The LION has decided that the best way to clean tracks is to use these cotton gloves. Every other sort of cloth that I have tried snags on joints, wires, nails, switch points and even on the third rails!
The gloves fit the fingers perfectly, the tight weave (ok, they are knit). I put a drop of 91% Isopropal Alcohol on the tips of my fingers and could do miles of track. Yes, they get dirty, duh… They are supposed to. You should be able to wash them in the washing machine, but they will shrink. I buy them in boxes of 25 from my medical supply house.
Still cannot get into the tunnels and stations. I suppose I could cut a finger off (of the glove) and insert it in dowel, and push it through with a rod. It still should not catch on the track stuff.
When I built my subways, I knew I’d need one of these CMX machines:
It takes two powered subway cars to pull this thing around. My above-ground locomotives won’t fit in the tunnels, which have very tight clearances. No, I don’t use an ice-bunker reefer full of haggis with the ventilator hatches open when cleaning subway tracks.
As for the layout of the Lion, I expected to see a big cat licking the rails clean.
Lion, if you had a flat car laying around, you could cut the palm out of one of those gloves, affixe it to a small piece of wood that would ride beneath said flat car. Then you’d just need to run two small metal rods up through the floor of the car and put a weight atop said rods. Then’s you’d have a nifty little track cleaning car using the glove material.
