Cleaning Kato Unitrack

[alain10025]

Hello,

 

I hope I am not creating a redundant topic here but, surprisingly, I could not find anything with the keywords "unitrack" and "clean" / "cleaning" / "maintenance" in the search engine of this forum...

 

So here it is... I have a layout made with Kato Unitrack. As time passes, I feel the need to clean it thoroughly, I start seeing some oxidation marks on it. There seems to be many strategies out there for cleaning model railroad tracks !

 

What I have tried so far : 

• using the Woodland Scenics "Railpal". It does a good job but I feel it is best used for localized problems as cleaning a full layout with it seems tedious...
• using the Woodland Scenics "Railtracker". I am not convinced by the "clean track solution" it contains but using a combination of the harder pads with a soft one did help cleaning large portions of the layout. The handle is practical...
• using 99% isopropyl alcohol. I only fairly recently starting using it but I have the feeling it that portions of the layout on which I used it need more regular cleaning that it used to. I have read that isopropyl alcohol may promote oxidation of the track which could explain the need for more frequent maintenance (only an hypothesis at this stage). I did notice a very smooth functioning of the locomotives right after cleaning...

What I am thinking to try : 

• I found what seems to me an interesting and convincing solution involving a mix of wd40 contact cleaner and inox mx3 (see, for instance, this Youtube video). In particular, the use of the Inox mx3 to prevent oxidation of the tracks seems like a very good idea. I have the feeling one needs to be careful while applying the wd40 though, in order to prevent traction issues...

 

What are your thoughts on this ? Do you have any preference ? Or "magic trick" ? 

 

Thank you !

 

Alain

 

[MrLinderman]

Inox is great stuff, just use a little at a time, if you can get the liquid form instead of aerosol I'd use that and carefully wipe it on the tracks with a glasses cleaning cloth or screen cleaning cloth, I'm new to model trains but we used this stuff on drag slot car racing strips and it really keeps the metal contacts clean and smooth for a good time, and the local club runs that strip every weekend.

 

WD40 contact is a good cleaner but its strong, if your going to protect the tracks with inox you probably only need to clean them with 40 contact once every 6 months maybe once a year, depends on how humid the location your tracks are in.

[cteno4]

So there is a great article that finally put some actual science to track cleaning! Turns out the black gunk on track is from oxidation of the track from micro arcing that occurs between the tracks and the wheels. This micro arcing is greatly encouraged when there are polar molecules on the track like water and alcohol. The metal surfaces are not smooth even if they feel and look so but have a ton of micro surface fissures that these polar molecules can reside in, stuck to the metal and not evaporating. Using a non polar (low dielectric) cleaner helps push the polar molecules out of the fissures and fills them instead with non polar molecules that decreases the microarcing and thus the black metal oxide gunk.

 

Using track cleaners like isopropanol and other cleaners that are high dielectric value will just lead to vicious loops of gunk creation and cleaning! We use to have this on the club layouts wirh lots of running all day when we used isopropanol. This also explains why sung lubricants like clipper oil and transmission fluid worked well as they coated these fissures with low dielectric molecules to help prevent microarcing, but came at the loss of traction!
 

low dielectric contact cleaners lie the WD40 contact cleaner (not their lubricant!) are huge game changers. We clean Ttrak maybe onesie every 3+ months, more from habit than actual need. I do find some little dirty spots but now I’ve noticed these are around places where the wheels can rock some due to track bumps or other scenery around the track and these wiggles will create microarcing due to wheels lifting up.

 

Most of the Low dielectric contact cleaners leave a protective residue. There are some high end contact protectants like deoxit (I’m assuming Inox is like this) that are designed to be a long term contact surface protectant. We recently moved from the wd40 contact cleaner to the deoxit contact cleaner as it’s a bit more sophisticated for high end audio gear. Seems to be doing great. 
 

Even if you end up with a spray cleaner you just spray it on a cloth and wipe.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[alain10025]

@cteno4 Thank you for your response, there is just one thing I would like to clarify, are you saying that you were satisfied using wd40 contact cleaner alone ? With no additional coating or treatment ? Thanks !

 

 

[Kingmeow]

I know you say you are seeing "oxidation marks" on your tracks but are your trains running fine?  If they run fine, I would not bother about cleaning.  Unitrack is known to stay cleaner far longer than any other N-Scale tracks (don't know about Tomix).  Many thinks its the metallurgy formulation that Kato uses that is different.

[inobu]

Peoples success varies not because of the product but their cleaning method matching their environment.

Being in an arid or humid environment dictates the level of dust you will contend with. 

 

You can see the level of dust you are in by testing in the dark. Take a small flashlight and shine it straight up (in pitch dark).

The dust particle can be seen floating around.

 

Carpeted floors is a nightmare especially if people don't change the vacuum bags. Finer dust just get blown into the air

because the bag is so full.

 

Look up Cleanroom environment. If you layout was in a clean room there would be no dust only carbon from the

arcing on the track. If you mitigated the arcing there would be nothing to clean.

 

Inobu

 

 

 

 

[cteno4]

Yes dust is an eternal problem for the whole layout, but it’s not the gunk on the track mostly. I use to think the gunk particles were dust and oil and dirt mixture but this chap had it analyzed and it’s mostly metal oxide from the microarcing. This is the stuff that ends up making trains stutter with electrical pickup. Once we broke the cycle of using high dielectric stuff on the track and using the low dielectric cleaners the black gunk build up pretty much disappeared. 
 

Dust in my experience is the big issue in drive chains slowly gumming up. I’ve seen this happen on a member’s basement layout that gets a huge continual  rain of dust and schmutz and some drive chains just packed with obvious dust/fiber/grit/lubricant mix. remarkably he rarely had much of a black gunk problem, but he did clean his track with the heavy roller cleaning cars using the orange oil cleaner which I’m guessing is a lower dielectric cleaner.
 

Some cat hairs are also super nasty for some reason, very prone to getting sucked up (experience from another member’s engines!). This is what I love the Tomix rail car for its vacuum as I’m always surprised how much crap it can pick up. Simple air cleaner in the room is very important as well to help keep dust down. Due to my wife’s health issues we have hepa filters in a lot of rooms and no carpeting and I’m still shocked how fast dust can build up just on the simple activated carbon mesh pre filters! I agree, I often think most vacuums tend to spit out more ultrafine material than they snuck up as they just breakdown bigger stuff to tiny stuff. We use hepa bags and exhaust filters, but they do tend to limit the time of your use as they can heat up the engine of the vacuum with resistance.

 

Way back when there was a debate about humidity causing oxidation to Unitrak I tried an experiment of three track sections (2x248). One I just left out in normal house air (30-60% east coast ac air), one in baggy with desiccant bag (very low humidity), and one in a baggy with a paper towel I kept wet (very high humidity). I pulled them out ever month or so for a few of months and visibly inspected them and had no visible oxidation on any and I read a train onto them and noticed no change in running speed or hesitations. I assumed the moist environment would oxidize the tracks a lot directly and cause contact issues, it didn’t. Of course continued operation in higher humidity would of course result in more moisture on the track that could cause more microarcing and thus more black gunk particles, but the humidity didn’t seem to be oxidizing the surface track directly much.
 

The good news is the low dielectric contact cleaners have eliminated most of the black gunk problem and seem to protect the rails for months at a time. Recleaning is also just so much lighter as well. Really night and day and no issues with slippage and such and the crc, wd40, and deoxit all seem to be plastic (at least Unitrack plastic) safe.

 

jeff

[inobu]

Well, here is my test board and I have not used it for a few months. The HO track hasn't had

any arcing because nothing has been on it. There is no room to move anything on it.

 

Here is a wipe of the HO track in the center where there can be no wheel contact.

 

The only thing it could be is dust and oxidation. The shop is dusty. This only thing this track

has been exposed to is dust, humidity and oxidation nothing else and you can see what is on the

paper towel.

 

I added the microscopic view of the paper towel.

 

 Inobu

 

Edited February 4 by inobu

[cteno4]

How clean was the track before you let it sit there? Did you wipe it clean before it sat there for a few months? 

 

The contact cleaners that have protectants in them should also help the very slow oxidation of the tracks due to humidity as well. I’m tempted to try this experiment.

 

I do agree that rails do seem to attract dust, but never looked closely to see if more than other things around the layout as track is the one place you tend to clean a lot very physically on the layout and visually inspect a lot. I am surprised when I look closely at scenery how much dust does collect, but that’s a whole nother level of cleaning to get at that stuff!

 

Our Ttrak modules get used hard for a couple of days then sit for weeks with no use. My old habit at each setup is to swipe the track with a cloth or finger and look for any noticeable lines of gunk, if I see it I cleaned the tracks prophylactically. Since switching to low dielectric contact cleaners I don’t usually ever see any gunk (or very minor amount) and only notice it once we get a stutter somewhere. Then those I’ve now found are primarily happening at module joints (where track joints can be a bit bumpy with wear and tear and leveling) or other scenery stuff that can push wheels around like filling in the center of the track or points. There I think it’s building up more as physical lifting of the wheels more is promoting more microarcing potential. I’ve been watching this pretty carefully for the last couple of years since we switched.

 

But the big thing is just moving to using the low dielectric contact cleaners/protectants has taken away the big black gunk buildup and way way less cleaning for stuttering engines has been needed since switching. Does away with the bad things like abrasive cleaners that can actually 

really scratch up the rail head (and thus more places for polar molecules to get trapped) and also leave their own residues behind (I’ve done the white cloth test after bright boys or Masonite scrubs and they both leave crap on the tracks). The loops we would get into cleaning g with isopropanol were pretty funny now looking back, we were just creating more black gunk with each application! Cycle broken.

 

jeff

[inobu]

The fact that the dust accumulate ON the track without arcing is what people should recognize. If the room is moderate dusty

no cleaning agent is going to prevent the rails from getting dirty.

 

The amount of dust that can accumulate in the air is going to end up on the rails. The more you can mitigate the

dust the better off you will be. Your cleaning intervals will be reduced. 

 

Like I said. Cut off the lights or wait till its pitch dark and turn on the flash light and you will see the level of dust particles

floating around. Cut on the vacuum and then check. You will see it fly up.

 

When I ran a Data Center and we had to keep the facility in a controlled environment. Mitigating Temp, Humidity and Dust issues. We had a

sniffer for Fire Suppression that monitor the air for Parts Per Million. Fine dust would trigger the sensors and the system could

confuse those particles with smoke. That's where I would cut off the light and watch the air to see for myself.

 

When I started building Layout I used a lot of my Data Center experience and knowledge with my builds.

 

Just saying....

Inobu

 

[alain10025]

9 hours ago, Kingmeow said:

I know you say you are seeing "oxidation marks" on your tracks but are your trains running fine?  If they run fine, I would not bother about cleaning.  Unitrack is known to stay cleaner far longer than any other N-Scale tracks (don't know about Tomix).  Many thinks its the metallurgy formulation that Kato uses that is different.

 

I agree that, so far, my Unitrack did not require much cleaning and I am extremely happy with it. Though, recently, I noticed the oxidation marks that make trains stutter or slow down. I recently updated my layout but I suspect the tracks where I observe this oxidation are portions of my previous layout that I tried cleaning with 99% isopropyl alcohol... which I later found to be responsible for potential accelerated oxidation of tracks (especially since I may not have applied it in an optimal manner...).

 

My layout is in a basement that is quite dusty (notably due to the concrete foundations) but I have never experienced dust-related issues so far. My locomotives are mostly clean. The only exception to that is a rookie mistake I made a while ago : running trains on a felt-like mat... and many fibers accumulated within the locomotives at this time... Never again !

[Beaver]

Might I suggest trying Kato's own 'Uni-Clean' track cleaning fluid? If there is something special about the particular type of nickel silver used then their own product might give better results than the usual track cleaning products.

[alain10025]

47 minutes ago, Beaver said:

Might I suggest trying Kato's own 'Uni-Clean' track cleaning fluid? If there is something special about the particular type of nickel silver used then their own product might give better results than the usual track cleaning products.

 

It is a good point, I feel it is not often mentioned as it seems hard to find outside of Japan... At least I can't find it on my go-to websites (plazajapan, rg-rokko or even 1999.co.jp where it seems to only exist in 10 mL format...). Even amazon.co.jp does not seem to have it (at least not available for shipping in Canada). A pity !

[Beaver]

I suspect it might be something to do with chemicals and liquids being harder to transport and sell internationally than solid objects. There are many more safety concerns associated with such products.

[cteno4]

Yes cleaning fluids like this usually have flammable, volatile organics so no no by most shipping companies. Even domestic shipping here in the us requires ground shipping.

 

I seriously doubt there is anything special about the Kato cleaner and slight differences in the nickel silver is going to make any difference with the cleaner. When I looked at the contact protectants like deoxit used in mechanical relays and connections, the only difference in cleaners was for very different metal coatings like gold. Even there the stuff I read from folks the differences were minor (electronics and audio guys going nuts with minor stuff), kind of like getting the premium conditioner for your premium gold connectors. This is all from things like audio and electronics that are very sensitive, much more so than the tolerances of our engines. These all follow the same basic direction and components, just little tweaks to try to distinguish themselves.

 

Would be interesting to test but a hard one to set up and run! I’m happy with wd40 contact cleaner, crc contact cleaner and protectant, and the regular (non gold) droxit 5. Stutter issues have vanished and cleaning like 5% or less of previous effort.

 

jeff

[beakaboy]

I have been using CRC 226 aerosol product for several years now, which lubricates, improves electrical properties and reduces moisture. It has been very helpful on points that have had ballast applied near them. (moisture from watered down PVA glue seems to find its way into contacts on points and we would get stuttering of trains crossing points at shows. Mostly Peco points. I also apply a small amount on track before a train passes and this seems to spread it around layout for smooth running. Also a game changer when applied to gears and motor bearings , etc on locos that don't run smooth. They run beautifully after application. Only problem is the applicator wand pushes out too much product for our tiny scale. I went looking for a replacement can recently and none available. Found out through an electrical wholesaler that it was taken off market and replaced with CRC 556 electrical (same properties in blue can). best part was they gave me a big discount on cash purchase and cost me NZ$18. Normally retails for $30-35. Haven't tried the new product to compare at this stage. Our show layout is 8m x 2.5m and is setup on an open  mezzanine floor in a large shed on our rural property when not being displayed at shows. I notice that the track seems to stay cleaner now and it is just the dust and moisture in air that settles on track which needs a rub with a cloth occasionally. 

[mr bachmann]

It was not many years ago that the Relco electronic track cleaner was the in thing for cleaning track , simply wired between its supply and the track , then along came DCC and the pair did not agree with each other , so the Relco units slowly lost popularity, (other manufacturers also offered Relco style units) .