08-10-2011, 07:08 AM
Russ Bellinis Wrote:In one of Joe Fugate's clinics at the 2011 NMRA convention in Sacramento, he mentions that he uses mineral spirits after cleaning his track. He puts it on the rails very thin and wipes off the excess. He suggested an experiment to do if you doubt the use of a conducting lubricant. Run your locomotive on dry clean track in a dark room and watch the sparks between the wheels and the rails. Remember that every spark is putting a tiny pit in both the rail and the wheel. Then turn the lights on and put a thin coat of mineral spirits on the rails, shut off the lights and run it again. The sparks will disappear. I think this is the reason that the Wahl clipper oil works. The difference is that you can buy a gallon of mineral spirits at a big box home improvement store for the price of a pint of Wahl oil.
We use the clipper oil at the club. The track on the layout gets cleaned annually. We just go along with a bit of alcohol and rub it on the rail heads, then put a thin layer of the clipper oil on afterwards. I'm starting to use this method at home and finding out it works really well at keeping the track clean.
Just out of curiosity GEC? Have you run feeder wires to all of your track sections? Electrical is not my strong area however, I wonder if you are experiencing enough of a voltage drop when the train reaches the middle of the section to stall the loco?