Running on Filthy track

[Butler Henderson]

Two ways of cutting down on the need for track cleaning are ensuring all wheels on all coaches and wagons have metal tyres and not using locos fitted with traction tyres.

[NBL]

Clean track is essential, as is clean wheels.  A regular cleaning routine will work wonders.

 

If you don't have stock with taction tyres then rubbing the rails with graphite, especially in the hard to access areas will help running and cut down on the track cleaning, but the wheels if all stock need to be cleaned.

 

Speaking of traction tyres, I've never seen a European layout that runs bad, yet they have a heavy reliance on traction tyres.

[AyJay]

Morning all. I was about to say “You’re missing something here” when I spotted something The Johnster had put. 
We may be strong, agile and confident when we construct our layouts, but age will start to take its toll and creep up on all of us. ( my knees and back are complaining). So at the design stage, it is well worth asking such questions as: Can I easily dismantle it? Will it fit through the door/loft hatch? Can I lift it and move it when I’m old and losing my strength? Can I reach all the important bits without bending forward or wriggling underneath on my back? (I have to say ‘No’ to that last bit).

If you have built your layout as a solid immovable fixture in your home, then you had better sign up for yoga classes, or whatever it is that keeps you supple, and plan to never move house.

[Dunalastair]

Clearly it will not help if you cannot reach a derailment in the further corners, and your existing locos may not be convertible, but in the spirit of clockwork, battery-powered radio control can provide a way to operate with dirty (indeed dead) track. 

 

Of course in the right scale (and with an appropriate budget), you could go the whole hog and try radio-controlled steam...

 

Track pickup is not the only way to run a model railway. 

Edited October 2, 2023 by Dunalastair

[philsandy]

13 hours ago, sncf231e said:

I never clean my track (when I am running clockwork trains😉)

Regards

Fred

 

DC clockwork or DCC clockwork?

[Sotto]

1 hour ago, AyJay said:

Morning all. I was about to say “You’re missing something here” when I spotted something The Johnster had put. 
We may be strong, agile and confident when we construct our layouts, but age will start to take its toll and creep up on all of us. ( my knees and back are complaining). So at the design stage, it is well worth asking such questions as: Can I easily dismantle it? Will it fit through the door/loft hatch? Can I lift it and move it when I’m old and losing my strength? Can I reach all the important bits without bending forward or wriggling underneath on my back? (I have to say ‘No’ to that last bit).

If you have built your layout as a solid immovable fixture in your home, then you had better sign up for yoga classes, or whatever it is that keeps you supple, and plan to never move house.

There is a pop up video ad that I often see here which shows a chap not in the first flush of youth crawling around a layout that appears to be in a space about 3 feet high under a floor. Every time I see it my back and knees hurt in sympathy...

[fulton]

1 hour ago, AyJay said:

We may be strong, agile and confident when we construct our layouts, but age will start to take its toll and creep up on all of us. ( my knees and back are complaining).

Very good advice, when I was planning my garage layout I took advice to have a hinged lift up section rather than a duck under, twenty years later, with poor knees, that was such good advice. In my twenties I exhibited a layout regularly, it then went into storage for twenty years, when time came to pass it on to a new owner, I thought did I really take such heavy boards to so many shows, I physically could not do it today, or want to.

[philsandy]

16 minutes ago, Sotto said:

There is a pop up video ad that I often see here which shows a chap not in the first flush of youth crawling around a layout that appears to be in a space about 3 feet high under a floor. Every time I see it my back and knees hurt in sympathy...

 

Ha! yes. I think it's in a roof space? Every time I see it I think, there's that poor bloke still crawling around in the loft.

[AY Mod]

33 minutes ago, Sotto said:

There is a pop up video ad that I often see here which shows a chap not in the first flush of youth crawling around a layout that appears to be in a space about 3 feet high under a floor. Every time I see it my back and knees hurt in sympathy...

 

11 minutes ago, philsandy said:

Ha! yes. I think it's in a roof space? Every time I see it I think, there's that poor bloke still crawling around in the loft.

 

It was a, sort of, cellar or at least a void beneath floor level. I believe the gentleman is no longer with us but, who knows, the layout may still be lurking under that kitchen trapdoor and the current resident has no idea. An interesting archaeological find for the future?

[Oldddudders]

1 hour ago, AyJay said:

We may be strong, agile and confident when we construct our layouts, but age will start to take its toll and creep up on all of us.

All part of the joy of ageing. I started the present layout in 2006, aged 57, including duck-unders at either end of the 9-road fiddle yard. Track is 4' above floor level, but the L-girder verticals are 6" deep, so i have to get under about 3'4". Now, approaching 75, with osteoporosis, the joy of squatting or sitting under the layout soldering wires  is somewhat diminished, I have to say, although having had a rogue parathyroid gland removed a month ago, my calcium intake may improve, so things may not get worse. My Scots (!) cleaner tells me I'm a lot more flexible than she is, despite being 17 years older! 

 

I have a box of a dozen tortoise point motors sitting awaiting use, and am challenging myself by having bought a DS74 quad accessory decoder at Stafford. Several points may get powered.

 

 

[kevinlms]

1 hour ago, philsandy said:

 

DC clockwork or DCC clockwork?

Surely it should be whether you wind it up clockwise or anti?

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Ian, that advert always makes me feel claustrophobic. Re-Tortoise point motors, have a look at this:

 

[Peter Kazmierczak]

1 minute ago, kevinlms said:

Surely it should be whether you wind it up clockwise or anti?

Very clever, Kevin; clockwise or counter clockwise.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

3 hours ago, NBL said:

...Speaking of traction tyres, I've never seen a European layout that runs bad, yet they have a heavy reliance on traction tyres...

Now fifty years past, Bernie Victor managed to sell me a Rivarossi Big Boy (I had been looking for Athearn HO centre motor drives to repower OO diesels, but that's another story). This item - which I still possess and operate - surprised me some years later by losing traction in the wet when I had an OO garden line. The cause, I 'discovered' that day was that it had a couple of translucent traction tyres which were practically invisible, and which still survive today! (Traction tyres, even when made in a superior material for all of appearance, longevity and no detectable propensity to create track dirt, still don't work on a wet rail.)

 

In this matter as in much else, HO mechanisms were then and remain streets ahead of OO in technical proficiency. Though personally, I don't want traction tyres, even competent examples, unless I were to suddenly experience a desire  to model the Paris Metro...

[Wheatley]

Apart from the "redesign it and rebuild it somewhere else" suggestions (which for the record I thoroughly endorse as a long term solution - it's quite hard to fall out of a garage or shed), how about batteries ? An old Lima deisel - bags of space, fill it with 9v batteries and lead and set it going with the track cleaner behind it. Control is by catching it on the way past, obviously it won't work for dead ends. 

[Halvarras]

I once (1966-72) had a loft layout with mainly Tri-ang Super-4 track, to which I'd added a storage yard laid with lengths of cheap second-hand Gem fibre-based flexible track with very poor conductivity. None of my locos would run on it very well at all, with one exception - a Tri-ang Dokafority........,sorry, @The Johnster has me at it now 🤭, I mean Dock Authority diesel shunter with those noisy 'splined' wheels which appeared to simply grind its way through the dirt!

I would therefore suggest a pair of these would make an effective RHTT except that (a) these days they'd be more likely to run on the chairs instead of the rail-head, and (b) the OP's predicament would defeat even them.

If I may extend the title, "Running of filthy track.....isn't possible." Unless using battery power or clockwork, and even then it'd be a bit lumpy......

[The Johnster]

Even I will admit that Satan's expectorant of good quality carefully applied in some H0 RTR locos works well, but it still interferes with pickup, and anything that can interfere with pickup will interfere with pickup, especially as the older British RTR that uses the devil's snot tends to pick up on no more than four wheels anyway.  

 

The normal method of supplying current to a model loco's motor is very poorly considered and designed, not that I'm able to come up with an alternative you understand...  Nobody with any sense would expect electricity to be reliably transmitted between the miniscule footprint of a model railway wheel tyre, and then compound the chanciness of the whole thing by scraping the rear of said wheel across a wiper pickup that has to be very precisely adjusted to bear on the rear surface of the wheel reliably across the entire range of the wheel's sideplay.  Modern RTR mechs work pretty well despite this, but need all the help they can get from clean, well-laid, track on firm, rigid, level boards to give their best performance.  Slow smooth running in DC is the ultimate test, as we now want the loco to pick up current and keep moving at snailracing speed when the voltage is at it's lowest and mechanical drag from wiper pickups and gear trains is at it's highest.

 

In P4, the 'tyre footprint' is vanishingly small, but full compensation keeps the wheels firmly in contact with the railheads, and better running results.  Various forms of compensation have been tried in volume produced RTR, with varying results; only full 3-point compensation will work effectively, and this is far too fiddly and expensive for RTR.

 

Upshot is that we have to keep the track, wheels, and pickups clean, and this is hard work, which we will tend to neglect if we have inaccessible areas to contend with.  The OP's situation is compounded by the (in)frequency with which he is able to get to his layout, and I sympathise.  The oldest problem in the railway modelling book is finding space for your layout, and it is tempting to go for solutions that are, in the cold light of day, a bit desperate and not really suitable; the poor old guy crawling around under his floor mentioned by Sotto would have said that this was the only way he could have a layout; I think I'd rather do without, thanks! 

 

It's hard to admit defeat sometimes, but it is IMHO better to abandon an over-ambitious plan in an unsuitable location such as a loft you can fall out of (mate of mine when I was a teenager had a Triang TT layout around the trap door on the floor of his loft, which he operated by putting the ladder up, standing on it, and sticking his head through, definitely a young man's game, all within reach for cleaning though) and settle for something smaller and more basic that will at least run reliably and that you can access easily, even if it's only a shunting plank.  Railway modelling is a challenge to our ingenuity and ability to solve problems, which is one of the things that make it satisfying, but there are some challenges it is sometimes better not to rise to!

 

The basic problem as regards dirt is that the power source is not aboard the locomotive where any sensible design would stipulate it should be.  The motor is aboard the loco, and DCC has proved that controlling it may be housed aboard the loco, but the power source is still the rails.  This is because the 00/H0 2-rail system was developed at a time when there was no other possible alternative except 3-rail, and despite the fact that even in those days the heavy die-cast loco bodies were not really heavy enough to ensure the best rail/wheel contact. 

 

Could it be rethought?  It may be possible in the future to have on board power sources recharged by NFC (or even NFC power transmission from beneath the track) which would effectively circumvent the issue and dispense with pickups altogether, and plastic track could be used.  The control would be aboard the loco as well.  But even when that happy day dawns, it will still be necessary to keep things clean in order to promote the best standards of running, and to use metal wheelsets to reduce drag and friction, and inaccessible areas of the layout will still cause problems.

 

Clean it, properly, and once you've cleaned it properly, keep it clean.  It doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of running properly otherwise.  Ballast it over the driving wheels to improve adhesive weight, which will benefit pickup and T.E., then clean it again. 

Edited October 2, 2023 by The Johnster

[F-UnitMad]

On 01/10/2023 at 15:25, F-UnitMad said:

No, you are the one missing the point. .....

 

I can see this Thread getting locked quite soon.... 🙄

 

20 hours ago, Colin_McLeod said:

 

Why? It's an interesting thread with  some good posts, including the OP's observations of what will and will not run on filthy track....

I was expecting the thread to be locked after being told I was "missing the point" by the OP, and the slightly dismissive/adverserial tone of the rest of his second post, giving the impression that he doesn't even want to clean his tracks (& locos, etc) but rather find out what, if anything, could still run on them.

Yes I was wrong & the thread is still here, although the OP's further participation has been somewhat, erm, ....lacking? 🤷‍♂️🤔

 

Edited October 2, 2023 by F-UnitMad

[The Johnster]

7 hours ago, Wheatley said:

Control is by catching it on the way past, obviously it won't work for dead ends. 

 

These need catch nets or someone going long stop.  Or a solid block of wood with a foam shock absorber.

[andyman7]

Another option is to go for three rail running 🙂

[ian]

43 minutes ago, andyman7 said:

Another option is to go for three rail running 🙂

Three dirty rails aren't much different to two.

[melmerby]

6 hours ago, Halvarras said:

lengths of cheap second-hand Gem fibre-based flexible track

My loft layout of 24 years or more ago had a fair bit of Wrenn fibre based track, however it was Nickel Silver, so little different to today's track for conductivity.

I also had some Wrenn points which were better through the frog than Peco (only insulfrog in those days) but were not very prototypical with a moving rail that swung to close the frog gap.

Edited October 2, 2023 by melmerby

[andyman7]

44 minutes ago, ian said:

Three dirty rails aren't much different to two.

The centre shoe scrapes the live rail clean and everything else is part of the return path. Electrically it's a lot more robust than two rail running

[rab]

24 minutes ago, andyman7 said:

The centre shoe scrapes the live rail clean and everything else is part of the return path. Electrically it's a lot more robust than two rail running

There's your answer then.

 

Fit track cleaning shoes in front of the first set of driving wheels.

Of course if you want to run tender first you'd need them

behind the last set of driving wheel as well.  :)

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, rab said:

There's your answer then.

 

Fit track cleaning shoes in front of the first set of driving wheels.

Of course if you want to run tender first you'd need them

behind the last set of driving wheel as well.  :)

But if the loco picks up through the tender, is a 4-4-0 with traction tyres, or Lord of the Isles they need to be at the rear of the tender