Rail corrosion

[Chumley]

Has anyone ever seen it this bad. These are stored in a wood crate in a trailer for a few months.

The track in the cardboard boxes was fine.

[THERIZE]

Remember that the 9V track is metal. So anything that affacts metal would also be likely to affect the 9V track. Could be simply something like water.

[engineer003]

That looks similar to the old three rail Lionel track after it 'aged'. A little very fine steel wool and a little elbow grease and it should be useable again. Do not use sandpaper as you will ruin the track! I cleaned my father's childhood Lionel train set like that and I have been running them for over 40 years. Good luck.

[Chumley]

I have them cleaned up but have to take it all apart to clean the ends. Still having some conductivity issues.

I used the highest fine sandpaper i could find and shined them right up. No damage at all.

If I was home I might have done something different. But this was last night setting up fro a show today.

[dr_spock]

It could be high humidity, moisture from the wood, etc.

[pirzyk]

It could be high humidity, moisture from the wood, etc.

I kinda think so too. What does the nails/fasteners in the wood crate look like and what are they made out of? Were all the rails that bad or only the ones touching the wood?

[zephyr1934]

Ooo, ouch, that hurts just to look at. could the wood in the crate be treated with a chemical that attacks the metal in the rails? I would think the source would be more than simply high humidity. My club stores the 9v track in a trailer that sits in the open sun and weather, our 9v track seems to do fine, never had a problem like that. Meanwhile, I've learned the hard way to be very careful with erasers that I use to clean the track, I left one in storage sitting on a baseplate, a few months later the chemicals in the eraser had melted part of the baseplate.

PS, please do post photos from your show in a new thread.

[xboxtravis7992]

Could a plastic bin for storage be a solution?

[coaster]

This may sound a little odd, but are you sure it was actually corrosion and not simply a build-up of crud? I know a number of my tracks look like that, and it's just gook from God-knows-where that's gotten stuck on to it. What makes me question the corrosion diagnosis is that the rails are nickel-plated commercial bronze. Nickel is actually very resistant to corrosion; in fact it's one of the main corrosion resistant elements to stainless steels. Nickel doesn't rust, so it wouldn't care less about humidity or proximity to rusty nails. The chemicals that will corrode nickel you probably don't want to be in contact with anyway. But the thickness of the coating is extremely thin, typically around .0002-.0003" (5-8µm) thick, so if the nickel were truly corroded, that light sanding to clean it up would have revealed the base bronze metal.

More likely, it's trace amounts of oil and dirt that have been electrostatically attracted to the rail surface. Could be from storage, or could even be from use at shows or around your house. A wooden crate would indeed have a high concentration of such matter. The good news is, it should be easy enough to remove.

[Hod Carrier]

But the thickness of the coating is extremely thin, typically around .0002-.0003" (5-8µm) thick, so if the nickel were truly corroded, that light sanding to clean it up would have revealed the base bronze metal.

Sanding is not normally recommended for nickel silver coated bronze due to the risk of damage to the coating. If the build-up of dirt is particularly bad there might be no other option but to use some sort of abrasive cleaner, but for maintenance it would be preferable to give track a good wipe down with IPA. No, not the delicious traditional hopped ale popular here in the UK, but Isopropyl Alcohol.

[coaster]

I would agree, but that's what the OP said worked to take it off. I think if you're careful, it'll be fine, but otherwise, yes, rubbing alcohol or floor/countertop cleaner that doesn't destroy ABS should do the trick.