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HF Track Cleaners


Owen Edis
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No  Not in my experience of 30 odd years using Relcos.  The earler ones could be wired just using track power and have probably become less effective as locos have become less power hungry, but ours still keep the track  prety clean as long as we don't run anything with traction tyres and keep the room dark. The Hidden sidings have survived on a Relco and an occasonal rub with a track cleaning rubber under a wagon every year or so and haven't been exposed for about 15 years.   You may have gathered I'm a big Relco fan.    I was running OO  trains in the snow earlier in the year double headed panniers charging into virgin snow.

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I had a Gaugemaster HF1 wired into my old Bembridge layout from when built in 1993, right up to when I sold it on in 2008. I had very little problem of mucky track in all that time, more often from being left unused for a couple of months at a time between a few of the 70 - 80 exhibitions it was shown at over that period .:sungum:

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3 hours ago, Mike Buckner said:

Please help my poor old brains - I can't see the benefit of keeping the room dark.

You can't see rough track work? David has many times reported the sparks and arcing of rail joiners.

 

Don't know if these are relevant to you.

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For some reason track seems to get much dirtier indoors when exposed to daylight than when kept in the dark.   Likewise stock and card models especially deteriorate when exposed to strong daylight, just look in model shop windows.   It seems to be daylight, as opposed to artificial light which does the damage.  We have a small amount of track which the sun shines on through the windows etc and it gets very dirty very quickly, needing a wipe with the track cleaning rubber before running trains.  Equally oddly the track outside in the rain stays cleaner than that under cover but still exposed to sunlght.  The track in the loft which never gets exposed to daylight suffers very little from dirt, it went rusty where the roof leaked though,

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2 hours ago, DavidCBroad said:

For some reason track seems to get much dirtier indoors when exposed to daylight than when kept in the dark.   Likewise stock and card models especially deteriorate when exposed to strong daylight, just look in model shop windows.   It seems to be daylight, as opposed to artificial light which does the damage.  We have a small amount of track which the sun shines on through the windows etc and it gets very dirty very quickly, needing a wipe with the track cleaning rubber before running trains.  Equally oddly the track outside in the rain stays cleaner than that under cover but still exposed to sunlght.  The track in the loft which never gets exposed to daylight suffers very little from dirt, it went rusty where the roof leaked though,

 

Are you near the sea? UV can affect corrosion in a marine environment.

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7 hours ago, AndyID said:

 

Are you near the sea? UV can affect corrosion in a marine environment.

Nearest sea is about 70 miles away. Track is code 100, Peco, Streamline points, Steel track inside, N/S outside and some odd bits of Graham Farish etc   The shed has roller blinds whch stay down 99.9% of the time and is connected to the house central heatng. Most of the track is 30 years old, some is 60!   

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5 hours ago, DavidCBroad said:

Nearest sea is about 70 miles away. Track is code 100, Peco, Streamline points, Steel track inside, N/S outside and some odd bits of Graham Farish etc   The shed has roller blinds whch stay down 99.9% of the time and is connected to the house central heatng. Most of the track is 30 years old, some is 60!   

 

Sixty miles is probably too far for it to have any effect. It could just be the UV is degrading anything non-metallic and generating a lot of dust that contaminates the track. Some of it might be slightly acidic too.

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