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Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I basically have three questions:

  1. Are track cleaning cars the solution to keeping track clean or are there better methods?

  2. My layout is five feet x 2 1/2 feet in N scale. I would like to add some background sound, especially when my grandchildren come over to visit. What would you suggest?

  3. Is there a screen saver with model trains?

Thanks for all the help

2

I can only answer #1. The best way to clean track is to run trains. The more you run them, the less time dirt has to accumulate. A short run a day will suffice.

3

IVRW

Thanks for your input. Appreciate it. Don from Mexico

4

Howdy, Don.

I’ve never owned a track cleaning car. I `Gleemed’ my rails -ONCE - and haven’t had a problem with dirty track since. My layout is in a non-climate-controlled garage in Southern Nevada, and airborne dust comes with the territory. An occasional pass with the shop-vac removes the bigger drifts.

Unless you can find a sound effects track specific to your railroad’s theme and scenery, you might be better off looking at mood music played at a below-speech-level volume. The Discovery Channel seems to prefer plinkety-plink banjo music (ugh!!!) but my personal taste runs to classical.

I haven’t experimented with screen savers, but I have set railroad and model railroad scenes as my desktops. Currently I’m using a Kurobe Gorge Railway 762mm gauge steeple-cab electric. I have also used a few of my own model pictures. If you can save the photo to `My Pictures’ in Windows you can set it as a desktop, then set your computer to show it in place of a screen saver.

Hope I have been of help.

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

5

I agree with your #2 entirely. No experience with 1 or 3.

6

http://www.screensaver-network.com/savers/content/USContent0061.html

Found by the going to http://www.google.com and entering search terms: model railroad screensaver

Any screensaver that will allow you to run a slide show of images will also allow you to show images of model trains. For instance the built in screen saver “photos” in Windows 7.

Smile,
Stein

7

I model in HO scale, and I have subways, so a lot of my track is in tunnels. I use a CMX track cleaning car, which is also available in N-scale. It works great. It’s also the most expensive track cleaning car on the market.

But, you’ve got a small enough layout that one of these would not be cost-effective. The above suggestions are good ones, but you should be able to keep your layout clean with just a clean cloth moistened with isopropyl alchohol, wiping by hand.

8

See this thread about John Allen’s track cleaning car.

9

Don,

I use a clean cloth and alcohol to clean my track. With your small layout it should work well for you too.

I’m not sure what you mean with “background sound”. if you want stockyard, industrial or hiway sounds there are modules for that. If you are talking locomotive sounds, the easy, and economical way, is to mount a sound decoder and speaker under the layout. Just MU it to your locomotive. There is an illustration of what I’m talking about on my website. The link is in my signature. Just go to the layout page and down to the photo of the speakers.

As to a screen saver, I have no idea.