Track cleaning revisited

 The tl;dr version is this:

1. Mineral Spirits is the best bet for track cleaning fluid
2. An abrasive like a Bright Boy is said to be bad due to creating micro-abrasions, which can hurt conductivity as it causes gunk to build up.  But if you've neglected your track for 10+ years there may be zones where you need an abrasive material to get rid of rust or similar just to get it to work.

Starting up again I knew I was in for a major cleaning job.  I'd neglected the layout for 10 years, often it was used for storage so stuff got spilled.  It was all kinds of dirty.  I tested 3 types of cleaning fluid on 3 parallel tracks for a 12 foot distance.  I used several locomotives, all which had been opened out of the case for the first time and had newly installed decoders (and which had been confirmed to run well using a separate, fully clean, test track).

Mineral Spirits is recommended by many prominent model railroaders.   Denatured Alcohol is the main cleaning fluid that the Colorado Model Railroad Museum in Greeley, CO, uses.  (A great place - a future post about it is warranted.)  Isopropyl Alcohol was my mainstay since the 1970s - both 70% and 91% versions.

Well, the Isopropyl Alcohol lost the test badly.   Probably fine for a frequent light clean of an already clean track.  The other two both did great.  So, I started with the Denatured Alcohol because the CMRM has very smart people.  But they also have great ventilation.  I don't in winter.  The next day in that room my eyes watered badly and I had to air the place out despite the freezing temps.  So Denatured Alcohol was disqualified, leaving Mineral Spirits.  I may do Denatured Alcohol again in the summer when the windows are open.

Even after my first cleaning there were bad spots on the track and some track areas showed visible rust and just would not clean no matter how much scrubbing was done. The Bright Boy tool, something I bought decades ago but used rarely, followed by more cleaning with mineral spirits, solved most of the remaining cleaning problems.  But even then a new unexpected behavior occurred: Locomotives would run just fine over track but in some spots wouldn't notice DCC commands to, for example, stop moving or turn off lights.  More repeat cleaning would solve that, but I then had to retest all of the track I thought was clean to detect those DCC-fuzzy spots.

In the (Wednesday) Evening

With trains running there is some definite momentum. Fixed three more items from the problem log today and made progress on the never-ending concrete-tie project.

The first item was to fix Loconet cables. Without going into details, Digitrax Loconet cables are 6-wire phone cables that users typically make themselves. When I was doing this back in 2007 I didn't realize that it was important that the wire orientation, left-to-right, be the same on both ends of the plugs. If you ignore this requirement Loconet itself still works, but later when you try to use RailSync it will fail. So, today I surveyed the Loconet cables on the layout and corrected the plug ends where needed.

The second item was to move one of the UR91s (the Digitrax one-way radio transmitter, of which I have two) from the top of "the Box" to a spot along the fascia on the east side of the room. This required setting up the Loconet cable. In addition, I have 8 vanilla Digitrax UP5 panels at various points in the layout and two UR91s, all of which are powered by a single Digitrax PS12 power supply (up to 10 such devices are supported on one power supply). This requires a single 18 gauge (or so) wire connecting all the devices to provide a "return" path for the current that comes in via Loconet. This return wire is labeled UP5 -- and I made sure that the labeling is now extended to the entire layout.

The third item was the Amtrak P42 locomotive problem mentioned yesterday -- where it "clicked" from time to time during normal running. Turned out this was a piece of debris that got lodged up high in the gears above one truck. The bad news is that in the process of debugging this I broke a piece of plastic, so now the loco runs great but if you pick it up from the track the truck is apt to fall off. So, one problem fixed, but a new item to order and install a replacement part for the same locomotive.

For the concrete ties I found that I still don't have the colors right, even after adding dullcoat. Sigh. I also tried a few more methods to "sand" down the fake wood grain without good result. I think I need a visit to an art supply store to seek out more options here.

Grainy Concrete

More progress. One of the goals of the week was to address three of the issues on the problem log. Already two are done.

The new DT402D (two-way radio) throttle was having an issue where at times it would seem to lose communication with the base, so we'd have a runaway train. I read the manual and made two changes. First, there is a throttle setting for maximum battery conservation -- that comes set by default and I turned it off. Second, the manual said that if you hit the Loco key once you dispatch (lose control of) the locomotive. Odd -- I'm not sure if that was the same behavior on the DT400R throttle -- but on that one it wouldn't have mattered while running wireless because changing locomotives required plugging in. So I now know to avoid that. Not sure if the problem is solved, but I now have it in "monitoring" state.

The other issue was to resurrect the Kato Amtrak P42 Genesis locomotives that I bought in 2002. Back in late 2002 or early 2003 I tried a method of track cleaning that someone recommended -- using metal polish. VERY BAD IDEA. It left a partially-insulated coating on the track and on the wheels of the engines that were unfortunate enough to be used for this experiment. I then compounded the mistake by installing decoders in the P42s in 2006 without first verifying that they were working fine with DCC. Now I had two non-working locomotives and didn't know whether the problem was DCC related. I set them in my project box where they stayed until last night.

I brought out the old Digitrax Zephyr, the Digitrax low-end starter set, which I bought in 2005 and used until I upgraded to the Radio Super Chief (now replaced by the duplex version) in 2007. I kept the Zephyr because it could be used for my son's HO set and also used for testing locomotives at the work desk, which is what I used it for last night. When I put the P42s on the programming track the decoder could barely be read for one and not at all for the other. Then I tried putting them upside down in one of the N-scale foam cradles I have (a must for any N-scaler) and tested again, this time with electric alligator clips connected directly to the wheels. Much better connectivity -- both decoders were easily read and I could actually get the motors to spin in track mode. So, using this, I took a wheel-cleaning brush (also a must for any N-scaler) and used that while the moter was running, then followed with rubbing alcohol and a q-tip to clean off any left over gunk. Afterwards both ran beautifully on the track, although one of them developed a "click" after two laps that I'll try to look into today. It was fun -- for the first time in about 7 years we ran the Amtrak superliner, and the first time ever with the MHCs that I bought in the interim.

This method definitely goes into the engine cleaning arsenal.

Otherwise, I also worked on the main task for the week, making the Peco track look like it has modern concrete ties. I put 4 layers of paint on the ties hoping to cover up the fake wood grain and found that even then some of the wood grain shows through. Rats. (Hence the title of this post.) Probably will need to somehow sand off the wood grain. Will be looking at that today.

Otherwise it looks pretty good -- I need to make the color a little more grey, but before I do that I want to add rust to the rail sides and the rail clips and spray some dullcoat on it today and see how it looks after some weathering.

For the rest of the week I will continue to focus primarily on the concrete ties, but in between will continue to address the issues on the problem log.

Upper AR problem solved (?)

I was testing the Upper Auto-Reverse problem mentioned in the last post when it suddenly went away. I determined that the problem was that only one rail was switching polarity, not the other. Trying to isolate the cause I used the multi-tester on the PM42 connectors, but having forgotten I turned the MT off, touching the connectors caused the DCS100 to short circuit and the PM42 to switch polarity again (at least the indicator light changed). That reset apparently stopped the problem, as the PM42 now works fine again.

I'm putting this into the "monitor" category on the problem log as I don't understand the solution and thus the problem may reoccur. I'm also wondering if this was the same problem I had with that one "bad" PM42 section in 2007. Hmmm....

Problem Log

I've finished cleaning the staging area so that I can now run trains on all tracks and have set up 3 trains to run for testing. As expected problems have been found, but so far *none* with the newly built staging track and switches (I expect this to change as the usage intensity increases).

I've created a Problem Log in Excel to record what needs to be done and keep a record of past issues. So far 3 problems have been noted with the track on the main layout. Two of these are where the main layout connects to upper staging, and will require relaying the track. The other is probably a switch cleaning issue. (Note on my post last year about switch frogs I mention that electric frogs are susceptible to losing electrical contact -- I think that is the issue here.) One intermittent coupler problem has been found between a car and a locomotive. And 3 engine problems have been found -- actually I knew about them before, but rediscovered them when I tried those engines again.

My intent is to use the Problem Log as a means of dealing with issues as they come up. This isn't the same as a preventive maintenance log, which I'll need to start as well. I have a roster sheet and I'll add some maintenance columns to that.

Otherwise this week hasn't been as productive as last week due to distractions from work, starting with a business trip. I was able to use some of the off-time on the trip to write up the post on curves and to start work on the next design posts for the iNdoor layout. I have another business trip next week so hope to complete those on that trip.

However, I do need goals to keep going. By the end of this coming weekend I want to have:

1. Fixed the known track issues,
   
2. Decided on and ordered the power management module (circuit breaker) from Mike Gleaton,
   
3. Sort out the wiring on the south end of the layout, adjacent to staging, so that it conforms with the newer wiring standards,
   
4. And buy and install two more shelves for the power cabinet (it has only two now).

For next week I will install the power management module, initially treating staging as one power district and the rest of the layout as the second district, but with the expectation that this will change as the layout grows. After that is done I should be able to organize the components in the power cabinet into a semi-permanent configuration, with room to grow. Both of those can happen next week and leave time for other stuff.

From there I have a few choices as to next steps, but I'm leaning towards picking up a task I started maybe two years ago and never completed, which is to figure out how to scenic the track on the main layout. There are some special requirements here, which I'll cover in a separate post, and I feel I really should understand the solution before I lay any more mainline track.