Can anyone recommend a method other than the abrasive block?
At one stage in the near future I will not be able to stretch the necessary
distance and I'm looking for a comfortable alternative. I recall that orbit
produced a coach for N gauge with a pad and liquid - is this still in
existence, and if so, is it any good?
TIA
--
Steve
I've tried CentreLine cars, they use a roller with a cloth pad soaked
with cleaning solution. I found it didn't work very well, as the cloth
tended to snag one everything: railjoints, points, level-crossings, and
so on. One of those "practical" ideas that isn't. If the Orbit car for N
uses a cloth pad, I suspect it will snag on everything, too. I've seen a
couple of other commercial track cleaning cars in action, and they all
had some quirk.
IOW, the commercial track cleaning cars aren't any better than home-made
ones, in my experience. The best solution is to run a track-cleaning car
in at least one train every operating session. A simple and effective
car can be made by cutting a piece of hardboard to fit under a wagon;
use the kind that's smooth one side and rough the other. MDF also works.
Drill a couple of holes into the wagon floor, glue a couple of nails
onto the hardboard piece, and insert the nails into the holes. The
hardboard piece must have its ends bevelled so as not to snag
railjoints, etc, and the nails should be a very loose fit in the holes
in wagon floor. It will be necessary to add weight to the board, a layer
or two of lead sheet glued to it will do nicely. There will be enough
friction to slow down your trains a bit, but the board wil keep the
rail-rops shining. When it gets too dirty, either discard and replace,
or rough up with sandpaper, and use some more.
The above works very well for HO/OO and up, you may have to use some
weight in the wagon and some spring arrangement to get the board to bear
down onto the rails in N.
Some people have glued a piece of hardboard to a stick at a suitable
angle, so as to reach track a little too far away. I don't know how well
it actually worked, but the inventors seemed to be satisfied.
HTH
I use the Track cleaning pads from Gaugemaster - clip them to the axle
of a suitable donor wagon/carriage, then run the train around a few
times. Keeps the track reasonably clean, and does not snag on points etc
(at least, not in my case)
There are N Gauge versions available too.
HTH,
Ian
Have you thought about a Relco or similar? I know that there is always a
big debate on whether or not they etch the dirt into both the wheels and
track but we use one on Nictun Borrud and it seems to work well enough.
Elliott
"Ian Cornish" wrote
After a couple of hours continuous use on my layout the Gaugemaster pads
were remarkably clean, suggesting very minimal impact on the dirt which I
could still see in places.
After 35+ years of railway modelling I've still to find anything which
betters using a Peco track rubber followed by a quick hoovering of the
track. All metal wheels and a strict regime of cleaning wheels and track at
the same works best for me.
John.
"MartinS" <
Excellent product Martin. I've been using it for years now.
Sadly, my GER doesn't get run a fraction of the time that it use to (I've
lost interest in it) so it can be weeks, if not months, before it turns a
wheel. Yet when I do decide to run trains, there's very few dirty rail
problems. The few that there are, are easily solved by laying a six inch
strip of Rail-Zip on each rail on the line leading to the main staging yard
and, after a train or two have been run, all the dirty rail problems
disappear.
--
Happy New Year to all.
Roger T.
Home of the Great Eastern Railway
The standard DCC achieves most of it anyway. Its a high frequency signal at
a modest voltage. Thus many of the stiction issues which Relcos reduce (tiny
bits of dirt achieving insulation at low DC voltages) are removed.
Further, there are electrical flywheels in the form of capacitors sold for
many chips which will ride a loco over an interrupted supply for a short
period of time. As a fraction of a second is usually all that's needed, the
problem is dealt with.
A Relco is a solution to the wheel and dirt pickup problem in the analogue
world. The digital world has different solutions.
- Nigel
In message ,
Roger T. writes
This is directly contrary to our experience running an approx 60ft long
OO-Gauge layout where we have been testing rail-Zip. The layout runs a
number of rakes simultaneously and non stop [public running] for at
least sixteen hours every week and during the last month for some 26
hours minimum weekly - 8 hours at a stretch.
We scrupulously cleaned the whole of the track, with both rail pads
[Peco] and cleaning wipes. The whole layout was vacuumed off and each
item of rolling stock [we run 35 wagon rakes] was wheel cleaned and
serviced. Then Rail zip was applied and every possible inch of track was
run to spread it around evenly.
Our results over a five week period led us to the following conclusion.
That Rail-Zip considerably reduces regular [before running] track
cleaning maintenance, saving us some 21 hours over our five week test
period. It also seems to reduce the odd running fault that involved
slight 'sticking' of 'some' 0-4-0 locos running intermittently in little
used sidings. However the track had become increasingly filthier as time
went on even though the whole layout was vacuumed every day. The track
felt extremely sticky to the touch prior to a complete re-clean and
re-zip carried out on Boxing Day. During the five week period of our
test all running locos were regularly serviced and wheel cleaned in
rotation as is our custom. General rolling stock was not.
We will continue to use Rail-Zip as it's worth it for the huge savings
in time and effort that was previously involved before each running day,
but have no illusions about the filth that the stuff seems to attract to
the track and wheels. Amazingly the filth seemed to make no difference
to the considerably improved operation of the running stock. The line
just looked and felt filthy :0)
Cheers.
Why is it 'contrary'? You continue on to explain that it works for
you.
(snipped)
Which is exactly the idea, keeps your layout running without cleaning.
Why feel it?
Keith
I use rail. zip as well. It seems to me that you must use it VERY spareingly
to avoid a build up of crud, then it works as well as described. I also
clean the track with track cleaner and cloth / vacume every couple of
months.
Rob
Here's a thought that this debate about Relcos has just sparked for me.
We have a reputation for being a friendly bunch at exhibitions and traders
will very often bring a loco to demonstrate it on Nictun Borrud or point a
punter to us to ask if they can see it run on a proper layout.
At present new locos are sold without chips but more than one pundit has
expressed the view that before long the default will be all new locos sold
with a basic chip already fitted.
As I understand it, the current generation of chips will allow a loco to
auto-sense when it is on a non-dcc track and respond to a DC rather than an
AC input. In time this may result in second hand locos appearing which are
already chipped as well.
This suggests that it is only a matter of time before someone gives us a
loco to run and we fry their chip with our Relco.
Hmm. Think we will have to make a point of asking each requester if their
loco is chipped before we do this...
Elliott
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