Bachmann OO9 Quarry Hunslet

[Lancastrian]

I have this week taken delivery of a 391-053 Quarry Hunslet 0-4-0 Dorothea Quarry Lined Green. I have actually been waiting for this loco since August 2018, but better late than never.

After reading all the suppled paperwork I was surprised to see the warning not to run it on track with high frequency track cleaners. My OO9 track was using such a cleaner, obviously it is now in a drawer.

[Bufferstop]

After reading all the suppled paperwork I was surprised to see the warning not to run it on track with high frequency track cleaners. My OO9 track was using such a cleaner, obviously it is now in a drawer.

IMO the best place for it. They don't "clean" track they just break down the electrical resistance of the gunge and grime which insulated the wheels from the rail. This ensures that when you do clean the track it requires more abrasion than it otherwise would have. Small coreless motors are susceptible to damage from high frequency currents. The heavy iron core of a DC motor only weakly tries to respond to a high frequency magnetic field, at most you may hear a bit of a hum. Take away the iron and the relatively flimsy former on which the coils of the armature are mounted makes a determined effort to move in sync with the high frequency field. The lack of the iron core increases the HF component of the current that is generated leading to overheating, the lack of its weight allows a greater amount of oscillation of the armature. Combine the two effects and you have a really destructive force applied to the motor.

[Lancastrian]

Thanks Bufferstop, after reading your comments I will remove the 2 double units I have on my OO layout. That means that I will have two singles and two double units 'chucked' in the back of the drawer.

[b308]

Yes, most of the new RTR 009 use coreless motors, time to bin the track cleaners!