Railway/Cleaning

Cleaning is a vital part of the preparation for any job of assembly or painting, and a necessary part of keeping the railway running.

Methods fall into two broad types: chemical cleaning and mechanical cleaning.

Chemical cleaning
Chemical cleaning removes deposits using some chemical, normally a solvent. The two most common solvents used in cleaning are:
 * Alcohol, usually in the form of, which is common or garden mixed with some chemical to make it unpalatable.
 * Pure alcohol is highly toxic and not especially easy to obtain
 * (US: rubbing alcohol) is a mixture of ethanol or, water and , with some additional minor ingredients. It is very effective for cleaning sticky residues but leaves a slightly oily finish which impedes painting and traction.
 * is the canonical denatured alcohol, ethanol plus wood and usually  dye.  It is an excellent degreaser and leaves no residue but is less effective in removing sticky residues than surgical spirit.


 * or other ketone solvents are highly toxic and carcinogenic, and will attack many plastics. The most common form of acetone is nail varnish remover, car enamel thinners may also include it.  This is one of the few things that can be used to remove builder's foam filler (before it sets).  Like alchohol it is highly flammable but miscible with water - in other words, if you clean something with acetone then wash it with dilute detergent, you will wash away the solvent, which is what you probably wanted.
 * Specialist rail cleaners
 * Carr's Railclean works well on nickel silver but leaves steel rail blackened and non-conductive. I use a track cleaning car with a wool pad to apply the Railclean around the track, run it round twice then follow up with a cloth or track rubber buffing away the worst deposits, then run it round again.  You can apply it with a cloth, of course.
 * Rail-Zip is a cleaner which leaves behind an oily residue; this inhibits future deposits and corrosion but impedes traction. It's also useful for lubricating the inside of wheel flanges on wheels which have pickups so have a tendency to generate deposits.

Mechanical cleaning
Mechanical cleaning is the usual way of repairing corroded or tarnished components.
 * Track rubbers are fine but tend to leave deposits of rubber and grit. The Peco one seems to be the most common in the UK.
 * Very fine (not less than P600, preferably P1000 or finer) can be used to repair badly tarnished rails.
 * is a wonderful material, I won't hear a word against it. A mild abrasive plus ammonia, you can use it to produce highly polished metal surfaces or even to polish scratches out of plastics, especially . Never use it on lacquered brass, though.  It removes the lacquer and you'll have to polish it for ever after.
 * Brass-bristled es are useful for cleaning wheels and other conductive components. A suede brush is one cheap form of brass-wire brush.