Model Railway Forum

Fed up of trying to clean steam engine wheels by placing engines upside down in a foam cradle, holding wires to wheels and then trying to clean with cotton buds and isopropyl I’m thinking of investing in a Gaugemaster GM60 wheel cleaner.

I appreciate that the brushes are softer than the wheels but is there a tendency for the wheels to become scratched and ultimately harbour more dirt?

Anyone’s thoughts would be appreciated.

Is there a reason why you need to keep cleaning loco wheels. I can hardly remember cleaning mine. Do you have rolling stock with plastic wheels?

I had a similar cleaner to the GM60 and it did a good job.

The railway is in a well insulated garden shed. Admittedly I don’t run trains as often as I should but it seems that after a period of say three or four weeks I seem to have to clean the track due to engines stopping. The track is Peco 100.

I know I should fit stay alive capacitors to help over dead spots, but that is on the to do list.

I’ll have to admit I’ve never considered if I’m running any stock with plastic wheels, I’ll have a check.

Fitting Stay alives is one way, but IMO its a bit of a "Sticking Plaster" to overcome dirty or poorly laid track/rails. Nickel Siver rail will always tarnish but its electrical conduction outweighs this when its clean.
The best option IMO is to clean the rails at the beginning of a running session, especially where there has been several days or weeks between operations.
How to clean them will depend on you and how much elbow grease you wish to use! I use a 20mm dia fibre brush on really stubborn areas but a quality track rubber will provide the same results. I then follow up with my CMX tanker wagon filled with 99.9% IPA Isopropyl Alcohol (Not the beer) pushed around in front of my largest loco. If you don't want to purchase a rail cleaning tanker wagon, then use a lint free cloth - an old clean cotton Hankie is ideal. dampened with IPA and rubbed on the rails tops. You will be amazed at the muck that's removed!

Track cleaning can be expressed as..... Cleanliness is next to ..... (Good running!)

Thank you both for the comments and advice, a Bank Holiday deep cleaning session it is

They we’ll play trains

As Brian says, plastic wheels on rolling stock can add to the problem. For some reason any crud sticks to them like glue.
I have the GM60 (as well as every other magical cure peddled by the snake oil salesmen of the modelling world ) and will give the driving wheels of a loco an occasional polish if it's been in storage for a while - it works well.
My layout too stands idle for long periods, and I find dust is the biggest issue, and that's exactly the crud that clogs up plastic wheels! I used to use the Dapol track cleaner in vacuum cleaner mode until it died last month. I also send the Sharge cleaner round a couple of times each year.
Stay alives - they are not the solution to dirty track or a lazy track cleaning regime, but that's one of the reasons I have now fitted them to every loco having discovered that the new Hornby HM7K decoders won't run correctly without them.
They are not an alternative to cleaning but they can help to reduce the frequency.