TOMIX CLEANING MASHINE and others.

Which mashine is the best?

1) Tomix (http://www.blwnscale.com/blwphotos/to-6441-clean.jpg)

2) LUX (http://www.mrsonline.net/assets/images/N-Track_bottom.JPG)

3) CMX tank (http://www.modelersdepot.com/images/products/display/CMXho.jpg)

Who has experience?

Which is the best and dont affect on turnout's wing rails?

---

VADIM

I have 3 tomix cleaners, and they definitely work. I have no experience with the other 2, mainly because they're just too expensive and not very versatile.

Haven't had any problems with the Tomix cleaning car, but when using the grinding or polishing discs, there might be some problems in sharp curves.

I want and plan to buy 2 of the TOMIX cleaners as soon as the recession ends.

Vadim - A friend of mine has the CMX cleaner and likes but it costs $120.00 USD. Here are photos of it:

http://www.tonystrains.com/gallery/cmx/cmx_n_1.htm

There is even a 4th car cleaner that you don't have listed that Jeff has. I searched the forum for his post but can't find it. He'll have to tell you about it.

There's many more cleaners actually.. Fleischmann has a little locomotive with tiny rotating grinding pads, and most brands have a cleaning car which is just a standard freight car with some felt blocks dragging over the tracks.

Atlas also releases cleaning cars in both H0 and N, but those are direct copies of the Tomix one.

i have a couple of the tomix cleaners and love them. the vacuum is worth it all by itself when you see the stuff is sucks off the track!

I also have a centerline roller cleaner that i have not used yet, but i bought it on recommendation of one of the other jrm members who uses them to clean is huge unitrak basement japanese layout. its a pretty dirty basement (no drop ceiling so lots of rafter smutz raining down all the time). its basically just one big round brass roller that you rubberband a strip of handiwipe onto and soak it in your favorite cleaning solution. the roller fits in the center of a heavy brass car that rolls the handiwipe covered brass roller along the track. this does a wonderful job of picking up heavy crap on the track. lots of folks on the n scale list swear by them to pick up heavy dirt and muck on the tracks. just run the train around and around. you can also pop on a clean roller w/o cleaning fluid to mop up if you want to (some dont like to leave fluid on the track.)

http://www.centerline-products.com/Catalog/N2.html#N2_Instructions

these go for like $70 retail, but i grabbed one with a bout a week or lurking on ebay for $35

Aztec also makes a line of very fancy box car reservoir cleaner cars with similar rollers and also abrasive rollers and even ones that look like real box cars and gondolas, but they are the mercedes of track cleaners on price!

http://www.aztectrains.com/pages/TrackClean-NZ.html

i have been assembling my own little cleaner trains slowly. its:

• a tomix vacuuming

• magnet car im going to make from a flat car and a magnet under it to grab all the stray filings (hell on electric motors when sucked in)

• followed by a heki tank car that has a little felt wiper that just leaves a trail of cleaner on the track

• then the centerline wheel cleaner to work with the cleaner on the track

• may end up with a second centerline to just mop up dry after

• tomix buffing at the end.

it will be interesting to see if this combo will work and what motive power it will need to haul it all!

cheers

jeff

Thanks to all!

Summarizing my own meaning, i can say, that :

1)Vacuum important as well as wet polishing  (50/50) Vacuum removes hairs and dust, polishing - adherent dust as "kitchen fat".

2)Active polishing  (with movable roller) more preferable than passive, but active processes can affect on turnouts and derailing polishing mashine itself, especially on Atlas Code 55 track where turnout mashine's rods very flexible and weakly press wing rails.

Moreover, in this case dust may be climbed up between main and wing rail - another reason for further derailments.

3) Emery paper not so good idea, after such "emerying" - rails can collect much more dusts in appearing pores.  

4) "Empty" polishing or with izopropanole - good idea.

5) Vertical "rolling" more preferable tan horizontal, in aim to less affection onto turnouts, but both being active - affects on turnouts.

In case of Atlas Code 55 track,  to turn analog of CMX machine (passive polishing under weight and izopropanole) by himself on turning and milling machines - i see as the best way in parallel with vacuuming .

My Questions:

1)Tomix cleaning and shwab-turning machine has the best Vacuuming?

Is it worth to buy it ?

2) Is it worth to insert into layout wheel cleaner (may be also Tomix or LUX )? Is it convenient? Is it dependable?

(web link into mooving picture of such LUX device: http://www.mrsonline.net/assets/multimedia/Lux_video_9305_lok.mpg  )

Tomix Wheel cleanin mashine is active (like on LUX picture)?

Vadimav,

yes i have heard more reports of the horizontal buffing (ie the tomix circular wheel) causing more hangs on things than the vertical wheels like that on the centerline or aztec do.

simple vacuuming is probably one of the best things to do a lot and is very simple and the least invasive to the layout. if you can keep the dust from mixing with the grease/oil from trains then it never starts the big process. also dust and hairs are the main gunk sucked up into many wheel sets, gears, motors eventually.

kitchen grease (aptly put) is the hard stuff to get up and usually requires a solvent (like isopropanol, goo gone, orange cleaner, everyone has their favorites) to get it off the track. abrasives as you point out usually end up wearing on the track. the micro abrasions is a huge debate if it stimulates more stuff catching or not. there are very rabid believers on both sides of the issue. i figure its better avoided either way if there is a simpler solution that does not hurt anything on the layout, like isopropanol. i have never been a fan of bright boy erasers because it seems like it would leave a film of rubber on the track as well potentially.

some folk opt for a scraping method that probably does not scratch the track by using little squares of masonite and the either drag this under a weighted car around the track (w/ or w/o cleaning solution) or just with their fingers. put the rough side down.

you can pick the roller cleaners up on ebay cheap now and then. did not take long for me to get one for like $35 new.

tomix is a great and versatile cleaning car. great place to start. if the buffing hangs on your points then you may have to go to a different cleaner for that process.

track cleaning really is sort of a personal issue as everyone seems to have a slightly different take and process on it and also im sure everyone's environmental conditions are slightly different hence different results. also personal things like how much you lube your trains and w/ what lubricants will change things a lot.

as for car wheel cleaners, if you keep your track pretty clean most folks find the wheels never get dirty! some folks run a track cleaning car around with cleaner and then follow it with a string of dirty cars. the cleaning fluid on the track loosens the muck on the wheels and its transfered to the track, then follow it with more track cleaning passes to clean up the track again. another simple solution is to just take a hunk of track and place a paper towel over the track and soak it in your desired cleaning fluid. then run the car over the paper towel with the wheel flanges pushing the paper towel down into the track. simple and works well. someone also was selling a wheel cleaner that used a simple foam sheet to run locos on to clean wheels. benefit was the foam was soft enough to not tear up traction tires.

this brings up one last cleaning point. traction tires (that are on most japanese power cars) can be effected by your cleaning solution. you need to be careful about this and test it first. most seem to be some form of synthetic and isopropanol does not seem to affect these. other cleaners might though.

cheers

jeff

Tomix Cleaning Machine is great.  People ususally get two, one for cleaning follow by one that vaccums.

IMHO, if you are using Kato Unitrack, it does not require to be sanded.

My solution is simply runing a kitchen paper towel (one that leaves no residues) along the Unitrack and then run a Tomix cleaner to vaccum up what ever dust is left.

If you sand the Unitracks, its natural repellency will be gone.

good point on the paper towels as they do leave their own little fuzz bunnies after hitting the track joints. good old paper towels let you clean a section until the towels are clean when wiped on the track!

this is what we usually do with the jrm layout at the shows, just use paper towels (or even fingers at times in a pinch!) every few hours to clean things up. we did find that after a few years we did need to do a good cleaning when the track was apart with isopropanol and rags. some was really dirty even though it did not look it...

im hoping by having a nice little cleaning train that its some thing that i will run a lot and keep ahead of the problems. the real issues seem to happen when it gets really bad. then things get harder to run and clean and then it stops you from playing with the trains! sort of a downward spiral!

also keeping the rail clean and the fuzz/dust off the tracks will help the engines run longer between servicing! half the time i find its dirty wheels on a power unit causing the problem. also find a lot of trucks packed with fuzz and hairs at times. aaron's poor z scale loco had a cat hair wound up in the truck gears, it was a lot happier when i pulled it out.

cheers

jeff

Vakldimav

Isopropyl alcohol cleans rails well BUT it will also take of the paint on the Kato track and I suspect other tarcks aswell!

As for the wheels of the trains, Tomix is selling a rail that cleans them. I don't even know what magic technic it uses.

http://www.hwjapan.com/sh/TOX6414.aspx

The "magic" is that the white pads you see on the picture vibrate, and you just drive the train over the pads ;)

How effective it is, I don't know.. I have 2 of them (1 came with a cleaning set, the other I bought separately before I bought the cleaning set), but haven't tried them yet.

The "magic" is that the white pads you see on the picture vibrate, and you just drive the train over the pads ;)

 

How effective it is, I don't know.. I have 2 of them (1 came with a cleaning set, the other I bought separately before I bought the cleaning set), but haven't tried them yet.

 

I tried the Tomix Cleaning Tracks.  They work wonders for plastic wheels.  I also use an STAEDTLER Eraser to clean the cleaning pad.  To activate the clean pad, simply connect them to you existing layout.  It cleans by vibrating much like you electric shaver.

Vakldimav

 

Isopropyl alcohol cleans rails well BUT it will also take of the paint on the Kato track and I suspect other tarcks aswell!

Alpine,

really, we have never seen it do that with our track, but we dont soak it. isopropanol will solvate some plastics, paints and unfixed decals, but its pretty mild usually unless you soak things. also evaporates quickly so usually does not stick around. it also takes water with it when evaporating so is a decent drying agent. ethanol really goes at most paints and more plastics and is not a great train cleaning solution. most of the track cleaners have stuff in them thats a bit more aggressive than isopropanol it seems (xylene, etc). btw rubbing alcohol can be either isopropanol or ethanol, seems to be different naming in different places and for different uses.

always best to test for yourself on your stuff to see what works or does not work on your stuff. usually the best way to experiment is to put some on a very with piece of cotton or paper towel and rub with the cleaning solvent on some place you wont see on your models (ie the inside of a cab where there is over spray, sacrifice piece of equip, etc) that is clean to begin with and see if you get any appreciable amount of color coming off. if you do then test with just water on your rag and see if that does it too. if its the same then its not the solvent doing it any worse than water would.

always curious to see others solutions and issues!

cheers

jeff

I usually wet a cloth with isopropyl alcohol and rub it on the tracks.

I get the dirt off the track very effeciiently but I also get a purple smear which after I w hile I have worked out is the black paint off the black railway ties.

It also took the grey paint off my railway crossing to reveal the ballast coloured plastic that underneath.

I accidentally split a little on a train and it dislloved the pint on the train.

Having said all that, i still use it but very cautiously and never on trains.

I soak really dirty wheels in them over night before cleaning the grim off of them. 

Never had any problems cleaning track with IPA.

If you want something cheap, and don't have a problem reaching all your tracks, I've found that Mr Clean Magic Erasers work really well. Just rub it gently on the rail heads.

http://www.mrclean.com/en_US/magic-eraser.do

We use to use those at my HO club for years. After that railzip issue an hour before open house....

Thanks for all for Your very helpful stories and advices!

---

Vadim