The "Great Cleaning"

Today I finished cleaning the N scale track and turnouts. I use an abrasive pad to get most of the gunk off, also a "brightboy" and a very fine sanding block. The block seems to work very well. Then I look at every one of the turnouts to see if the electrical contact is good at the points, and get the errant pieces of ballast out of the flangeways. This stuff seems to hide well but the dental tool works to dig it out.

Then I use the shop vac to vacuum up all the little dust and stuff that has come off the pads. Finally, I run a short wheel base locomotive over every piece of track and turnout to see if there is any bad electrical connection. This quickly shows spots that need work -the loco stops.

Finally I clean every rail with alcohol to get the last bit of gunk off the rails. The last thing is a VERY light coating of NoOX. This is a sort of paste. That little jar in the blip has lasted years. This coating helps reduce oxidation of the rail that hurts conductivity. I have had great luck with it - on the last layout I only cleaned rail every 6 months or longer. I got mine from the Bar Mills web site.

Next step is to clean the loco wheels and run some trains.