One more vote for the CMX tank car. A little pricey, but indispensable for hard-to-reach truss bridges and tunnels and back corners, but those areas only take up about 10% of the layout.
My best and most reliable track cleaner is the old Number 1 finger wrapped in cheesecloth (or an old diaper or t-shirt) and dipped in denatured alcohol. Cost: zero.
Robert
LINK to SNSR Blog
The Best...........
https://tonystrains.com/product/cmx-clean-machinetm-n-scale
If You can afford it........
I have a couple HO CMX cars...one was a gift..30yrs. ago:
I also have got some others prior to the CMX, but nothing came close to it's performance. I use what they recommend for fluid.....Lacquer thinner. When drip rate is correcttly set, You don't even smell it and will not damage any track, like some others would complain about sometimes. Read instructions throughly!
Take Care!
Frank
Ahhh....the quest for the best.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
Hello my fellow modelers, i am just wondering....For those of you with larger layouts or a lot of track, whats the best n scale track cleaning car or method? I have several harder to reach areas on my layout plus it seems that there is always dust or top of my rails just from lack of use as well as ongoing building etc. There has to be a decent track cleaning car or method or at least better than using the brite boy and elbow grease lol.....Thanks everyone!