I have a section of track that is tough to get to to clean. I thought about getting a track cleaning car but don’t know anyone with experience with them. any feedback on how well they work? thanks in advance
captwilb
My CMX cleaning car works great. But expensive.
http://tonystrains.com/product/cmx-clean-machine-ho/
South Penn
“Do track cleaning cars work?”
[:O]
Here’s some links to previous discussions…
[url]http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/195659.aspxYes, but which one???!!
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/p/213039/2334992.aspx#2334992
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/204916.aspx
…as you will have seen I’m a fan of the John Allen type.
I have lots of hidden track. I sparingly use CRC 2-26 to treat it and only need to clean infrequently. I use a couple of Centerline cars. Not the cheapest, but not the most expensive, either. They’re a good compromise in terms of value and work well, especially if you pair up a wet one in the lead, followed by a dry roller pad.
Yes and no. I have some sliders, a centerline and a CMX (accualy a CMT, an early version of the CMX) and have used others. If you use them all the time they work great but on other than the main lines, they are a pain.
I have subways which are mostly covered, so my CMX car is a great tool for cleaning my track. I use lacquer thinner as the solvent, which does work better than alcohol. I clean my track about 3 or 4 times a year.
I need two engines consisted together to pull the CMX car. It’s heavy and there’s considerable friction between the cleaning pad and the rails.
For my yards, I push the CMX back and forth over the sidings by hand. It’s faster than using engines.
I recall seeing a track cleaning car at the Timonium show in a similar price range - it had two rotating pads driven by a powerful motor mounted in the rail car adapted for that purpose and IIRC, a good warrantee or guarantee. It looked like the kind of rail cleaner that would work well in hidden area’s due to the physical cleaning action - other than the price, I was pretty convinced when I saw it demonstrated, but I didn’t have the cash at the time. However, it could be well worth it if clean track in hard to get areas was a must.
IIRC also, it was reportedHoward Zane had four of them on his layout so that seemed like a good endorsement.
I believe the one I have, is what You are referring to. It has two pads one for each rail…but the one I have has two vertical motors in it. The pad’s will get messed up real quick and forget about going through switches. No matter how I tried, the car’s first pad would take the stock rail and the next pad would take the divergent rail, resulting in a derailment. I was going to try to have one motor spinning clockwise and the other counter clockwise and see if that would help, but never got around to doing it, instead I got two CMX machine’s and push them around the layout, instead of pulling it. Seem’s to do a way better job that way. The car cleans the rails before any engines/rolling stock tramp through any dirt/dust build-up on the rails, instead of spreading it around w
I converted some old life-like track cleaners into something that actually works. I took 3 old life like track cleaning cars and added some self adhesive weights (used for balancing tires - I put them between the cab and the tank which is about the mid-point of the car) 3 rubber bands and some pads meant for cleaning off make-up.
I put rubbing alcohol on the first pad (and the second one if really dirty track) and leave the last one dry. You can also use the tank and fill it with track cleaner as the liquid will eventually get to the cleaning pad. I apply it directly to get a good supply of cleaning fluid right where I want it. Then I run them around the layout with a decent engine - I use my proto 1000 PA unit as its heavy and lots of pulling power.
The pads come 80 to a box - so you can use both sides which gives you 160 cleaning pads. They are cheap and covered in a silk layer which prevents lint and also apply a gentle rubbing action to the track. As the pads are cheap and plentiful you can run this around the track for a long as you need to get it clean.
Also, you can pick up the track cleaning cars on Ebay for a low as $4 and they dont need to be in good cosmetic shape - so you can buy the ones with defects. YOU MUST make sure the weight and pad is on the car as they press down on the pad to make it clean effectively. The weight must move vertically so it adjusts for the extra width of the pad below it.
See the cars below.
I’m pretty conventional and use a E7B cast metal Cary body on an Athearn SD40-2 frame pushing a CMX and towing a home brew dragger for mop up. I haven’t used them in over two months and it wouldn’t hurt to use them today. I’m not having problems but it is time to clean.
The CMX does a pretty good job everywhere even in my yard where there are five dead end storage tracks. It even works inside my roundhouse and diesel maintenance building. It takes a weighty locomotive to clean my 3½% grades, the combination of the CMX in front and the dragger behind is a lot of resistance on wet rails. The E7B weighs 2¼ pounds and easily handels my grades with both cleaning cars.
I had problems over the years trying every type cleaning fluid I could find and finally ended up using ATC-6002 from Aero Car Hobby Lubricants and I’ve never looked back. One pass and the track is clean for months and I live in the lower San Joaquin Valley. Bakersfield California has the dirtiest air in America. Anything that cleans that nasty crud off my rails has to be great stuff.
I"gleam"-ed my track and run a masonite pad car in my freight train but about every 3 months may get a few sound interruptions. At that point I clean the loco wheels and run a CMX car around using denatured alcohol (most recommend lacquer thinner as best). At that point all runs great (no sound hiccups). I run the CMX with two locos, turn off momentum and can thus readily (quickly reversing) run it in / out of the yard tracks as well as the easy mainline.
Mel’s post reminded me of one limit with the Centerline cleaners. Since they roll a weight covered in a wrap of toweling, if you back them up, it unrolls things and the weight shorts out the track. They say you can wrap it with a rubber band to prevent this, but that doesn’t work well, either. So unlike the CMX, the Centerline is not good for stubs and spurs, etc. Through routes they do fine on.
On the
, I have used their ACT-6006 Track Cleaner with good results. Have wanted to try more, but their online store and my computer don’t get along for some undetermined reason, but their products are good.
91% isopropyl alcohol works well, also, IME. It’s particualrly good after ballasting as it cuts through any matte medium that might get on the rails.
Frank. Nice to see some feedback from someone who actually bought and used the motorized track cleaning cars that I saw at Timonium. You may be right, I don’t recall if they had one or two motors inside. They did seem to have a lot of power - the guy demonstrating them let me try to stop the spinning with my fingers and it was very hard to.
They did look like they would really clean the rails, and with Howard using them, they seemed look a good bet. Did they work well if you moved them through the switch without them spinning and then started them back up?
In the end if the CMX cost about the same but did as good a job, then thats the bottom line. Yeah, seems like a good idea to push them, that way the engine pushing has the benefit of clean track.
Towing the CMX works good too, the reason I push mine is to get into my roundhouse, diesel building and to clean my dead end tracks. That way it gets all but last 3 inches of the rails.
Mike Aero Hobby doesn’t sell direct, here’s a link to their dealer list.
http://achlubes.com/distributer/
Mel
Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951
My Model Railroad
http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/
Bakersfield
I also have a cleaning car with the two spinning disc. ( I bought it at Timonium about a year ago ). It runs behind my CMX in mop up duty. Off hand, I can only think of one switch that gives it trouble. When I put it on the track I set the pad rotation so that it helps move the car in the proper direction.
If only I could remember the name of it. Found it! MNP at https://www.mnpinc.com/ho_scale.htm
South Penn
That’s cheating![:-^]
After much agonizing, I finally bit the bullet and bought a CMX track cleaner. It’s the best money I ever spent! I also have a lot of hidden track that I cant reach. I use pure acetone which is available at Walmart in the cosmetic dept for nail polish removal. A quart was only a couple dollars. I push it with two units. Works great!
Mike I eroded, when I went into the garage and filled up my CMX the cleaner is ATC-6006 not 6002. Every thing was running OK but I pushed the CMX around my layout anyway. Thinking back the last time I ran it was around February.
Matter of interest, the CMX is still using the original cleaning pad and it still looks good. I can’t remember when I bought it but it’s easily been 10 years. My Athearn kitbashed caboose mop-up dragger has been changed about 5 times in 20 plus years. I made the cleaning pad holder from a chunk of lead to insure good wiping. It takes a pretty hefty engine to pull the caboose on dry rails.
Mel
Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951
My Model Railroad
I had no idea about the CMX and some of the other options mentioned here. Thank you very much for the responses, extremely helpful. I think I will go with the CMX.
South Penn/Riogrande,
That’s the one!!!. I can’t believe all the roadnames they have now…back when I bought mine, they only had three. I got mine way back in the early 90’s. It didn’t do a bad job, on straights and curves…but, I have a double track mainline with eight crossovers and it just did not like tho
The MNP runs very well on DCC. It just needs one decoder as the motors draw very little current.
South Penn