Just finished cleaning my track (Kato N scale Unitrack) manually and I noted that cleaning the turnouts was difficult at the guard rails. The guard rails were slightly higher than the rail. This made me wonder how a track cleaning car (any brand) could effectively clean the track wherever guardrails were involved since the cleaning pads cannot make contact with the track.
For those with track cleaning cars, do you need to manually clean these areas?
Yes. Bright Boys still in use after what, 42 years, some are rock hard. You can never have to many BBs.
I use a CMX machine. It has a soft pad that seems to do a very good job on everything. I don’t notice stalling anywhere after I’ve cleaned my track. I do no extra hand cleanup after a couple of passes with the CMX, using lacquer thinner as my solvent.
Maybe it’s just N scale track. I’ve never noticed the guards being higher than the track in HO. I use Woodland Scenics Dust Monkeys but sometimes I still manually clean the track once in a while if I notice a certain area that is dirty and causing problems.
My CMX seems to get the turnouts just fine, maybe it’s just a N scale issue, as mine is HO and the guard rails are even with the rest of the rails.
Track switches and grade crossings get hands-on attention. Any unevenness leads to a missed spot by sleds and wipers.
Judicious use of a mill file will address the issue of those too-high guard rails. It worked well on my layout to correct too-high frogs on some of my Atlas HO turnouts.
Wayne