Track Cleaning Woes

So I got my track cleaning assemebled and tried it out. It had some problems with the roller spinning freely. It tended not to roll and instead keep one area of itself in contact with the track resulting in the cleaning pad creating friction as it dragged along the rails isntead. I attributed this to poor quality: I think my axel hole through the center of the nickles was slightly off causing them to favor one side. I also think the axel holes in the sides of the car were not as accurately placed as they could be.

I tried to fix it by enlarging the axel holes in the side of the car, to no avail. I since the roller was dragging anyway I deceided to switch to a pad approach. I created a styrene base to support my cleaning pad (a paper towel) that rests on the rail. It is secured in the center of the car and has a small vertical range of motion. Combined with the angled edges, this helps it get over irregularities in the track.

This new approach seemed to work most of the time. The one thing that caused problems was trailing point turnouts. Occasionally, and on one turnout in particular, the cleaning pad got caught in the V formed by the converging tracks causing a stoppage. I am optimitic that this can be overcome by more securely attaching the cleaning pad since I was able to run the car with only the styrene base successfully.

No pictures this time. Maybe tommorow when I need a break from homework.