Model Railway Forum

Seen any number of reviews, most recently by "Ron's Trains," which cryptically closes with, "...if your steam locomotives have rubber traction tyres, you may want to go a different route," Some of my expensive Hornby pieces have rubber tyres, is this going to eat them up? Ron instructs that prior to the application of No-Ox, that the rails should be thoroughly cleaned with mineral spirits first, then a microscopic coating of No-Ox. Is it the mineral spirits that might damage the tyres, or is it the No-Ox? Does anyone have any experience with No-Ox and traction tyres?

Bin the No-0x chops its the oil that will affect the tyres, it has never been liked in the U.K.

Thanks for that, all I need is to destroy some valued models. I have refrained from purchasing it. I'll keep on using Wahl Hair Clipper oil, first known to me by the British professional model railroader, Lionel Strange. It hasn't killed anything yet... IPA works great, for about 45 minutes, then back to wiping it down again. Supposedly the devil is in the micro-arcing of wheel on track, and supposedly the oil retards this effect.

The hair clipping oil will also wreck the tyres.

I saw the Ron’s Trains video, and it surprised me that IPA used for cleaning rails should be binned because it contains up to 20% water ! Took a look at my bottle and it’s 99.9% alcohol.

So maybe worth checking to see if your IP alcohol is making your rails rusty.

I recently made a track cleaner, using hardboard as the “ wiper” and surprised at the amount of dirt it collected.

Rgds

Not all IPA is 99.9% alcohol, that's why it is important to buy IPA that is.

Well, as yet I've not noticed any particular traction tyre problems with Wahl's, other than some slippage until the rails are given a second or third wipe to remove the excess. Some tyres have failed out after several years, which I attribute to age and use. Logically, being an oil, one would suspect Wahl's as being hard on rubber. My gripe with IPA is that it does nothing to retard micro-arcing, which is apparently the root of all evil vis-a-vis model trains. Extensively used IPA years ago when running DCC, and found that the entire line had to be re-cleaned with IPA not more than 45 minutes per running session, or the commands to the locomotives would start to fail.

I don’t understand the problem with dirty track, I rarely clean mine. The biggest culprit is plastic wheels. Getting rid of them gets rid of dirt.

I used to use IPA to clean track. I always purchased 99.9% IPA and spent more time cleaning track than running trains
Since scrapping the IPA and using a product called INOX which I believe is very similar to NO OX, my layout has never run better
Yes IPA will clean dirt and grease off the track but within minutes, the rails start oxidising and you're back to square one with poor conductivity
I now give my track a quick clean with INOX maybe once every three months , I may clean wheels once per year and this is on a layout housed in a garage with a big roller door one end that is usually open to the outside world when I'm using the layout

If you want to minimise poor conductivity, ditch the IPA with your old track rubbers

Strange how we all appear to have different results with types of track cleaner. I use 99.9% IPA and rarely need to clean my track yet AusPete found the opposite. Such is life I guess.