Hornby Track Help needed

"Privacy" wrote

Twenty years ago Hornby track was made from steel and was not terribly reliable for transmitting power. In more recent years the rail has been of nickel silver.

I'd suggest cleaning both the rail surface and the loco driving wheels and applying some very light (sewing machine) oil to the motor bearings. Try powering the motor brushes and seeing how well the loco(s) run off the track and if all is satisfactory try them on the cleaned track.

John.

Thanks for reply John I said about 10 - 20 years BUT thinking on, it could be older. Do you suggest buying all new track and starting again, as I tried cleaning track with spirit but not a lot of improvement. Cheers Pete

Email:- snipped-for-privacy@nospamgmail.com for reply please omit nospam

In message , John Turner writes

Privacy wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@postbox.karoo.co.uk:

Try using a rubber (pencil eraser) on the track, a lot of gunge won't come off without a good hard rub. Don't use sandpaper or a file or anything of that nature as that will damage the surface of the track and ultimately make things worse.

If you have a small brass brush use that to clean the wheels on your engines, failing that back to the rubber. Also look at your engines to see where the pick-ups are (where the electricity is transferred from the wheels to the motor), they look like very thin reddish/bronzy strips of springy metal. Make sure that they are clean as well.

As John suggests (who knows a lot more than me) lightly oil the motor barings - but be very sparing, you might also want to lightly oil the wheel barings and any linkages to any coupling rods - again be very sparing.

My guess is that you just need to give everything a good clean and you'll be away. When your engines are running let them do a good few laps at a constant speed to let them run in again and any addded lubrication distributed well.

Don't worry if the track is steel and not nickel silver, it'll be fine after a good clean.

"Privacy" wrote

You can certainly put a lot of effort into cleaning steel track for very little gain. I certainly wouldn't consider using steel under any circumstances.

John.

"John Turner" wrote in news:dv14mq$ocm$ snipped-for-privacy@newsreaderm1.core.theplanet.net:

I don't know I picked some up quite cheep a year or two ago and apart from teh stuff I soaked in water (more fool me!) it's been fine, I've even salvaged some to use in my new layout ... admittedly the salvaged stuff is being used onteh staging area but it still works fine.

Likewise having spoken with a few finescale and P4 chaps they swear by it, but in their case it's more a case of wanting it for the colour (silver topped) rather than the yellows clolour of nickel silver.

Fishplates work loose with age. Replacing them with brand new fishplates is a cheaper alteranative to replacing entire track sections. Beware that running very old Triang-Hornby Code-140 stock on new Code-100 rails will cause the flanges to bump up and down on the sleeper chairs with an accompanying display of blue sparks and a strong smell of ozone. A bit like southern region DMU's really :o)

A problem I had with my A1A-A1A diesel was that the auxiliary electrical pickups to the second bogie had become detached, causing intermittent power loss when running over bad joints. A quick dab with a soldering iron should cure it.

(kim)

In message , kim writes

Really? How would you get sparks from DMUs? Or maybe you meant EMUs?

Maybe he meant Southern Region DEMU's :). Or meant DMU's catching fire which they had a tendancy to do before they were modernised.

Chris

No I meant EMU's. I think it was more of a freudian slip than a typo.

(kim)

What on earth are you doing with Emma Freud's petticoats?