Adding cleaning fluid to a CMX car

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I have not received my CMX track cleaning car probably due to the Christmas rush, but I want to plan ahead.

  1. How much does it hold?

  2. Can I use an eye dropper or will that take too long?

  3. Do I need to empty the car after each use?

  4. Does it come with couplers?

2

1, about a qaurter of a cup full, if its the H0 version.

2, it comes with a syringe with a piece of flexi plastic pipe on the end, atleast mine did!

3, some times i do, sometimes not. Sometimes the sealing ring on the fill portt dos’nt seal 100%, worst thing that happens is the the stuff inside evaporates over a few days. When you come to use it again, it maybe empty!

4, yup, Kadee’s.

3

If it doesn’t come with a funnel, use one of the Coleman lantern fuel funnels. My club uses one but I didn’t buy it or know if it came with one.

No need to empy it, just shut off the flow.

For the price it better have couplers…

4

Bruce,

Answers to your questions

  1. Mine came with the fluid syringe and it holds about 3 cc of fluid at a time, and the CMX car can hold from 4cc to 9cc fluid.

  2. Comes with the syringe with a nice long tube.

  3. I have not emptied mine, just closed down the fill port and the control valve to prevent fluid from escaping after use.

  4. Yes, Kadee couplers are installed.

There is a detailed 8 page manual that arrives and it will answer many more questions. Also, here is the link to the online manual:

http://www.tonystrains.com/download/CMX-man-generic.pdf

Cheers,

Ryan

5

All these ideas are true but I found the plastic syringe locked up when using auto body paint thinner. AKA Laquer thinner. I cannot safely pour thinner from my canning jar into the small Coleman filter funnel. I would like a glass syringe but they are hard to find.

Any source recommendations?

6

Buy a small filter from wal-mart, I did and there only $1.00 for a pack.

7

Try the drugstore. I don’t think you’ll easily find a syringe, probably because they’ll want to check you for needle marks. But you should be able to find small eye droppers (I think that’s what they call them). You know, the things they use for nose drops. The local drugstores here sell them in packs of two. Generally one has a straight tip and one has a tip at a slight angle. I use the ones I get for getting lacquer thinner (or Floquil and Scalecoat thinners) out of the can and into the small air brush bottles.

Edit: I forgot to mention the these eye droppers are glass, not plastic.

8

I have a number of pipettes which I use for applying alcohol “wet water” when doing scenery. These are hobby store items, and my LHS stocks them, too. I’ve never been checked for needle marks at either of these shops, but I’ll point out that I usually wear short-sleeve shirts.

These are basically plastic one-piece eyedroppers. They hold more than a standard medical eyedropper. However, I’m not sure how the material used would stand up to lacquer thinner.

I use isopropyl alcohol in my CMX. It works OK, but the next time I run it, I think I’ll try some lacquer thinner instead.

By the way, the instructions say to pull the CMX around with one engine. In my experience, it needs two. Since I have low-clearance subway tunnels, I may be the only guy who’s ever MU’d together two Life-Like subway train powered units.

Here’s a shot showing the relative sizes of a standard 40-foot Athearn ice-bunker reefer, the CMX and a subway car. Not exactly your standard train.