Masonite Pad Track Cleaning Car for N-scale Mainlines...

[Cajonpassfan]

I'm a believer in having a Masonite "sled" car in some of my trains when running, a continuous cleaning process....and have a small fleet of cheap old AHM fishbelly gons for this purpose..I lowered them and the fish bellies hide the Masonite pad almost completely. A bit of black permanent marker on the sides makes the pads virtually invisible...

I use the rough side down. For added benefit, I place these cars toward the tail end of the freight trains; the extra drag stretches the trains and helps reduce the dreaded slinky, especially on my steep downhill grade...
YMMV, Otto

[jwaldo]

I advocate the 2 or more car approach, which gives the option of having rough side down on the first car, and smooth side down on the second, and getting the rough stuff off with the first, and 'polishing' with the second.  And maybe one of the many folks here more clever than I can figure out a way to lead with a car wiping on, or dispensing, contact cleaner.

Thanks for the post, Bob. On my project list are some new cleaning cars from MTL troop cars- which were commonly used as MoW cars after WWII, and well into the 1970s.

My club's 'Maintenance of Way Intervention Train' is a CMX clean machine to dispense contact cleaner, a Tomix car with a spinning cloth pad to really scrub that track cleaner in, a Centerline cleaning car to mop up the excess liquid, and a Masonite pad car to put a final polish on the rails. It takes three old-style Atlas/Kato SD9s to pull, but one pass with it gets absolutely ANYTHING off the track. The only thing it's missing is a second Tomix car in vacuum configuration to deal with the remaining stray molecules.

[Teditor]

In my club in QLD, Australia we run two units, a Vacuum car, centreline roller and masonite slider (rough side down) the masonite gets ultrasonically cleaned regularly using household spray cleaner, masonite has never been damaged, we have about twelve of the slider cars some over 30 years old.

[shark_jj]

I've never been shy about stealing a good idea.  Thanks Bob.   Here is a photo of 3 new cleaning cars "sliding" through Nathansville on the Grand Trunk Southern.

[garethashenden]

I have a theory about this. I’ll be the first to admit that I have no evidence to back it up, but it makes sense logically. The surface of the railhead is not smooth when new. There are small scratches and cracks from the manufacturing process. Dirt accumulates in these groves and impedes current collection. There’s not really enough weight in N scale equipment to change this just by running over it. By running a piece of smooth masonite over the surface, the railhead is polished and the grooves removed. Now, we’re talking about microscopic amounts of metal here, but the contact area is so small that it can make a big difference. This is the same reason that something like a bright boy is the wrong tool for the job. It will clean the rail, but it will add so many scratches that it doesn’t stay clean for long.

[Tad_T]

I have about four that I made like this:

[Dave V]

Oooo, I did that in HOn3 (using a prototype car that had a steel underframe).





Now that I'm getting back into the N scale scene, I may need to do that with an old Trainman boxcar. I find it works really well.

I do have an Aztec track cleaner car but it's very obvious what it is. I like the subtle ones that you can run continuously in consist.