I bought about 200 pieces of O-31 track recently. Most of it was somewhat rusty. I am 1500 miles from home without a wire wheel or drill motor. So I tried something different. I put the track together and put the 2056 steamer on it along with a good number of cars. I set the E unit to forward only, and proceeded to run the train. There were a few sections of track that were rusty enough that the train stalled, so I took another section of track and used the end of one of the ties to scrape the top of the rails on these sections. As soon as the loco would run without stalling, I just let it run until the track was clean enough that the E unit wouldn't drop out. Then I turned the E unit on. Looking at the track now, after a few hours of running, there is a shiny line on the top of both outside rails of every track section. The center rail is looking pretty good, also. If I run a lighted caboose with a single pickup, the light tends to flicker a little, but not too bad. The more I run the train, the better the track becomes.
:thumbsup:
To make all this work, since the pins on most of the track sections have some rust, I bent the outside rail to the left and the center rail to the right so the pins would make a good contact. I also worked the track sections back and forth so the pin would be cleaned off by the rubbing action, and also so the inside of the rails would be cleaned off. I have two loops connected by a pair of switches, and only one lockon. The train speed does not vary enough that I can detect it.:thumbsup:
:thumbsup:To make all this work, since the pins on most of the track sections have some rust, I bent the outside rail to the left and the center rail to the right so the pins would make a good contact. I also worked the track sections back and forth so the pin would be cleaned off by the rubbing action, and also so the inside of the rails would be cleaned off. I have two loops connected by a pair of switches, and only one lockon. The train speed does not vary enough that I can detect it.
:thumbsup:
