Cleaning the wheels and pickups on an Electrotren class 251

Introduction

One of the aspects of model railroading I find challenging is locomotive maintenance. There are several opinions out there about what is the best way to do it and how often it should be done. The manual for the different locomotives does also have some differences regarding the topic.

The first train I got in my first startset was an EL11 from NMJ. It's a good looking model with decent driving characteristicts. One issue I encountered early on was the problems related to dirt that builds up on the track, the wheels and the pickups. I actually sent the locomotive back twice to the store I bought it in back in 2016 because I thought it was something wrong with the locomotive.

I later learned the importance of clean track and wheels, but I where still struggling with dirt. I own a Woodland scenics tidy track (works poorly in my opinion) and a Peco wheel cleaning brush (works great in my opinion). Those tools are helpful for quick and easy cleaning of some types of dirt, but I have sometimes noticed that some of my trains operate poorly even after cleaning them several times with those tools.

And that brings us back to todays article. I recently noticed poor performance on one of my most reliable locomotives, the Class 251 from Electrotren. The locomotive would stop at several places, especially on the same spot on my curved turnouts, where other locomotives had no issues at all.

I therefor decieded to investigate further and look online for maintenance tips. One video that where helpful was this from Marklinofsweden. The video made me suspect that the issue with my Class 251 where related to dirty wheels. The video is covering maintenance of Märklin locomotives, but the part about the wheel cleaning is similar on DCC locomotives. This was also one of the videos that suggested the use of cotton swabs and Isopropanol for cleaning wheels.

There is however a few important points related to the pickups on locomotives that I so far haven't seen properly explained in any video, including the video mentioned above. Neither is it explained in any manual for the locomotives I own. Some of those points where explained to me in a forum back in 2016, but I unfortunatley didn't understand them until recently this year. Read on to learn more about the importance of the pickups!

Tools

I used the following tools for cleaning the wheels and pickups on the class 251. Other locomotives might need different tools.

I used Isopropanol as the cleaning fluid, but other cleaning fluids like for example Track magic could also be used. It's important to remember that 99% Isopropanol like the one I have used here might be dangerous for plastic. It can also be problematic if it comes in contact with paint. On the other side, it's important to remember that 99% Isopropanol is better suited as a contact cleaner than 70% Isopropanol for example.

The tweezer is usefull for removing hair and other debris that is stuck, but might not be needed in all cases. It can also be a helpfull tool for detaching the wheel axel.

Cleaning the wheels

Different locomotives have different ways to access the inner mechanisme of the bogie. The class 251 has bogies that are super easy to access. Loosening two screws per bogie is all that is needed. I personally also find it much easier to deal with bogies that are attached with screws compared to bogies that are snaped in to place. Its easy to break the attaching mechanisme for the bogie on some models, like for example NMJ EL11, so be careful if you have that type of bogie.

Bellow is a picture of what one of the bogies looked like when I opened it up.

We can see that there is some dirt on the wheels and some excessive grease from last service I did. I also noticed that there where some excessive grease on the inside of the plastic cover for the bogie, which I decided to carefuly remoove with some isopropanol.

Cotton swabs dipped in isopropanol where used for all the cleaning. I used the top of the Isopropanol bottle for diping the cotton swabs.

The cotton swabs wher carefully rubbed against the wheels and the oily plastic. Bellow is a picture of a cleaned wheelset to the left and a dirty one to the right.

The class 251 have three bogies. Two of them have pickups, while the last one simply spins freely. The wheels with pickups is important to have clean on both sides. The outwards facing side is the one that is connected with the track while the inwards facing side is where the pickups connect to the wheels. Having clean connection to the track won't help much if the side connecting to the pickups are dirty.

The wheels in the free-spinng bogie (the center one) does not need to be taken out of the bogie for cleaning. There are two reasons for that. The first reason is that they are free-spinning and can therefor be turned around without having the engine turn. The second reason is that they only need to be cleaned on the outwards facing side, as there are now pickups there.

Cleaning the pickups

There is no use in having clean wheels if the pickups are dirty. The class 251 uses "whisker"-pickups. That is the same type of pickups that are used on my EL11 from NMJ and I do also belive that my Y1 from NMJ uses those types of pickups.

The pickups are easly cleaned with a cotton swab, but there is another problem with those type of pickups as illustrated in the bellow picture.

The pickups in the picture are bent inwards instead of outwards. That means that the pickups on for example the right hand side will not have proper contact when the wheels are in the rightmost position! The whiskers need to follow the wheels when it moves, which means that it has to press against the wheel, not the center of the bogie like it does in this picture.

This issue happens because the whiskers are easy to bend. It could be a result of driving this locomotive a lot or it could be the result of me being an idiot when doing the last maintenance.

The easiest way to fix this issue is to carefully bend the whiskers outwards using a tweezer.

Avoid bending it to much, as that might make it harder to put the wheels back in. Bellow is a picture of what the bogie looked like after I bent the pickups into place.

The wheels can then be placed back into the bogie. Make sure that the pickups keeps pressing towards the wheels after assembly.

Final thoughts

One of the most crucial things I have learnt through this experience is the importance of checking the whisker pickups. Its easy to just think that cleaning them is enough, but that might not always be the case. It can also be hard to spot if the whiskers are correctly pressing on the wheels after assembly.

Another thing to remember is that doing locomotive maintenance is just one part of the puzzle. Track cleaning is also important. The great thing about having more than one locomotive is that it will be easier to know if you should start looking at the locomotive or the track.