Heads or tails - Steel alloy or Nickel silver?

[Jim Banner]

What oil does the largest model railway in the world, Miniatur Wunderland, put on their track? None.

If you were to operate your trains as often as they do and in as controlled an atmosphere as they have, you too would have to clean your rails only very, very rarely.

Back in the real world that we live in, we have dust, we have pet dander and pet hair, we have lint from a house full of fabrics and carpets, and if we run our trains an hour a day, we consider that we run them a lot.  If you wish to clean your rails, and presumably all your wheels as well, every time your train starts to hesitate or its headlight starts to flicker, that is fine with me.  Myself, I hate cleaning track and much prefer to let it clean itself.  As I mentioned before, when I see a train start hesitating or its headlight start flickering, I add a tiny bit of oil and let it do the job for me.

I learned this trick from a British modeler who successfully ran his 00 trains (4.0 mm./ft scale on H0-gauge track) outdoors on steel track.  And I have been using it for the half century since.  At first I used Singer Sewing Machine oil, then switched to Wahl Hair Clipper oil and finally started using plastic compatible, very light "conductive" oil in several different brands.  Of late, I have been using Bachmann E-Z Lube Conductive Contact Lube on my small scale layouts.  What these oils have in common is that they are very light and do not oxidize.  Being very light they can form extremely thin films and being non-oxidizing, they do not form varnish on the rails.

As far as dust sticking to the oil, with very thin oil films it is more a matter of a bit of oil sticking to the dust.  This allows it to stick to the train's wheels where it builds up until the dust/oil dirt is thick enough to fall off the wheels.  We refer to the pieces that fall off as "dirt tires" because they look a lot like the treads that recapped truck tires often shed along the side of a highway.  Eventually we still have to clean rails and wheels, usually every four or five years on our H0 museum layout.  By that time, we have typically run 100,000 trains over the track.  That is 10,000+ trains each way each year, and yes, we have a counter that counts them.

I could go on about using oil versus dry rails on outdoor layouts, including several large scale garden layouts been run on DCC track power using aluminum rail.  Even though the large scale experts insist track power of any sort cannot be used with aluminum rail, and particularly not DCC, we have been successfully doing just that for a lot of years.

I hope poliss will be kind enough at this point to share his experiences running track powered trains on dry rails and on very lightly lubricated rails, and how frequently each required cleaning the track compared to the number of trains or the number of hours run and compared to the type of metal used to make the rails.

Jim

   

[poliss]

I have absolutely no problems running my trains on dry rails therefore I see no need to use any liquid/oil etc.

Miniatur Wunderland clean their track every month or so. I asked Erhard Baltrusch, who worked for them, why they didn't use cleaning fluid. He replied. "The reason why we dry-clean is also quite simple:
Any fluid leaves some residue on the tracks and the chance to completely dry the track is minimal. Damp track, however, is a magnet for dirt and dust which in turn is picked up by the engines and that results in higher maintenance of rolling stock. We tried it and had to state that some wagons picked up that much dirt that the wheels didn't turn anymore. Some engines just barely were able to pick up current due to dirty wheel boxes (especially the American ones)."

I also asked if he used track cleaning fluid on his home layout. His reply, "Well, I can only speak for myself but I made very good experiences with the dry method.
I had some of my NTrak-modules stowed away for about 4 years without a cover. Just vacuumed them, cleaned the track with a Roco track-cleaning rubber, vacuumed again, and ran trains. What more can you ask for? "

[NarrowMinded]

My locomotives run better with oil on the rails and for my auto start and stop sections running them dry is not an option. The Clement where you live may have a effect, i live a mile or so from the ocean and leave the windows open for The breeze, perhaps if i lived in hot dry Arizona with closed windows and filtered air conditioning dry rails may be better.

I guess you need to do what works for you, but remember just because something works for you it doesn't make it the only way to do it.

[poliss]

I live in England. We're surrounded by water. We have a saying. How do you know when it's summer in England? The rain's warmer.

[Jim Banner]

I also asked if he used track cleaning fluid on his home layout. His reply, "Well, I can only speak for myself but I made very good experiences with the dry method.
I had some of my NTrak-modules stowed away for about 4 years without a cover. Just vacuumed them, cleaned the track with a Roco track-cleaning rubber, vacuumed again, and ran trains. What more can you ask for? "

I am glad he (and presumably you) consider that a very good experience.  I consider vacuuming, scrubbing the track, and vacuuming again to be a lot of work compared to putting one tiny drop of conductive oil on each of a locomotive's pickup wheels.  My feelings may be biased somewhat by the fact that all but one of my layouts and the ones I am associated with have tunnels and/or helices which make manual cleaning more difficult.

My advice to ChugaChoo is this:  experiment.  Try a mixture of track - nickel silver, plated steel, bare steel, brass and whatever else you can lay your hands on.  And then try both dry cleaning and very light oiling.  See what works best for you.  With bone dry rails, you will probably find fewest stalls and failures-to-start on nickel silver track.  But with very lightly oiled track, you probably will not find any difference between brands of track or the metals they use.  From my experience, using the little bit of oil will save you from having to clean the track as often and under the right conditions will almost eliminate track cleaning completely.

Jim

P.S. to poliss:

Some engines just barely were able to pick up current due to dirty wheel boxes (especially the American ones).

I am assuming "wheel boxes" are the same as "journal boxes"  and am trying to remember what H0 locomotives might pick up power from journal boxes since Athearn abandoned the practice forty or fifty years ago.  Perhaps you could fill me in.  In the meantime, thanks for the lively discussion on track cleaning.

J.   

[poliss]

" I am assuming "wheel boxes" are the same as "journal boxes"". Couldn't say exactly. His first language is German, as you would expect as he's from Hamburg, and his English isn't completely perfect. It's a lot better than my German though. 
Conductive oil on the track must be a transatlantic thing. It's almost unheard of over on this side of the pond, but you seem to use it a lot over there.
I prefer the late John Allen's track cleaning car myself and the Tsugawa Yokou cleaner for wheels. Our climate is very damp. Bread goes mouldy before it has a chance to go stale.

[jbrock27]

For anyone reading this: forget steel track, get the nickel silver!

[rogertra]

Use nickel silver, you'll never regret it.

Use steel and you'll be kicking yourself for not buying nickel silver.

Cheers

Roger T.

[JayDee.4014]

How can you tell the difference between black roadbed steel and black roadbed nickel silver

[jward]

How can you tell the difference between black roadbed steel and black roadbed nickel silver

Simple. There is no such thing as black roadbed nickle silver in EZ track. Black is steel, grey is NS.