How To Clean And Lubricate An Ho Locomotive

One of the keen things nearly model railroading is the always-increasing durability of available products. Well-nigh new or recent locomotives, rolling stock, and track, will likely yield many years of enjoyable apply, with minimal maintenance required. However, to ensure a long lifespan for your drove, some bones TLC will always be needed. By keeping on superlative of a few easy but essential maintenance practices, you'll have a smooth operating layout for years to come.

Hither are v easy maintenance tips that will keep your model trains running smoothly.

1. Cleaning Those Wheels

This video we produced a few years agone serves every bit a good visual representation of how to clean your locomotive's wheels.

Although the wheels on locomotives will make clean themselves, to an extent, every bit the result of the friction generated by rolling over the rails, they will somewhen need to be manually cleaned as dirt, grease, and oil residue starts to build up. If your locomotive is shorting out or is stuttering over relatively clean track, this is one of the near likely culprits.

If your locomotive has all-wheel pickup, the easiest way to clean your wheels is to dampen a newspaper towel with isopropyl alcohol or windex, and lay it over the rails. And so turn the power on, and hold one end of your locomotive lightly in place over the towel, while letting the other end draw power from the rails. This will allow all sides to be cleaned, as the wheels turn in place.

If your locomotive doesn't have all-wheel pickup, or rests on a single set up of trucks, the easiest style to clean your wheels is to dampen a cotton swab or textile with the same cleaning products as above. Plow your locomotive over, and lightly rub the wheels to remove any dirt as necessary. To access all sides of the wheels, simply clean the exposed side, then run the locomotive an inch or 2 on the layout to reveal the uncleaned sides. If your model has a thick buildup of dirt or dust on the wheels, hold the model at a ninety degree bending to ensure that the removed or loosened gunk doesn't fall into the locomotive's mechanisms.

For three-rail O Scale locomotives, ensure that y'all cheque the rollers too. A spray contact cleaner will commonly exist enough to remove whatsoever grease or residuum from these.

How oftentimes you'll need to do this will depend on the frequency of use, and the environs that the trains run in. For most locomotives running on fixed layouts, this is usually simply necessary when you commencement to find performance issues with the engine. All the same if your layout or storage location is particularly dusty, information technology might be a better thought to stay more regimented with your cleaning. For trains that are running on the flooring or on temporary setups, cleaning should be washed on a regular ground, as the model will likely pick upward more clay and dust in these environments.

*As a rule, we ever recommend keeping trains off the flooring if possible. They should never exist run on carpets under any circumstances, as fibers and hairs can get clogged in the wheels and gears, which in-turn tin can damage the motors and render the model inoperable.

2. Oiling and Lubrication

Oiling and lubricating your locomotive's motor and other moving components is also recommended for long-term, smoothen operation.

Apply lubricant to the ends of the motor armature, axles, and any side rod screws if you're running steam locomotives. Y'all volition only need a little oil on the axles! Ensure that you're using an oil which is compatible with plastic, equally others could corrode the mechanisms and surfaces over time. You lot should also aim to utilise grease to any exposed gears.

This is one chore which doesn't need to be done routinely. Under normal running circumstances, every 6-12 months should suffice. Of course if you're running your trains far more than than the average modeler (say at a guild or display layout), the frequency should exist increased.

3. Judge Checking

Yes, model trains can come up out of gauge. A derailment caused past an alignment problem tin can rapidly get expensive if information technology occurs at the wrong spot on your layout!

As part of your regular maintenance checks, yous can use a caliper to check the wheels' gauge and alignment. While this is more mutual with plastic wheels, metal wheelsets, which are more prevalent in recent models, practice still have the potential to warp or become bent out of alignment.

If you accept older models with wheels on a fixed axle, the wheel centers can wear and pb to the automobile becoming unstable. If this happens, you can ordinarily supplant the wheel set to restore smooth operation.

Again, this is recommended only equally needed, when yous notice performance bug with a particular piece of rolling stock.

4. Keeping the Rails Shiny

Cleaning the rails themselves is straightforward, simply is perchance the most important practice for keeping your railroad running. Many manufacturers offer rail erasers which volition easily and efficiently clear the track of gunk and balance simply by being pushed by manus. For tougher spots, y'all might need to go back over the same segment a couple of times. Yous should do this at to the lowest degree once a month to go on your rail equally pristine as possible, as any dust, dirt or rest on the runway can rapidly interpret to clay and residue on your locomotive wheels. For a deeper make clean, you can supplement this process with a conductive track lubricant which can be applied using a paper towel.

To contain this job into the operations of your layout (and to arrive a little more than fun), you can purchase a track cleaning car, ordinarily decorated to look similar a slice of maintenance equipment that would be seen on a full-size railroad! The cars feature an abrasive or felt pad fixed to the underside of the model, which will do the aforementioned job as a track eraser. These can be peculiarly handy for cleaning hard-to-reach locations such as inside tunnels, although they will probable all the same need to be supplemented with some easily-on cleaning for tougher spots.

Of course cleaning the railheads is just half of the procedure. If your layout is under construction, you could have anything from sawdust to screws and nails left lying around. Even more consummate layouts can shed small-scale pieces of scenery fabric that could easily be sucked up into a locomotive's mechanism. Look out between the ties and inside the estimate to avert your locomotives being batty, damaged, or dirtied by these offenders.

5. Contact Cleaning

Keeping your contacts clean is essential for helping your trains run smoothly. You should use a specialist cleaning product rather than another type of cleaner, as full general products may harm your locomotives.

Checking and cleaning contacts tin can be bad-mannered, merely the good news is you should only need to do it on occasion. Nevertheless, as with gauge checking, if you're having ongoing performance issues with a specific locomotive, one of the first things you should do is clean the contacts, especially if wheel cleaning and clearing the rail hasn't helped.

Maintaining a Polish-Running Model Railroad

Spending a small corporeality of time cleaning your locomotives and runway tin make an enormous difference to the operation and longevity of your model railroad. While it might not be the most fun aspect of the hobby, information technology will help to maximize the overall enjoyment of your layout, and should keep more significant and stressful problems from arising. If your layout has seen more than utilize than usual in these last few months, undertaking some basic maintenance will be even more crucial. Think – it's better to spend time proactively maintaining your collection, than having to spend time repairing preventable problems.

Set upward a programme for maintaining your layout today. Everything you need to ensure basic maintenance of your railroad, including cleaning materials and replacement parts , tin be found right here at Modeltrainstuff.com!