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R

Redrider

Member
First of all, what is this Wave Browser and do I really need it to use this thread. I'm beginning to think I downloaded some substitute for Google. If so, I plan to delete it, if that's even possible.

Next, I need to know how to post a new thread in the area most advantageous to my problem. Let me explain, and then someone there can guide me

I haven't run my trains in over 4 months. It's a basement kept train. It's on the floor, carpeted floor. I use Fastrack by Lionel. I run MTH Locomotives. Long story, not important. I use MTH DCS as my brains of the operation using the WIFI method of operation. Up to today, everything I just said has worked just fine. No problems. Since my last run, which was a quick demo for a friends grandson, he wanted to run the train with the Mcdonalds car, I have been super busy, and the train room has been neglected for lack of a better way to say it. When I was running trains weekly, I always ran them with a track cleaning car hooked to the end of the consist. Not a great way to clean the track, but effective. I built them myself. Not bragging, just thought I'd throw that in. Anyway, after 4 months of no movement, I got bored, football season is over, and you can only watch so much meet the press. I know basement kept means moisture. I constantly hang a damprid bag in the train room until it completely runs out of crystals, then change it immediately. That I have been monitoring. There is a propane heater in the room to keep it warm, 70 degrees. I noticed the track has begun to rust in spectacled spots in some places. The system is simple.

Turn on the brick, track gets lit up like the Vegas strip, green and red switch track lanterns everywhere. Circuit breaker didn't kick, so good news, not that it ever does. Turn on the WIFI box. Let it do its thing, blue light comes on, off we go. Turn on Tablet. Tablet connects to the WIFI "DCS yada yada". Tap DCS icon, screen appears, reads the track, locomotive list now active. Choose one, start it, open the necessary switches to get it from its parking track to one of the two main lines, and sit and watch it go around in circles. I use the route feature to cut down on opening and closing switches. Today however, I got a surprise.

From the word go to about a foot from the first switch to snake on to the main line, the train ran fine. It tooled along at 15 smph and just as it approached the first switch, it stopped, then shut down. As I said, the track has grown some rust spots over the 4 months. Spots, not turned dark brown. I looked at the belly, the pick up wheels were rusty, so I cleaned them off. Several unsuccessful attempts later to get the train to leave the yard track to track 1 I gave up and stopped using it. I switched to another train and tried it. You'd never know there was anything wrong. It moved to and over and up the snake onto track 1 and ran like it had since I bought it. I tried another train. Same problem. Every time it crossed that same area where the first one was hiccupping and stopping, this one jerked and lunged but kept going yet you could tell it was having issues. I ran a third and a fourth locomotive, one with a consist and the other by itself. No issues. I ran the fourth one as slow as it would go, all the way down to 3 smph, and not one cough, hiccup, lunge, it didn't seem to matter what I did, it just kept working. The only common denominator between the two problem locomotives, they are both MTH ES44AC circa 2015 and 17. The three I ran that worked fine, MTH SD40's and an MTH SD70. I have yet to run the other ES44AC. The two 44's are the Premier line. The one I have yet to run is a premier. I know it has to be some sort of track issue, but why would three loco's run without issue, and two exact same build loco's have signal issues? The problem doesn't appear to be a WIFI or DCS issue. My switch tracks are working at top form, It can read the entire track and shows all locomotives. As for wiring, I used 12 gauge wire and each oval and parking track have a dedicated wire running to a board that feeds the Track Interface box. Now that you are up to speed, can someone out there lend me some knowledge?

Thanks for the help, glad to be here, hope I can help you some day.
John
 
Welcome aboard John, we are glad to have you with us.

Redrider said:
Wave Browser
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You don't need it, and it sounds dishonest.
Redrider said:
I plan to delete it,
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Promising idea.

I also use Lionel FasTrack, corrosion can cause all sorts of issues. I would start by getting that squared away. Followed by a good cleaning and treat your track with something to enhance conductivity.

I use this to enhance conductivity:

AERO-CAR HOBBY LUBRICANTS Rail & Track Cleaner ACT-6006​

1739782108056.png
 


Bruette said:
Welcome aboard John, we are glad to have you with us.


You don't need it, and it sounds dishonest.

Promising idea.

I also use Lionel FasTrack, corrosion can cause all sorts of issues. I would start by getting that squared away. Followed by a good cleaning and treat your track with something to enhance conductivity.

I use this to enhance conductivity:

AERO-CAR HOBBY LUBRICANTS Rail & Track Cleaner ACT-6006​

View attachment 212150
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Thank you. I was wondering if there was a track lubricant. Was put onto one brand that a guy suggested to be used around the switch tracks when they were being a pill. So clean off the rust, then rub this over the rails?
 
Oh, in regards to that Wave browser download. To all new members who do what I did. It shows up blatantly on page one like some sort of "you need to download this or you can't use the site" thing. I thought it was some sort of site oriented software that gave you more advantageous access to the site. Might want to see about finding some way to delete that add. I fell for it, deleted it immediately, but fell for it. Didn't see anything telling me Wave browser wasn't part of the site. Just trying to help. Didn't mean to over step.
 
Redrider said:
So clean off the rust, then rub this over the rails?
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Remove the rust, clean the track with your choice of cleaner and then apply the conductivity enhancer of your choice

I use 99% isopropyl alcohol to clean my track. It's not the best, but it works, and I have a lot of it!

Alcohol works well, for me. But for some scientific reason, that I can't remember, something about it requires more frequent cleaning. Like I said I have a lot of alcohol. I like it because it dries quickly, and I can apply the conductivity enhancer as soon as I finish cleaning.
 
Watch out to make sure the track cleaner and lube don't discolor or ruin the carpet. May be time for a shelf railroad to get it up off the floor. :-)
 
Bruette said:
Remove the rust, clean the track with your choice of cleaner and then apply the conductivity enhancer of your choice

I use 99% isopropyl alcohol to clean my track. It's not the best, but it works, and I have a lot of it!

Alcohol works well, for me. But for some scientific reason, that I can't remember, something about it requires more frequent cleaning. Like I said I have a lot of alcohol. I like it because it dries quickly, and I can apply the conductivity enhancer as soon as I finish cleaning.
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I saw a YouTube video on this and according to the person who was talking to us about track cleaning, the alcohol, even though it is alcohol, is still water. He recommended any sort of dry clean spray system, like you use when you clean brakes. I use it when I clean a chainsaw because of the magneto. Another guy I watched said that cleaning agents actually make the problem they are supposed to get rid of. Something about the metal the tracks are made of will actually oxidize due to the agent used to clean them? I'm not sure. My track clean cars always come back with a black substance on them and I run those pads dry. If I had just taken time to go down once a week and run just one train on all three tracks, I wouldn't be in this situation. I used to do that every monday with my elevated train. It's a Lionchief Lionel that runs off its own remote. I'd run it about 10 laps with the cleaning car and keep the propane residue off it, and it ran fine. Today it moved about a half inch, then went silent. That track is nearly impossible to clean due to two bridges and it's proximity to the ceiling. I'd take it apart and rebuild it, but the wiring is a total nightmare to rewire when you put it back together.
 


Redrider said:
I'm not sure.
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That makes two of us.

I like the idea of the homemade track car, brilliant! If possible post a photo.

I wish you well with the hard-to-reach track. Maybe some conductivity enhancer on the track cleaning car would help, can't hurt.

It's great to see another O guy!

Most of the others are HO and N, but this is a great and knowledgeable group of people. Best forum on the net!
 
I'd send a photo, especially since a member recommended the trains needed to maybe go upon a shelf and off the floor. I don't know if you read my bio when I signed up, but my train room is an old water cistern. I live in the "country", "rural route" as John Cougar's song goes. When I first built my house here on the farm, no publicly generated water system was in existence. If you wanted water, you provided for it. My water came from the roof, to gutter, to downspout, into cistern under the garage. Once "city" water was piped into our area, we hooked on and the cistern became obsolete.

Luckily, access to it was a concrete wall away in the laundry area of our basement. A giant wet cutting saw and a mess to clean up later, I had a door into the cistern from the basement. Using my non-existent carpentry skills I fashioned walls, a floor, then drywall and a ceiling, and covered up the four support columns in drywall, carpeted the floor with porch carpet, built a large cabinet with shelves at the back of the room, and it was time to lay track. Due to the support columns holding the garage floor up off my head, a table top system was completely out of the question. It was carpet the carpet with track and ovals, or use it as a storage room.

My goal was to run many trains at once, not one train many times. So I set up three ovals, the outer of course covering more floor area than two, two covering more floor area than three. Three became my Yard oval. At each end of the yard oval are switch tracks that allow 7 separate train consists to access the yard oval via their own individual parking or marshalling track. Some head east to access the main, some head west. On each side of the room there are switch tracks connecting track 1 (outer most) to track 2 (second main line) and finally to the yard track 3. Thanks to my DCS system having a "Route" feature, I was able to program each switch to fire in the direction necessary to let each train leave its parking track and proceed onto the yard track, work its way around to the necessary switches that allow it to access either main line 1 or main line 2 depending. It's easy once you get the hang of it. Just don't mess up. You'd be amazed how wide your eyes can get and how fast your heart can beat and how brain dead you can immediately go when a train suddenly heads off in the direction of another train. With practice and only running one train at a time until you are ready, you can actually run four trains at once on my layout.

Being on the floor, where you have to walk, it does get tedious. Tours are not encouraged. Standing at the door looking in admiring what you see, encouraged, allowed. Actually walking into the room without help and direction, can get you killed. Waaaaaaay too much stuff to step on of an expensive and in my case irreplaceable nature. Too many one time buy's from Ebay. I also have scale size signs depicting directions and track numbers to add some imagination to the layout. No people or mountains or houses or lakes or streams or carnival settings, not even a naked woman bathing in her backyard. But a control tower, a water tower, a maintenance shed, a restaurant, and some loading docks. It's a railyard design. No hump.

You asked about the track cleaning car. I actually have 7 of them in operation. One I made for my grandson's train, the elevated Lionel, he requested it for Christmas. I made one for a 100 year old war veteran (Italy campaign), grandson's neighbor, who was a train man. Designed it in the Purple Heart theme. He was wounded at Anzio. He died a month after I gave it to him. Since they are "cleaning" cars, I themed all of mine using cleaning agents advertising. Tide, Boraxo, GoJo, Safety Kleen, WD-40, you get the idea. Most of my consists, consist of food, beverage, or restaurant advertising. I have one train that is all mine. Every car depicts something about me or my life that is important. Harley Davidson, A UH-60 Blackhawk flat car, A Jeep Willy flat car, three bulldozer cars, and the car that started it all, an old 1970's Baby Ruth car from my very first train set in 1971. Santa brought it to me.

Built the cleaning cars out of necessity. Too much track to clean on your knees trying not to step on or knock over anything. Let the train do it is my motto. Hook it to the end of the train like a caboose, and while the train circles the track, it cleans the track. I made one out of wood for my grandson, upon request, again for Christmas, that he designed. Darth Vadar and Obi Wan duking it our on a flat bed with sabers. One side of the car painted red and black, the other that light blue and white the good guys used. Found two scale enough to work figurines and glued them to the deck facing each other. Kept me busy, gave me something to do. He keeps it in his room in the case next to all of his pokemon cards.

That's what model trains mean to me, the hobby side. Watching 15 cars being pulled endlessly around the same oval over and over and.....you get the point, is what it looks like, boring. You can only psych yourself up so many times to go run trains. Before Bass fishing came back into my life, I ran trains once a week, once every two weeks, but often enough to keep them lubed up and relevant. Then my grandson asked me to take him fishing and one catfish later I was hooked again and now I Bass fish in my free time. If I hadn't been so bored Sunday, I wouldn't have run trains then. But I did. And here we are. I had a problem, I needed advice, and thankfully, you guys existed. My other train forum was a lifeline while I was building my layout. Then they became "people like me" who like trains and understand how to talk trains. Then the weird stuff began, I felt in some cases judged for my thoughts and ideas, and finally, since my layout worked and I didn't need the help anymore, I quit going there. I tried to find them again, but every time I searched, this site kept coming up. So here I am. O gauge guy. Feel free to ask me anything. I learned a lot from YouTube. Fixed a switch issue thanks to them. Found the track cleaning car I used as a guide at Northeast Trains. Used their idea that they sell, as a guide for my idea that I think is better. But I only make them for me or gifts, not profit.

Thanks for listening
John
 
Reading (scanning) you need to push any cleaning car you come up with. Ahead of the engine otherwise you will be wasting your time. Pulling the car the engine before the first track section gets cleaned.

Do you have rust on the rails, if yes big problem. More than likely the rail head will be pitted the fixed for that replacement. You just might consider building bench work and starting over. Or hit the train shows and buy the used tin plate. If I have the correct idea about your problem.

Anyway, best of luck, got some work ahead of you.
Pep
 
Not rust so much as rust spots. A bench system in that 20x20 room would eliminate my ability to run four trains at once as well as park them in place off of the main tracks when not in use. Being on the floor is not the issue. I built that layout in 2017 and it has worked without fail ever since. Lack of wiring prowess led to some early issues, but since graduating to 12 gauge, no more voltage or signal issues. Also, 3 of my locomotives run just fine on all areas of the track. Only one area of the layout is causing the problem. Other than the obvious sign of moisture build up in the room, my Damprid bag with water in it, there is no condensation anywhere. The only problem I can point my attention is that since 2017 I haven't gone longer than 3 weeks without running at least 2 trains, one on the main line oval and one on oval 2. Then came last year (2024), and my interest in running trains just fizzled out. I started Bass fishing heavily during the spring and summer months, and even though night fishing wasn't an interest of mine, too dark to see, by the time I'd get home running a train was the furthest thing from my mind. We started remodeling the house, everything in disarray. Father-in-law got sick, sadly passed away, running back and forth to Indiana, trains just weren't foremost on my mind. When I got the buzz to buy trains it set off an excitement I hadn't felt in years. Then I had all these cars and locomotives stored away in plastic tubs. I'd set up track on my back porch, screened in, and for maybe an hour, after taking 2 to set up the track and get all the cars and a locomotive out, I'd run a train all the way around our 32 foot long back porch. Then it would cloud up and I'd hustle to get it all boxed up and put away before it rained. Finally got tired of that.

I wanted a room where I could set it all up, the way I wanted it to look, and then, when I wanted too, go to that room, run trains and leave them sitting where they started. So if I wanted to run a train any day, at any time, in any month, I didn't have to set anything up. To get the set up I wanted I needed every inch of floor space that room lent me minus enough room to walk around without stepping on things. Thanks to the layout I have, I can simply walk into the room, tip toe my way to the back, fire up the track, sit down on my bar stool, fire up the train or trains I want to run, "Alexa, play Yardmaster playlist", and watch while I listen to my favorite songs. In some cases while my grandson sits beside me on the floor playing fortnite.

But, times change, priorities change, interests change, and trains sit. In this case, sit too long. Thanks to my negligence I have some work to do to get them back up an running at top form. But, hopefully, with some cleaning, rust removal, and maybe a straight section or two replacement, I'll get it back normal. But now I know better than to neglect them. A house not lived in falls apart. A train set not played with develops gremlins.

Thanks again for the help, I enjoy conversing with all of you. I'll let you know how it goes and what I had to do to fix it.

John
 
Redrider said:
Thanks for listening
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Thanks for sharing! Your railroad empire sounds like a dream come true.

I've used Fastrack since 2012. If all else fails rust can be removed using fine emery cloth. I have a few broken pieces of Fastrack, that can be fixed. Too many times, being taken apart. I never replaced one due to rust.

I have a small inactive layout on my front porch that is exposed to the humidity of Baltimore. I have had some heavily rusted pieces that took lots of work to clean the rust, but they work fine now.

When you get the rust issue squared away try to schedule some train time to keep it all running well. What you were doing worked, why change?
 
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My thoughts exactly. I know all about the pull apart, reattach life line. Plus, the location of those wire attachments are in a less than hospitable location, but what can you do. The fact they are such small thin pieces of sheet metal make the choice of wire connector limited. But, I found a work-around. I used 12 gauge as main trunk line, and fed off the track piece with 14. Just small enough to fit comfortably in that tiny connector. I used those solderable shrink plastic butt connectors to hook my track wires to the trunk wire. Easy to use, you just had to be very still until you got the solder to melt and the plastic to shrink. I have every track piece screwed down to the floor through the carpet to the subfloor, so none of that track moves. The hard part was all the math I had to do to make some of my runs connect evenly. A 10 here, then one 4 1/2 and a 1 1/8 to finally bridge the gap without crimping the run or streeeeeeetching the last two together. Switch tracks were a nightmare but so much fun when they worked the way they were supposed. I ran multi-colored telephone wire, 3 at a time, from the three connections to the AIU. I didn't test any of them. I just hoped I had it right, hooked them together, and once I had them listed in the app, tested them. Open arrow opened the switch, curved arrow closed it, and not only that, the switch that was supposed to work, was the switch that worked. It was that part of building the layout that gave me the most pleasure. Something I did actually worked the way it was supposed to in the end. I had more fun and got more satisfaction from building the layout, than I did running the trains. I hate to be a Debbie Downer (Saturday Night Live), but I do have to be honest. Please don't take this wrong, I mean no disrespect to the hobby. Once the layout is done, the trains are fired up, the horn works, the bell works, the rear coupler opens when you tap the icon, the switches all work the way you designed them too. But the train just goes around in circles over and over again until you get tired and park it. MTH designed a playback feature that lets you program a run from start to finish. I tried it. It worked. But when I played it back, it wasn't the precise playback I had hoped to see. One locomotive that was stopped in recording precisely where I wanted it to stop every time, over shot its landing spot. One stopped too soon, and in one case, the loco started, but never left the launching pad.

I found out later that regardless of what you try, circumstances beyond anyone's control lead to your program being compromised. Nothing you can really do about it. It would be great if somehow you could program your trains to play out a sequence that would let you record your own voice into the engine. Then I could get my grandson to record his voice into another engine, and as the two trains ran on separate tracks, we could talk to each other. As if the engineers on each train were talking back and forth. Just being able to fire that one up and run it from time to time would be golden. But, MTH got sold, Mike retired, and now MTH relies on others to build certain engines, and I don't think DCS has been modified since they came out with the TIU/WIFI combination box. Then again I quit checking years ago. My app still works, it's mine, I bought it, and my locomotives still respond to it.

Anybody else in here use O Gauge and DCS? Love to hear your thoughts

John
 
The current layout I am putting together is O scale. And frankly, the scale means nothing regarding digital train control. There is 1 thing more room for the decoders and so on.

Regarding your question, the simple answer Digitrax that I have is DCC. DCS in is Lionel-specific and uses different coded interfaces to accomplish the same results.
Today engines are DCC & DCS capable having a switch to select one or the other.
So the difference is minor really.....
Pep
 
Redrider said:
uninstalled it as quickly as I installed it.
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Welcome to the form! 👍

Use Brave browser and just keep Google as well. Brave is a substitute, but it blocks almost all ads in your browser. You know, that way you don't install wave (Or anything else) again. I use it and it is great.
 


I haven't had a permanent layout since we moved in December 2017. It's always something, mostly health problems. But I haven't admitted defeat. My plan is to build a permanent layout in my attic. In the meantime, Christmas trains and other little holiday setups are keeping me happy.

Redrider said:
I used those solderable shrink plastic butt connectors to hook my track wires to the trunk wire.
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I have yet to solder anything. I used non insulated crimp connectors for track connections and insulated crimp butt and spade connectors for everything else on my previous layout. In four years I never had any problems.

Redrider said:
The hard part was all the math I had to do to make some of my runs connect evenly. A 10 here, then one 4 1/2 and a 1 1/8 to finally bridge the gap without crimping the run or streeeeeeetching the last two together.
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Did you see Lionel now makes a 3"? Not that it will help you now. I'm full of useless information.

Redrider said:
I found out later that regardless of what you try, circumstances beyond anyone's control lead to your program being compromised.
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It's like that with almost anything. "Stuff happens!"

Redrider said:
Anybody else in here use O Gauge and DCS? Love to hear your thoughts
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I have a Lionel Legacy System. It worked great on my old layout. To be honest the more temporary layouts I set up the more I enjoy conventional control. I do like LionChief as well.

I only have one MTH locomotive. EMD SW-1500, Canton Railroad "1501" with Proto-Sound 3.0 I live a few minutes from the Canton Railroad.

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