Inexplicable wheel grime?

[Green_Elite_Cab]

I've run into a tough problem.

One of my locomotives (an atlas ALP44) cannot travel a single lap around the club's layout without accumulating a significant amount of grime and gunk. I find myself cleaning the wheels every two laps, and it barely gets though those laps without loosing power due to grime.

No other locomotives are having this problem, just my ALP44. It is very frustrating, as this ALP44 was one of my more reliable locomotives. I've had this locomotive for years and its never done this before!

I first ran the wheels on a paper towel dampened with Goo Gone. I did this twice, and then i removed the wheel sets and cleaned them by hand with a bright boy, and still, it hardly makes it around. I dried the wheels on a paper towel prior to running on the mainline. One wheelset had Bullfrog snot on it, but I removed it.

Any advice for very thoroughly cleaning the wheels? Is there maybe something I'm doing wrong?

[Kev1340]

My only guess would be that the plating on the wheels has worn away, leaving a the 'rough' surface of the base metal showing. I'd suggest fitting a new wheel set (or swapping with another loco first if you have an appropriate one available)

Cheers,

Kev

[Charlie B]

It is pretty obvious that the club layout track needs cleaned and your locomotive is providing this service. I use a very minute amount of automatic transmission fluid (a tiny drop from an insulin syringe) on my track when this happens. Now the more I run trains the less I need to do this. Layouts where there is work being done are the worse, and I bet your club frowns on plastic wheels so there is another source of track cleaning. Your other option is all new wheels.

Charlie.

[Brakie]

Seeing I recently bought a used Atlas engine I found the plating was worn off so I replaced the wheels before I faced the same issue as you.

As long as the track isn't covered in gooky goo you can run trains for months without cleaning track..I clean track as needed.

Plastic wheels isn't a real villain like the " experts" preached in MR and RMC(a infomercial for their advertisers at best) but,every day dust,human skin flakes,insect droppings,pet and human dandruff dust,electrical residue etc accounts for 99% of the gook on our track..

There was article in MR several years ago explaining what type of gook gets on our track-they used a microscope.

[Green_Elite_Cab]

I sure hope wheel wear isn't the problem, but it sounds like the only one that makes sense, since no other engines appeared to be suffering from dirty track. The layout was supposedly cleaned not very before I set my ALP44 down, so i don't know if excessive grime on the rails themselves was the issue.

Fortunately, Atlas still stocks spare wheel-sets for these, as they run on a non-standard 51" wheel diameter. I also have a spare set from a crash AEM7, but I recently found the parts I'd need to bring that model back into service, so I might not be so fast to cannibalize it. $2.50 a wheelset is still WAY cheaper than buying a brand new ALP44.

[zstripe]

Were it me. I would get rid of the Goo Gone and just use Alcohol for the wheels and then see what happen's. Sounds to me that the Goo Gone, which does leave a sticky film on the wheels, is just picking up any dust on the track.
Frank, zstripe

[Sumpter250]

I've run into a tough problem. One of my locomotives (an atlas ALP44) cannot travel a single lap around the club's layout without accumulating a significant amount of grime and gunk. I find myself cleaning the wheels every two laps, and it barely gets though those laps without loosing power due to grime.

First, I would try Aero-Car ACT-6006 Track and Rail Cleaner, but the best plan would be for the club to appoint a member to the "Pre-run, club layout track-cleaning committee", to insure that all the "stuff" that lands on the rails, is cleaned off prior to the operating session.
I am no longer a member of the club I once belonged to, because of this exact same problem.
I use a track cleaning car, and the ACT-6006, to keep the narrow gauge rails on my modules clean, at shows. The crowds stir up lot of "Rail Pollution", and the track cleaner has been well worth the effort and expense.

[Green_Elite_Cab]

I don't want to shoot down the club for dirty track to much. They do regularly run the cleaning train around, which has several of the heavy duty brass CMX cars. These seem to do the job pretty well. As I understand it, I was one of the first locomotive to travel over the tracks after it was clean. Its possible that it got extra dirty over a short time span, but that wouldn't explain why this locomotive is the only one collecting dirt at this rate. Even other engines of the same class (AEM7/ALP44s) were not experiencing any trouble.

[MountainMan]

I've run into a tough problem.

One of my locomotives (an atlas ALP44) cannot travel a single lap around the club's layout without accumulating a significant amount of grime and gunk. I find myself cleaning the wheels every two laps, and it barely gets though those laps without loosing power due to grime.

No other locomotives are having this problem, just my ALP44. It is very frustrating, as this ALP44 was one of my more reliable locomotives. I've had this locomotive for years and its never done this before!

I first ran the wheels on a paper towel dampened with Goo Gone. I did this twice, and then i removed the wheel sets and cleaned them by hand with a bright boy, and still, it hardly makes it around. I dried the wheels on a paper towel prior to running on the mainline. One wheelset had Bullfrog snot on it, but I removed it.

Any advice for very thoroughly cleaning the wheels? Is there maybe something I'm doing wrong?

Doesn't sound like a "wheel problem", but rather a track problem, because that's where the grime comes from. Could your wheels be developing an electrostatic charge that attracts the grime? Have you considered changing the wheel sets?

[Brakie]

Could your wheels be developing an electrostatic charge that attracts the grime?
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That's exactly why I changed wheels on that use Atlas S4..The plating was worn off and I nip the potential problem in the bud.I would exam the wheels using a magnifying visor.

Thanks to my experiences over the years I'm the last to jump on the dirty track as the root of all locomotive problems.That doesn't apply to sound equipped locomotives since a fly spic of dirt will cause issues-maybe not quite that bad.