Cotton Waste

Does any railway still use cotton waste? If so, where do you get it from?? If anybody has the details then please message me! Thanks!

 

A further appeal for a source of cotton waste - the most effective material for cleaning steam locos.

Does anybody know of a source of traditional cotton waste (free from synthetic material)??

 

It wont be in this country

Cos sod all is made here ainymore

 

hospital rags is what we use

 

Moors stopped using it about 20 years ago, as the threads got into all sorts of places that they shouldn't have done, and knackered things. Look forward to entertaining problems when it causes blockages to feedwater, clogs up ejector cones, etc.

Keep away from the stuff!

 

i havnt seen cotton waste being used for ages mostly because most railways would i supposse have to buy it in when donated rags are free,

 

Is cotton waste a problem? Or user error?

 

Cotton waste was certainly used extensively on the Western Region of BR for loco cleaning & is far more effective than plain rag. The NYMR experience sounds like carelessness & does not match our previous experience of quite a few years ago - but where do you get hold of cotton waste in 2010?

 

Working both on the NYMR (which use rags, which they buy) and SHM (a Dutch heritage railway, 20 km) which use cotton waste I prefer cotton waste. The cleaning capacity of rags is nothing compaired to cotton waste. The SHM use cotton waste for over 30 years and I can't recall any hot bearing (or whatever) Neither down to cotton waste or anything else

 

Quite. I thought it was rubbish stuff for cleaning engines with. It was great for lighting up with because it caught fire very quickly but useless for doing any cleaning with.

 

We used to use cotton waste in the 70's but then there still plenty of mills to provide it. Never had any problems with it getting in the wrong places, and it did have mop-like properties for absorbing muck. Trouble with hospital rags is that they are just the opposite - not very absorbent if you mean the old uniforms etc. A couple of wipes and the stuff is clogged up and you need another piece.

 

Could you find out where your Dutch Railway get the waste from?

We did source some in Pakistan ( i think) but turned out not to be true.

Cheers

 

I agree about the cleaning properties; the problem is those that use it! As you will have noticed at Grosmont, not all the cleaners are especially suited to work in a railway environment, and we don't have enough skilled staff to provide the degree of supervision that we might wish to.

 

When you're cleaning locos in the traditional way with a paraffin/oil mix, cotton waste is probably the best material but cotton towelling rags are probably near enough equal. However, many railways have now abandoned paraffin/oil for paintwork above the running plate and use polishes of various sorts and I doubt that cotton waste is much good for that.

I also agree with Ed (a rarity!) that cotton waste finds its way into all sorts of places it shouldn't, sandboxes being one of many.

 

Sandboxes ??!! - Blimey you must have OCD to want to clean inside a sandbox

 

Old railway trick to dry out sand boxes, especially western boxes is to put cotton waste in the box and set fire to it. We still did it, when we had waste. We also use cotton waste with our Auto Polish, best stuff around, very kind on the paint and we like clean engines!

 

Cottonwaste:

Poetsdoekenfabriek Brabant BV
Einsteinstraat 2
5051 DR Goirle

tel: + 31 (13) 5308020
fax: + 31 (13) 5300611

http://www.poetsdoeken.nl/Home.aspx?lang=en

Productname: Bluco
Ask for "zachte witte poetskatoen, niet kort versneden" (soft, white cottonwaste, not cut short).

But I'm willing to do the legwork (pbender (a) b-support.nl)

 

Super, we're on the track!!
Thanks very much