One of the older train club members came to the club tonight with a couple of boards and 18 inch sections of flex. Anyway, he was feeling tired just having recovered from illness so I installed the cleaning tracks.
I’d never heard of that before. We have a rule at the club that you always clean your wheels before running, but I’m about the only one that does. Putting up these tracks let’s people clean their wheels without fouling the main. It also calls attention the the rule.
Can you get a picture of it to share. Any thing that keeps the wheels and track cleaner would be like a building a better mouse trap. Sorry about the pun (I could not resist).
ennout
I’ve got something a lot better, but there’s a cost factor involved. On a scrap piece of 1X4 I stapled 8 bronze bore brushes (for cleaning gun barrels), 4 to a side and tack soldered them for electrical continuity. I rigged 2 pieces of flat brass to the ends w/ 2 notches filed so they’ll fit over a track. At one end I have a kd cplr ht guage which keeps the engine from going anywhere. Pop the gizmo on the track, the engine on the gizmo and crank the throttle up high and watch that devil clean itself!
I’ve got a wheel-cleaning track set that I bought from Micro-Mark. Works like a charm. And their wheel-cleaning solution is the best I’ve ever used. I really recommend it.
Tom [tup]
There was a recent suppliment (thin - only 8-10 pages or so) that came with either the Nov or Dec 2005 MR magazine that had 2 different track wheel cleaners listed. One used a handy wipe that slipped through a modified rerailer. The other used the Micromark wheel cleaner located underneath a section of track in a modified and hollowed out 2 x 4. I though both ideas were pretty slick.
Sorry, I can’t locate my copy right off hand, Richard. Maybe someone else can chime in with the title.
How is that different than any other section of track? The KEY to cleaning is the ‘transference’ - picking up the dirt after it has been loosened - say like alcohol on a rag or paper towel.
good memory tom
I too seen that micromark added to a board I did not see the towel one
was it much of a mod to the rerailer I have a few that I dont use, no rerailers on this 1.6 ho mile pike but handy wip sounds like a good idea
It’s not different than any other section of track. It’s just off the layout. I wasn’t thinking it was any great idea. Although for us, it solves a couple problems.
It is totally obvious and reminds us of our club rule that before you can run an engine you have to clean the wheels. This is problaby the most broken rule at our club. I am constanly cleaning the track so my locos can run smoothly–very few others help clean.
It gets the guy cleaning the wheels off the main so others can run. When people do actually clean their wheels, it’s usually on the main or in a yard throat, or somewhere inconvenient for everyone else. It’s not that they are rude per se, but they just don’t think what they are doing through.
People at the club have a rough time with trouble with group activities like op sessions, because they seem to hear the rules to conform to what they have always done, and whenever they don’t understand what they are doing, they don’t ask. They just run their train around the loop and railfan.
I have never had the chance to join a Model Train Club, but it seems to me that you need a staging area with the wheel cleaner prior to let the newcomers get the idea of cleaning their wheels befor getting to go on to the main layout.
just my [2c],
ennout