Large Scale Central

Aristo-Craft Stainless rail endorsement

Track and Trestles
#1

Not wishing to start a ‘flame’ war, but simply an observation. Five years ago, when initially planning my railroad, I laid out track in the design that I wanted. Well, time took its toll (too much kit-bashing) and a substantial portion of my railroad was never connected to the continuous run mainline, but languished in the weather. A bout of enthusiasm, with completion of a major siding, complete with a shuttle circuit (with shuttle electronics protected by a couple of relays from the branchline power), saw me venture into the incompleted rear section of the railroad. The last 36 hours I have wired up the frog polarity microswitches for the three #6 Aristo switches and clamped the rail together. The section also contains numerous wide-radius switches as well.

More as a test, I connected two alligator clamp power supplies to the end of the rail and applied power. The loco responded smoothly over the entire section, rail that had never seen power and never been cleaned for five years. This was a length of many metres of rail. The track still had the familiar patches of ‘tea-stain’ rusting common on rail from that period of manufacturing. No feeder wires as yet have been fitted. The rail is clamped using a combination of standard Aristo rail joiners and Hillman track clamps.

I now have the tedious task of supplying power leads and feeder wires to the rail, along with the electronics to isolate the two Train Engineers that will be supplying power to that section.

#2

Yup, it’s purty good stuff. :stuck_out_tongue:

-Brian

#3

I had it in the shop. The only place I ever had to clean it was where I’d slop water on it filling the stream. Good stuff!

#4

I agree Tim. I’ve had Aristo Stainless in the garden for over 4 years. I purchased most of it in early 2003. After discovering the little rust spots and some rather nasty machining issues on some test track I had laid out, I called Aristo and was given the tea stain story. I decided to un-box everything I had and put it outside for a weather test. A month later about a 3/5 of it had developed the “tea stains” and the rest was perfect. I called Aristo again with my results and they offered an exchange. I was driving by Irvington on my way to EBT that fall, so I took three boxes of rail with stains and failing ties back to the factory for exchange. While I was there I got a nice tour and three new boxes of rail. I Weather tested the new rail and was happy with the result. The “tea stains” should not be more than a surface issue of iron deposits from machining. If they don’t rust away in a few months, something isn’t right with your rail.

The rail I’ve had outside for over 4 years now has never been cleaned with anything other than a very mild Scotch Bright pad mounted under a flat car or a cloth pad on the end of a pole. This cleaning is only needed to get the mud and ballast grit from rain splash off the rails. I feed power from the indoor layout and at the mid-point outdoors. I’ve had no conductivity issues at all. I use only the Aristo screw joiners except at switches where I use Split-Jaw clamps and lift-out bridges where I use Hillman bridge clamps.

90% of my loco fleet is still track power only. I do some block control and have a polarity switched wye. The dual-power Aristo locos that I have are usually run on battery from a trail car, but I’m no where near the point of saying that I run battery power. The SS rail has worked very well for me. With the recent price increases I’m glad I still have a couple of boxes left from that 2003 purchase :slight_smile:

Now that I’ve been running some live steam I might need to get more aggressive with my cleaning. Not with abrasives, but with solvents to cut the oil left on the track. My Shay is slipping going up the curving 4% with 3 cars. It should be able to handle that grade so I’m pretty sure the track, and maybe the Shay wheel tread, is oily.