Who make a good HO automatic track cleaner?
I don't believe there is anything that is truly automatic. But close to that is a CMX track cleaning car. They are a bit pricey but do a pretty good job at cleaning track other than for stuff like plaster splatters, paint spills, etc. It is essentially a brass (or bronze?) tank car with a filler cap and a small valve and a little sled like thing with cloth affixed to it that rides on the track. You fill the tank with alcohol or another cleaner of your choice, adjust the valve so that the cleaner drips out only enough to keep the cloth damp. When the cloth gets dark black stripes on it, you replace it with a clean one.
Google CMX track cleaner car for lots of info and vendors. Good luck..
The simplest (and cheapest) automatic track cleaner is the so-called John Allen slider - a piece of Masonite, rough side down, under an ordinary box car or reefer. Two posts (flathead machine screws) pass through holes in the car floor. There's a weight, separate from the car weight, on top of those machine screws, so the cleaning pad is actially free to move vertically while maintaining horizontal alignment.
One (or several) can be put into general service. Once every 25 operating hours or so (may be more or less frequent, depending on local conditions) the pads will require cleaning to remove accumulated crud.
If you thouroughly GLEEM your entire layout ONCE, ordinary track cleaning is all but eliminated. I have even lifted and re-laid once-GLEEMED track and have not noticed any additional cleaning requirements. For details, just enter "gleem" in the search block to the right.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with GLEEMED track and sliders)
Gidday.
tomikawaTTThe simplest (and cheapest) automatic track cleaner is the so-called John Allen slider - a piece of Masonite, rough side down, under an ordinary box car or reefer. Two posts (flathead machine screws) pass through holes in the car floor. There's a weight, separate from the car weight, on top of those machine screws, so the cleaning pad is actually free to move vertically while maintaining horizontal alignment.
An example of mine.
Cheers, the Bear.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
I use a CMX machine. I clean my track 3 or 4 times a year. It's not "automatic," since it needs to be pulled around, and the car is both heavy and the cleaning pad adds a lot of resistance.
I have subways with low tunnels that surface cars and engines can't get through, so I MU together my two subway motors to pull the CMX car around.
I use lacquer thinner as the cleaning agent. It's one of those things I like to do on a nice day with the windows open.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I gleamed my track and use a CMX car with denatured alcohol. Most of my locos can't pull the CMX alone so I gang two together that gets it done (I now have an official consist that are well coordinated). If I notice a loco beginning to act up at all, I clean the track and also the loco wheels, the latter by spinning the wheels over an alcohol wet piece of paper towel. Probably every 60 days or so, not quite as good as some report.
I did buy some Noch 60157 dust bunnie things that attach to an axle and drag a pad along, but have not tried them yet.
Paul
Modeling HO with a transition era UP bent
The CMX track cleaning car is all BRASS,except for the trucks and couplers..The cloth is not just plain cloth,,it is corduroy,,,which makes a big difference...
Cheers,
Frank
I agree with Chuck. Unless you just have a lot of money you want to spend the homemade John Allen cleaning car after Gleaming is the best way to go. I used 1 1/2" nails instead of bolts for the cleaning pad to attach to the boxcar. I also have cut small cloth pads out of old tee shirts that hook over each nail before you poke them through the bottom of the boxcar. Soaked in alcohol they will give an extra wet cleaning if you feel it is necessary from time to time.
I use this one from Walthers.
Jim
I have used the walthers car as well and it is heavy. usually use one sometimes two locos to pull it arounf. For all that weight a bright boy does a better job but thats manual.
Joe Staten Island West
I believe,that manuel,,,does not want to do it either.....too much work.
After looking at prices for commercial track cleaning cars, I built my own - for $8.00
I picked up an old AHM train car at a show for $3 to become the base for my car. At the same show, I found a bag of misc. motor parts that included two identical flywheels. I bought the bag for $15, but that included a third flywheel, two motors, some cement, a cast motor mount, etc.
I started by disassembling the car and converting the underframe to body-mounted Kadee couplers.
I then got distracted and started working on the roller. I used an unbent paper clip wrapped in a couple layers of masking tape to perfectly align the flywheels, and roughed up the small ends with a file in preparation for gluing. I then stuck the one flywheel on the paper clip, and then glued the other one on to it, using the paper clip to align them. When the glue dried, I had a pair of flywheels aligned and glued face to face in a sort of hourglass shape.
That shape was obviously unsuited to track cleaning, since it would prevent the roller from tracking well. To remedy the situation, I glued a layer of .010 styrene around the outside of the roller to make a smooth surface. A file took care of the lip left by the overlap. The flywheels should be centered in the plastic, and the plastic should be about 1/4" narrower than the inside of the body shell, to allow room for the guide slots.
To hold the roller in place in the body, I made a pair of guide slots using styrene channel. I glued one channel to each side of the inside of the shell, so that the slots were directly across from each other and centered in the body. I made a pin using an unbent paper clip, and cut it so that it slipped freely inside the channels, but wouldn't fall out. The pin will be fit through the hole in the flywheels, and then slipped into the slots.
After the roller was finished, I cut the center out of the underframe to clear the roller, and then glued lead weights onto the halves of the underframe to make up for the missing original weight. Finally I glued the two underframe halves into the shell.
I wrapped the roller on my car in a strip of one of those disposable dishcloths, and wet it with automatic transmission fluid. My track cleaning car works great, and it saved me about $100 compared to a commercial track cleaning roller car.
S&S
Modeling the Pennsy and loving it!