turnouts). Some of this track has been salvaged from other layouts and is being used for its second or third time. The question for many of the members of this forum is,”Will graphite work with Marklin track?” Though I have no actual experience, I have no doubt it will work with K and C track, as the rail profile is similar to Peco and Atlas with a flat running surface. However, I seem to recall that M track has a hollow profile rail with a curved running surface, so it may not be as effective.

Summing up my experience, I have no doubt that the benefits of using graphite on my layout greatly outweigh the loss of adhesion caused by using the graphite. The time I have saved over the past 12 years in never having to clean track and wheels must run into many days, and freed from that drudgery, I have been able to use that time instead either running trains or carrying out other aspects of our hobby that I enjoy.

Geoff

I would have thought that graphite (carbon) suspended in turpentine would make an explosive mixture.

Maybe I'm wrong. I'm no chemist.

The silicone is an insulator.. thats the last thing you want when you need electrical contact between the wheels and track.

Ray, I'm no chemist either. The way I understand it is graphite is the highest form of coal which is also a carbon. Unlike coal, graphite is hard to ignite so I would think that the chance of an explosion would be rather remote.

Chuck

P.S. Of course combined with the thread about inhaling the smoke given off by our HO engines, this hobby has more danger attached to it that I first realized.

Explosions and lung disease...what next!

Have you tried using Isopropyl on those pads and letting the wagon run? It seems to work for me.

Hi guys
Thank for help and advice . I will go on the LUX 9635 set and hope it will be good for me
Regards Doron