Cleaning Car Photos

I finally got around to taking pictures of the track cleaning car I made. The original design had a roller in the middle. My machining skills were not up to the challenge and produced a lopsided roller that did very little rolling.

I change the design to be a a scrubber instead of a roller. I constructed a pad with angled edges that rides along the track. It has a 1/2 oz. weight inside of it to keep the cleaning pad (a paper towel strip) pressed against the track. I also threw on a rough coat of grey and black paint so the white styrene wasn't such a standout on the layout.

It works pretty surprisingly well. I ran it around the layout a few times and was amazed at how dirty the cleaning pad got. The one in the picture is a new pad so it doesn't have much gunk on it. My switcher engine seems to operate much better when moving at low speeds after the track cleaning car.