Track cleaning

As I mentioned in the last post, my BN locomotive was up and running but the behavior was not ideal -- the power would drop out occasionally, resulting in jerky movement along the track. I took two approaches to solve this problems.

First, I took another look at the trucks. There are four axles on this locomotive and all were operating when power was provided, but I realized neither of the axles on the forward truck were picking up power from the track -- they were relying on power supplied by the rear truck. I disassembled the forward truck and realized that on one side both the wires connecting the axles to the power pickup bus were no longer connected. I stripped the wires and re-soldered them in place -- my high school electronics classes finally were of some use. With that fix, I confirmed that all four axles could independently pick up power. Success!


Next, it was time for some track cleaning. As most of the track I've put in place so far has been previously owned, none of it is in prime condition. The solution was elbow grease and my tool of choice, a Scotch-Brite scouring pad on a six-inch sanding block.


Scrub, scrub, scrub. I started where the locomotive had been having the greatest difficulty pulling power and could see results immediately. After I had made it over the entire length of track, the U25B was running as smoothly as a new locomotive.

Here's a video of the locomotive gliding down the newly scrubbed track.