Cleaning model railway track

A couple of interesting things have happened on my layout at the moment that may be of interest. Firstly, I am still playing around with some track modifications to better suit my Australian prototype-themed layout on the back of my former Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad (DME) track plan. I am trying to follow the advice of good friend and mentor, Alan Saatkamp, who reckons that if you want to change prototype on an existing layout, then apply the 80/20 rule: if you can make the necessary track changes to only 20% of the layout, then it's worth sticking with the existing layout. If not, might be worth starting again.

As a consequence, it was also time to clean the track! And what a range of options, opinions, and disagreements we have on this topic. Here's a picture of just a slice of some common model railway track cleaning products (specifically I am talking about HO scale track). You can click on the image to make it bigger and easier to see. Note I haven't included some popular items such as WD40 and mineral turps.

Now, I am no expert on this topic and rely on people with some credibility in the hobby for their views. Currently, I use white spirit as my primary cleaning option for wiping the rails. I often follow up with a few drops of Wahl clipper oil dropped sparingly around the layout. I will then run some trains to spread it over the tracks (an action I am still not totally convinced by). I sometimes (rarely these days) use the abrasive track rubber from Peco or Fleischmann but ALWAYS vacuum up the black particles that fall off the rubber onto the track. I have used Railzip in the past (which someone once told me was just car transmission fluid but I don't have any evidence on that one way or another). 

Both Inox and No-Ox-ID have been recommended (Greg from Fishplate Films and Ron's Trains N Things) but I haven't used them even though I have them. I understand that both those products (and Wahl clipper oil and Railzip for that matter) aren't good for locomotives with traction tyres so if you have some old Powerline 48s (like I do), then beware. 

Model Railroad Hobbyist a couple(?) of years ago arranged some chemical testing of popular track cleaning products and determined that non-polar substances were better to prevent arcing (causing the build-up of black gunk on rails and wheels) and to improve electrical conductivity. It is important to understand that cleaning the rails is not just about having shiny track but also to enhance electrical conductivity, especially important with DCC layouts. Funnily enough, kerosene topped the list but safer and effective options included WD40 contact cleaner (regular WD40 could also be used but not as good), CRC contact cleaner, Deoxit, Mineral Spirits, Wahl clipper oil, turps, graphite (used lightly), CRC 2-26, and Railzip. Products tending to be less effective and more of a polar solvent included IPA, acetone, and water (which was the worst).

I'll leave the choice up to the individual modeller but it sure is a helluva discussion topic!

In tandem with the choice of cleaning product is how one applies the substance to the rails. Some products require both rails to be wiped over, while others use just a few drops here and there. I have tended to use old cotton t-shirts (or singlets back in the day) to apply white spirit along the rails on the whole layout but will do so no more. Why is that, you ask? Take a look at the photo below.

 

That's right, a curved Peco turnout wrecked by the tail of the t-shirt catching on the point and ripping the rail away from the sleepers. At just on $60 for a replacement turnout, this was an expensive track cleaning mistake. I'll be applying the white spirits with a much smaller cloth from now on.

So whatever you decide to use on your tracks, please take care!!! 

 

Happy New Year 2011

Happy New Year to fellow railway modellers.

I hope Santa was generous over Christmas and that the festive season has been a rewarding one. Let's hope 2011 is a good year.

For me at Christmas time, I scored an Ezi-kit South Maitland Railways (SMR) 10 class kit which will be very nice indeed. I last saw one of these prototype SMR 10 class locos in action on a visit to the Rothbury Riot Railway at Branxton a few years ago.

I was actually up at Branxton a couple of days ago on my way back from a week's holiday on the NSW mid-north coast. I spent an hour or so by the trackside in 40 degree heat taking a few coal train photos. Madness I know!

Actually, Branxton would be a great location for an exhibition layout, either in steam days or in more modern times. There's plenty of railway action on the double track main line. The branch off the main to the Rothbury Riot Railway (ex SMR) would be an interesting extra.

My other Christmas presents of note included a couple of books - "Ray Love's Days of Steam" and the new softcover book from Train Hobby Publications, "Country Branch Lines - Cooma, Bombala, Canberra and Captain's Flat" - Part 3.

Other than doing some reading, some track plan doodling, and checking out two exceptional model railway layouts (one up at Hawks Nest and the other being the excellent South Coast Railway - see the blogroll), I had a pretty relaxing break.

Looking forward to 2011 and beyond...

Winmar

My layout Winmar, based on a fictional location just north of Albury on the Main South line in New South Wales, should be delivered to our new home at the end of next week. The layout has been stored, among other things, inside a 40 foot container at Allied Pickfords. With the extremely hot weather of late, I am hoping the layout (and other things) will be ok since I am not sure if the container sits out in some open yard or whether the container is under cover in some sort of warehouse.

Anyway, I will take delivery of Winmar on Friday week and have it placed inside the garage for the time being. I am still of the mind to disassemble the layout, lift up the track, and remove most of the wiring to be used again on a new layout. I guess that the condition of the layout when it is unpacked from the container will also have a bearing on my final decision.

Notwithstanding the desire to start afresh, I still really like the layout diagram and the concept of running a branch and an industrial siding off the main body of the layout. Having a small loco depot (Winmar being a junction station) is also a plus.

Here is the layout diagram in original form (click on the image to expand it for viewing). I did make some changes to the arrangement of the track on the baseboard when I actually laid the track down. I made changes to the purple-coloured sidings behind the station, lengthening one of the double sidings and omitting the siding off to the left (still in purple). Also, S7 in the blue-grey colour was extended around as an inside curve and joins the main just short of the entrance to the traverser as a grains loop siding.


Perhaps I might consider taking out just the station "module" and seeing if I can use it within the body of the new layout, although at this stage it is not clear what the new layout will actually look like and nor what final area in the garage I will have to work in. I am also considering whether to use the twelve track traverser (the traverser moves on heavy duty rollers from a computer server stack) since this will be easy to unscrew and keep intact. Suffice to say, the original layout plan as shown in the diagram and with the traverser fiddle yard at the rear is very much likely to change in context ... or disappear all together.

Winmar - first photos

To illustrate some of the points mentioned in my previous blog post, I have included some photos from the archives of my Winmar layout (thanks, Bob!). The photo of the track diagram on the control panel was taken just before the whole layout was put into storage a couple of months ago. The front face needs the masking tape removed at the bottom and another coat of paint.

The layout diagram shows the station (the black horizontal bar at the front) with the main line and a platform road linking both the loco depot (on the right) and the Lake Hume branch and oil depot on the left. There are three loop sidings (including the grain loop - inner left) and a headshunt. The dead end factory sidings (there is only one now) are in purple. Towards the top tight quadrant of the panel diagram is where an industrial siding forks off from the main. Both the main line and the industrial siding curve around to meet the tracks on the traverser.


The control panel is a box made from plywood with a lid that opens at the front using a piano hinge. The four panel meters measure current and voltage for each of the two controllers (cabs). The top row of switches are numbered and have blue/orange lights to indicate power and cab (one or two) for the fiddle yard sidings. The bottom row of switches are numbered for the power blocks on the display side of the layout. Three switches to right of the masking tape are for the three turntable roads in loco. The back of the panel box is open for access to the wiring and to house a couple of transformers. The panel box sits on an upside-down baby change table (that was no longer required!) which has been slightly modified with castors and elbow rests. Bob Stack drew up the layout diagram for me using a computer software drawing program. I laminated the plan and stuck it to the control panel box. I still have to finish the edging.

The next two photos show the front of the layout from different ends. The first photo looks down the straight from the Lake Hume branch end of the layout. You can see in this early photo that the sharp S-bend is still in place on the left. The replacement S-bend now takes the siding about four inches into the operating well but maintains the same length. The second photo shows the turntable at the loco depot end of the layout. A bicentennial liveried 80 class is visiting to add some colour to the shot.



This last photo shows the unfinished twelve tracks on the traverser. All the tracks are down now and wired up. Note the handles (on both sides of the traverser) for moving the traverser in and out to match up the selected fiddle yard track to the main line of the layout. You can also see one length of the aluminium framing that holds the layout baseboard grid together.



When I get my other computer tower connected up to a screen, I'll find and then copy some more photos of Winmar to my "active" computer for uploading to the blog.

Another fantastic layout

It would be remiss of me not to mention another fantastic layout I really admire. That layout is the US prototype layout of Gerry Hopkins - the Great Northern (Great Falls Division). Gerry Hopkins is a NMRA Master Modeller and he is also one of the key drivers behind the NMRA Australasian Region. I always take a great deal of inspiration from this layout, which is why I want to flag Gerry's layout as one of my favourites.

I mention it now despite the fact that Gerry doesn't write a model railway blog (to the best of my knowledge) and my last post specifically referred to Blogger bloggers. Having visited Gerry's layout three or four times over the past few years as part of a NMRA monthly layout tour, I am always impressed by the operational and scenic effect of the layout. I also love the track plan. You can tell I am a big fan of interesting track plans that have a strong preference for prototypical operations.

I will, no doubt, mention and discuss a range of layouts that have had an impact on me in some shape or form over the years. Moreover, I am always looking for new things and working through ideas on layouts I see for the first time, or ones that I have even seen before. And of course, there are those layouts I have only heard about through friends, or seen via model railway magazines and the internet.

And speaking of model railway magazines, I have three that have hit my reading shelf in the past week to finish off reading. Something for the next blog post...

Blogger layouts I follow

One of the interesting dimensions of blogging using Blogger is the connections with other Blogger bloggers of similar interests - in ths case, railway modellers. I realise that this is the community or social media aspect to the Blogger product. It is not as sophisticated as Vox nor as ubiquitous as Wordpress. But it still performs a connecting function to like-minded souls that I think I will like. But I digress.

I have decided to initially connect to two layouts featured on Blogger/Blogspot. They are South Coast Rail (SCR) and Bylong.

I have visited South Coast Rail many times and really admire the way in which the layout's operational and design elements have come together. Partly this is due to the track plan, and partly because of the thinking behind the layout's reason-for-being. I often invited myself over just to see the progress on the layout and see some new building or scenery under construction.

The second connection I have made is to Ray Pilgrim's Bylong. I first saw Bylong at the Sydney Model Railway Exhibition in the late 1970s. I recall a NSWGR 26 class saddle tank in action at the time. I was impressed back then by the layout and equally impressed when I read about the layout in an issue of AMRM. I would love to see another article in AMRM about Bylong, especially the emphasis on operations.

Since that time I have followed the progress of Bylong via third parties and the odd conversation at a Petersham Convention or model rail exhibition. I doubt that Ray would know me, although I know a little about Ray and his rock n' roll!

The common feature of both layouts are quality production and operations - and they are the critical points of interest for me too.