The New Atlas Track Cleaning Car

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

They were supposed to be available in December 08

http://www.atlasrr.com/HOFreight/hotrackcleaningcar.htm

Has any one tried one yet ?

2

That’s one ugly duckling, isn’t it?!..

3

Its akin to throwing all your eggs into a basket.

You will get better results with a Centerline car and some mineral spirits…

David B

4

I’ll stick with the CMX Clean Machine and lacquer thinner, thank you. I have never seen one of these “do it all” track cleaners that really does as good a job as a CMX, and our club has tried most of them.

5

I like this car:

and this Track Cleaning Transfer Caboose. It has a roll like the Centerline cars.

Wolfgang

6

I’ve been using a couple of these in n-scale at a friends layout for over a year and at least I can say the n-scale works beautifully. Little hard to install a decoder but still doable and just set the throttle and go. The first will have the fluid and fabric disk the second has the dry brush and vacuum and it would surprise you what it will pick up and how much it does do.

7

Good Lord, does it also brew coffee, LOL?

Seriously though, if it has a dry-cleaner pad and a vaccum installed, it might be worth looking into for myself–I have a garage layout here in California that has a Pollen problem, so cleaning the track with any kind of liquid is out of the question–I have to use dry pads to polish the rails.

I think I’ll take a look at it.

Tom

8

One thing that usually gets forgotten in the debates over which track cleaning method/machinery is that what causes dirty rail varies greatly. This applies to both what people are running on the layout and how the rail itself picks up crud.

The dry climate of California is going to require something different than in humid Florida. In the Midwest, you may need different methods in different seasons. Needless to say, YMMV.

I use wet and dry Centerlines very infrequently, along with the bright boy. I’ve tried to cut use of the bright boy, as the abrasiveness causes scratches that tend to pick up and hold crud.

Wolfgang,

I like that transfer caboose. Is it built on a Centerline?

9

No, it’s scratch built. The frame is brass - for weight, the house plastic. The big problem for me was to get the roll, a friend made it on a lathe.

This car is very busy - a caboose. It runs dry, the tank car runs with fluid, not so often .Only if I have to clean the tracks.

Wolfgang