FasTrack Curves Turning Green

Those were the Alien produced version before Lionel started using an Asian manufacturer.

No, I haven't seen anything like this reported on the forum or personally. One former member had trouble with his after trying Simple green as a track cleaner.

Have you tried wiping it with a cloth with alcohol to determine if it is glue overspray leaching the green color? perhaps just a cloth damp with water.

Did you use track expander paste?

Interesting, I bought some used Fastrack some time back, and a couple of pieces look just like that.  I haven't tried cleaning them, I wonder what it is.

Frog snot

While helping to build a modular layout this spring we could see that the base's had 2 shades of gray. Might be different factories made them and one was not too good at it.

Years ago, when color slides were a big part of photography, I was using a processing lab that returned the slides to me in nifty plastic containers, rather than the Kodak cardboard sleeves. The containers came in both blue and gold plastic.

Now, 30 years later, the color from the gold containers has migrated onto the white plastic slide mounts! The blue containers caused no such effect.

Yikes, hoping the sets and tracks I gave as gifts don't have this issue arise.

Nairb Rekab posted:

Frog snot

Frog snot changes color when it dry's.

This is interesting.   I have all generations of Fastrack, hundreds of pieces, and I have never seen this before.

Someone mentioned it above: is it at all possible that your glue/water mix for the grass is somehow slowly leeching the color onto the road bed due to imperceptible over-spray/application?

Nairb Rekab posted:

Frog snot

It's not frog snot, of that I'm sure.   I've seen that junk on stuff that's come in for service, no thanks!

Moonman posted:

Those were the Alien produced version before Lionel started using an Asian manufacturer.

No, I haven't seen anything like this reported on the forum or personally. One former member had trouble with his after trying Simple green as a track cleaner.

Have you tried wiping it with a cloth with alcohol to determine if it is glue overspray leaching the green color? perhaps just a cloth damp with water.

Did you use track expander paste?

I have tried cleaning it with no success. I thought it could be the glue leeching color too but if that were the case shouldn't nearby track sections do the same?

I wonder if that is mold or mildew that has formed on the track. Mold and mildew can form and spread on plastics. Certain batches of the Fastback may be more porous and withhold moisture and then get moldy as a result.

Now I want pistachio ice cream. 

Send the photo to mailto:TALKTOUS@LIONEL.COM and ask them.

I discovered that a couple of pieces of my Fastrack have some of that green on them as well, but only on a small portion of the effected pieces and not as pronounced a green as was shown. 

I bet Simple Green will work on it.

No need, it's already green.

It almost looks like verdigris (sp?), the green oxidation that copper, brass and bronze can get. I would wonder if maybe you have exposed copper pipes that are sweating and the green is being dripped on the tracks, but since others say they have seen this problem as well that isn't going to fly (or if it is in a room with no open copper water pipes sweating. 

bigkid posted:

It almost looks like verdigris (sp?), the green oxidation that copper, brass and bronze can get. I would wonder if maybe you have exposed copper pipes that are sweating and the green is being dripped on the tracks, but since others say they have seen this problem as well that isn't going to fly (or if it is in a room with no open copper water pipes sweating. 

No exposed pipes in this basement!

Looks like discoloration as a result of UV exposure.

Perhaps a run of track was made that didn't use UV-stabilized plastic.

TRW