Railroad Forums 

  • Cleaning track

  • Discussion related to everything about model railroading, from layout design and planning, to reviews of related model tools and equipment. Discussion includes O, S, HO, N and Z, as well as narrow gauge topics. Also includes discussion of traditional "toy train" and "collector" topics such as Lionel, American Flyer, Marx, and others. Also includes discussion of outdoor garden railways and live steamers.
Discussion related to everything about model railroading, from layout design and planning, to reviews of related model tools and equipment. Discussion includes O, S, HO, N and Z, as well as narrow gauge topics. Also includes discussion of traditional "toy train" and "collector" topics such as Lionel, American Flyer, Marx, and others. Also includes discussion of outdoor garden railways and live steamers.

Moderators: 3rdrail, stilson4283, Otto Vondrak

 #89399  by scopelliti
 
I've got a good friend who has a rather large model railroad (Oct 97 MR, Big Flats Lines) who swears by the following technique:

Clean the track once
Put a small drop of light oil on each rail and run a train over the oil and around the railroad.

His number of problems due to poor contact, etc. dropped to virtually zero.

Yes, it seems crazy, but it works.

 #89468  by pgb
 
Anyone know if the Atlas track cleaning car is any good?

-Paul

 #89491  by Chuck Walsh
 
The best one out there IMO is http://www.tonystrains.com/gallery/cmx_section.htm
Click on-HO picture tour.
I traded up from the centerline model. The cleanmachine is used at the
HO display at the Chicago Museum of Science & industry
 #89532  by jmp883
 
Pgb,

I recently purchased one, it works as advertised. However, as I stated in my prior post, I use a Bright-Boy for any stubborn areas and use the car for a weekly liquid-only pass around the layout to maintain the track. It is a heavy car so make sure you use a locomotive that can handle it.

Also, the car comes equipped with Rapido couplers. I'm sure you could probably convert it to M-T's or Accu-mate's, I just haven't really looked into how involved that job would be. Fortunately I have a locomotive that still has its Rapido's installed so that has become my M-O-W engine.

Joe P :-D