Brian, I was at a friends layout a week or so ago where we were talking about brass vs stainless steel. On the layout theres a 25’ ish section of brass on the mainline, the rest of the mainline is stainless (150’ ish). We noticed drops in speed on the brass, he used a cleaning pad, and all was fine, well for about 15 minutes… then the same thing happened.
I then began to question as to why it would happen so quickly?? It’s not like brass oxidizes that quickly!! So I was thinking it must not just be the track, I looked at the wheels of the Aristocraft RS-3 and noticed that the Stainless/Alloy crap silver wheels had rings of brass coating on it. When I got home I checked my U25B and the same ring appeared. My USA trains SW-2, which appears to be a harder metal than aristo did not have this.
Is it possible that the track cleaner is leaving a film on the track and the wheels of the loco are picking it up and either sticking from compaction, or is it possible that the film is “welded” from the track power to the wheels??
I see everyone talking about the track being the problem but could it be the metal wheels and a reaction between the two?
The USA trains and LGB stuff has the sliders which continually scrape the rails so they don’t have the same problems as the Aristo and Bachman stuff.
Ok time to sit back and see if anyone can answer without the “battery power anyone” Bs and have a discussion about the original topic in question. Heaven forbid a solution to the brass cleaning issue actually be answered scientifically!