Today I’m finally going to address the issue of cleaning track. And I’m going to start by sharing my thoughts on NoOxID the track cleaning cure all tht you either love or hate. Then I go over what I don’t recommend using as well as how I clean my track. Finally I’ll introduce a new solution recommended to me by Larry Meir that he has been using for years and which I will be testing out on the Piedmont Southern over the next few months. And hopefully I won’t conclude that I was dumb enough to out this crap on my track!
Folks have already started asking for the Amazon link to DeOxIT so here it is. However I suggest you wait until I have a chance to test it and report back to you in a couple of months.
https://www.amazon.com/CAIG-LABORATORIES-D100L-25C-Contact-Cleaner/dp/B0000YH6F8/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3H67EIKX0HWSY&keywords=DeoxIT+D100L-25C&qid=1703257843&sprefix=deoxit+d100l-25c%2Caps%2C90&sr=8-1
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:30 NoOxID
3:31 Steve Brown’s findings
4:20 Slipping and sliding
5:01 Dust magnet
6:12 Avoid flammables
7:01 Avoid nasty organics
7:35 Avoid greases and oils
8:17 Avoid Goo Gone
9:27 What works for me
9:38 Lint-free cloth
11:10 Cork roadbed
11:33 Masonite slider
13:20 Cleaning cars
15:20 Removing dried glue and paint
16:16 Brite Boy to the rescue
16:51 DeOxIT
22:07 Wrapup
source
My two cents, Isopropyl alcohol to clean off paint and glue etc after building/weathering track, kerosene lightly wiped across rails then a clean dry rag to remove any residue, I have honestly cut my track cleaning to almost none. No loss of traction.
Thanks for the video Larry. Just like Mineral Spirits Isopropyl alcohol is also flammable and has a pungent odor, with the added benefit of water on the track. No-Ox-ID has been working well for me. I seem to remember that Ron said he cleaned his track again after all sorts of construction in his basement, not just after everyday running.
Two thumbs up! It's always good to get information on track cleaning dos and don'ts. Let's face it, NO ONE gets into this hobby so they can can enjoy the opportunity to clean tracks!
I really like No Ox on my O scale 2 rail layout. It helps if I run the layout frequently. I haven’t had to clean track for over a year.
I use a mix of Cayenne pepper, mustard, ipecac, asafoetida, croton oil and gunpowder.
Too many words for this level of information …Loves to Talk !
Thanks for covering this most controversial of all model railroading topics. Everyone has their very own magic potion approach to track cleaning. Of course, there's always more than just the potion itself. The method of application is also important, as is the geography of the layout and the frequency of operations, among other variables.
I look forward to your follow-up report on DeoxIT D100L. With your typical thoroughness, I'm sure that you will try to isolate as many peripheral factors as you can, so that whatever results you observe and share will be as reasonably scientific as can be obtained under the circumstances.
One observation that might be relevant, if not unduly complicated to obtain, would be the actual track current consumption in respective trials, if you could temporarily fit your RRampmeter to the test track.
Good luck with your trials!
This is a great explanation of these cleaning methods. I have been using the wood method for the past couple of years with a small scrap piece of 2 x 4 on N Scale tracks; So far it picks up all of the dust and debris. It's a smaller layout, so of course it's easy enough to run the wood over all of the tracks by hand, but I may look into a custom boxcar like you have shown with a flat piece of wood underneath. I'm also interested in the DeoxIT if using wood isn't holding up after a while and because I'm also constructing a much larger N Scale layout that might require a better cleaning method. Thanks for the insight.
I bought some "Rail-zip" for my slot car track….What CRAP. None of my cars would run after I cleaned the rails with it! I had to use other stuff to get the damn "Rail-zip" OFF.
Hi Larry and Merry Christmas to you and your family. I am glad that you are looking into this product and I look forward to the future results. Track cleaning is the bane of all model railroaders and a reliable solution would be wonderful.
I wonder how many of us really would run into problems with pulling power and slipping wheels tue to stuff like No-ox-id. If it's really making it so you don't really need to clean track, that sounds good.
For one thing, about half of my switches use the point's contact with the stock rails for power, so I don't really think any of that will matter.
As well, "it's not made to clean your track" doesn't seem like the best reason to not use something. I mean, cork isn't meant to clean track, is it? That's how you figure stuff out. "Hmm, I wonder if it'll work."
I wonder how many people under 50 have a wife that have a rag bin or old hosiery like so many people seem to think.
I just need to keep going back to the curiosity of how many people actually worry about traction when using no ox id.
It was kind of hard to sit through this though with so many thoughts.
Lets see…a volatile organic liquid and electricity. Bad combination
I use No Ox ID. If you are losing tractive effort, your using too much! It takes only a little. The trains spread it around. And it does what it advertised. Good electric contact. The back is also oxidizing nickel silver rail. If you run with Dust monkeys and fiber board track cleaners, you have little dirt issues.
I've been using INOX for a couple year and it works great. I have a 2% grade on my N scale Layout with no problems at all. Bob
I bought DeoxIT D100L, I intend to use it on rail joiners on Bachmann EZ-Track, I am fed up with having to wiggle rail sections to eliminate Dead spots. I have used it as a contact cleaner with excellent results. I worked as an electronics technician, and Instructor for 27 years. I will try using it as described for rail cleaning.
Try ammonia free glass cleaning, it works great
Merry Christmas, Larry, to you and yours.
This seems like the the perfect video series called "I was dumb enough to put this stuff on…."
Track maintenance is required regardless of how many trains pass per day. Even if the average is once per day, I would clean my tracks at least twice a year.
Many years ago I had a friend who had brass track. His layout was in a basement ( cellar, half was dirt ,no ceiling. He gad few troubles compaired to all of us. All he did was run his trains every day. He did have plastic wheels on the cars and dirt built up on the wheels.
Now I had my kayout in the addic and we gad to ckean the track everytime we ran trains until one day I tried Wahl oil.I put adrop or two in front of the train and ran it until it stopped. U back it up an inch or two and repeat the process. I did that on Sunday. The following Thursday the club came iver and ran trains all night. It stayed like that fir a month or two. Then I would do it again . I jever had problems again on rhat kayout. A few years later I rebuilt the layout but this time I was in DCC . It never worked again for me. ?????
No ox us uused in main electrical panels where opposite metals are used like aluminum and copper. I use it on my car battery. I don't have that white build up in the lugs. Whi knew?
Waiting for your results with great anticipation.
Those that didnt get good results with No-ox ID used it wrong..i find it impossible for it not to work… i have a garage layout and l ive in the desert. I had givin up on it because it never ran well, if at all, constant cleaning with very temporary, like hours, results
Disvovered No-ox id 6 months ago, trains run fantastic, had a temporary traction issue on grades, after about a week slippage was no longer an issue and trains still run flawlessly. If i start to see any sign of flickering or hesitation i run the CMX (dry) for a lap or 2 on the mains, wipe the spurs and the yard tracks with a tidy track and all is well…i try to vacuum everything every other.week or so..NOOX Id is nothing.short of a miracle fix and nobody can tell me any.different
We spent 8 hours doing a small layout track cleaning with small off cuts of dressed pine. It may be slow but it works no residue. But damn there is no magic soloution. Guagemaster did offer an an ultrasonic track cleaner which would burn the debris off as the wheels would pass it. It sounded and is an incredible invention however, only available to those of you in the DC world DCC players need not apply. What a shame.
I've used CRC 2-26 for years to clean track and wheels $4.25 at Home Depot.
Just a side note, our rolling stock wheels dont show any dirt build up like I thought they would. Not real sure where this crud came from but its only been an 3 engines and one was new and had only run since we cleaned the track. We will keep watching and update if we have any problems or great news.
600 grit emory board and clean dust off with damp cloth of iso alcohol. Done.
Thank you, Larry. I appreciate your comments but have a different experience. NoOxID was a clear winner on my layout. I started using it about 2 years ago. Was tractive effort affected? Yes. Initially after application, 50% reduction in pulling power on 3% grade was noticed. However, after two days of drying on the track, traction was only down 10-15%. Are the tracks sticky? Compared to IPA, yes. Slathering the rales is not required. After two years, I have not done a full cleaning once. Rubbing alcohol "rub down" cleanings used to be required 3 times a year before NoOxID special was used. Will I clean my track again. Yes. I think the "dust and grime" point is valid. If I am cleaning my track once every 18 months or so and the trains run on demand after weeks of non-use, then I have my winner.
History of my cleaning products:
Pencil eraser -> Bright Boy -> Goo Gone -> Clipper oil -> IPA -> NoOxID.
Hi Larry. This is a great topic and I look forward to your follow up after your testing. Reading all the comments and many other discussions on this topics, it seems to me that there are three related but also different issues.
1. Initial and remedial cleaning — that is, the best approach to restoring track/wheels to their clean state.
2. Electrical conductivity – what is the best approach for "treating" clean rails so that electrical performance is enhanced and arcing reduced. i.e. Joe Fugate's discussion of polar and non-polar solvents.
3. long-term performance – what is the best approach for reducing the need for remedial cleaning.
It seems to me that there are many approaches to #1 that probably achieve similar results (hence many of the comments to this post).
Re #2 – Fugate has introduced the idea of using products that reduce future micro-arching by paying attention to the polarity of the given cleaner or rail treatment. I do not have the background in materials engineering to assess these claims, but the scientific approach makes this convincing.
#3 remains the holy grail. When folks comment re their suggested approaches, I would find if very helpful if they were clear whether or not their approach results in reduced requirements for remedial cleaning. My casual scan of the NoOXid supporters comments suggests that the benchmark in this area should be at least one-year between major cleans.
John Geddes – Vancouver, Canada
I've always said that if you ask 50 model railroaders what is the best way to clean your track, you'll get 100 answers as what is the best way. I've tried them all! I'm no electronic genius, by any stretch of the imagination, but my understanding is that the way to get the best power transfer from your track to your locomotive is to have a clean avenue of travel. My latest adventures was the cleaning track with Mineral Spirits and applying NO-OX-ID. In my situation, it worked great–for a while, until my locos starting sputtering in certain area of my N scale home layout and when I took a cotton rag and wiped the rails (N scale) it looked like someone drew lines with a permanent marker! My layout room is a room built in the single stall of a 3-stall garage. Even though it is completely insulated, with no windows and the entry door has weather striping applied around it and the room is tied into the house's air conditioning system (a necessity in the summer month's, in Bakersfield, California), I continue to get the skid marks when wiping the rails. I believe Larry hit the nail on the head where the NO-OX-ID "grease" properties attracted all the dirt, hair and everything else, and it sticks to the track. So, I guess I will give this technique a try and see if my track stays cleaner any longer than it does now.
Very informative. I never did feel good about using No-Ox-ID, so I never did. Steve Brown's experience confirmed my suspicions when I watched his video on YouTube several years ago. I have been using a product for the UK called Track Magic that works very well. Depending on how frequently you run your layout it last between 2 to 4 weeks. It really cleans well, and improves conductivity. I'm looking forward to your test. If it works well, I will switch products. It will be significantly cheaper.
As an electronics tech, I have used Caig De ox for over 20 years on all sorts of applications with great results. On a whim,I used it to treat my Lionel Super O track layout over 3 years ago. As you are probably aware, Lionel units using AC voltage will create plenty of buildup on the track. I was amazed at how much better the trains ran and the track has remained far cleaner than previously.
The biggest thing that you missed was wood. I run N scale and I have a 6" piece of 1" X 2" wood. I rub the grain end of this piece of wood on the rails. I've done this enough to create rail grooves in the wood. This acts as an abrasive but is a really mild abrasive. After painting track, once it has dried (but not set for days), I can use this to take the paint off the rail heads. And, I use the Woodland Scenics cleaning kit as well as it has a nice handle.
The other thing I use is a chamois stick. These sticks are about 6" long and a half inch wide with an inch or so of chamois material on them. They are made out of styrene so they are firm but bendy. I can put some IPA on them and run both rails down pretty quickly.
I was totally unaware that so many people had train cleaning issues. I ran big trains(Like coupler breaking long) in both N and HO, which seemed to keep the track clean, and never really had any problems. I did wipe the rails with a kitchen scrubber (the sponge side) wetted with 90% alcohol, but that was rarely, if ever, really needed. I cleaned the wheels on my cars and locos a few times a year with alcohol and Q-Tips. The only problems I ever had was back in the brass track HO days. I was a little kid(4) when I got my first layout, a neighbor put it together, it was sold as a kind of a kit. No rolling stock, just premade and painted scenery and track that needed to be laid. I passed it to a friend's little brother when I was about 10, the brass track had long been replaced by nickel-silver by then, ballasted, and the manual switches had been replaced with Atlas powered ones. I switched to N about 1969, and had a pretty large layout. Only the worst locos had any issues with "stuttering", and many of those wound up semi-permanently parked in the yard, or in the worst cases, made into dummies that did nothing but sit there and have a glowing headlight. Modeling PC made it easy to repaint a badly painted loco, spray it black and put PC decals on it, done.
I’ve found out that the best stuff to use as track cleaner is CRC QD Electronic Cleaner. It leaves the track spotless, which has improved the overall performance of all my engines. Nothing else works a good as this “stuff”. Just spray a bit on a piece of lint free cloth, and rub the tracks w it. It evaporates very quickly, but again…it does the job.
I run a small N guage railway and have found that ordinairy kitchen universal spray clener, sprayed on a clean rag works wonders .You'd probably have to hunt a wee bit to find a MODERN cleaner that suits , but its way cheaper than specialised cleaners and works perfectly fine. 🙂
Larry I am curious about 2 things you did not mention and wondered if you have tried them in the past. The first is graphite #2 or #4 in a thin layer, and second CRC Contact Cleaner and Protectant. I greatly appreciate you sharing your experiences and knowledge with us help us avoid mistakes.
I only use WD-40 Specialist Contact Cleaner. Spray some on a blue shop paper towel, wrap it around a small block, and rub it across the top of the rails. Also clean the wheels with it as well. We use this contact cleaner at work, and it performs very well.
Hi Larry, as always very insightful and informative. I will wait for your results and conclusion on the DEOXIT. I have been using Track and Rail Cleaner ACT-6006 by Aero-Car Hobby Lubricants. I've had great success wit it but would like your opinion on this product, i only have a small layout and I am getting ready to move and build a larger layout. Your thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks again, looking foward to the next video.
I have been using CRC for over 25 year on both my old N scale and my HO current layout
It is an electrical cleaner sold at Home Depot
I also use alcohol
Just had a look at the price of DeoxIt D100L here in the UK, “HOW MUCH!!!” No way. Hope it works well for you.
Of course, if you have the money you could always have a "clean room" constructed to build your layout in, but then you'd have to use a decontamination chamber to enter and exit and change your clothing all the time.
Couple things to consider… Mohs Scale of hardness when using some type of "track rubber." Nickel is a 4 on the scale, anything harder than that can scratch your rails. Masonite is a 2-3 on the scale so no harm will come of the rails. You can scrub the rails with Masonite as hard as you want and no damage should come to the rails in terms of scratches.
One other thing to consider is humidity. Water vapor in the air (which is "polar") combines with the metals to attract dust, dirt and oxidizes the rails over time. A dehumidifier will help reduce these effects. Dehumidifier also helps with benchwork warping and prevents mold and mildew.
Hi Larry, I started using CRC2-26 on my large N Scale layout. It cut track cleaning to running my vac car around for dust. There was an occasional reapply on grades. But it worked great for me.