Centerline Track Cleaning Cars malfunctioning


The length of towel I use
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Wrapped real tight
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Using some of my EZ line, I make a small rubber band and wrap it around twice. Works great!
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TRACK CLEANING TRAIN
I am adopting the track cleaning 'system' that it appears a lot of modern modelers have adopted,....a fluid dispensing/mildly abrasive pad car (think CMX), followed up by 1 or 2 Centerline fluid pick-up cars. I'm working on the alternative fluid dispensing car over HERE

I need to find an alternative to the Centerline cars, and I doubt there are that many 'Baby Ruth' cars around. Just briefly tonight I looked at a few of my cheap box cars that might be modified? Then it dawned on me why a boxcar,...how about an open top coal hopper !! ...just cut a rectangular slot in its under frame and find a good size 1" wide roller like that on the Baby Ruth car.


Any ideas about a good hopper choice,....and a good roller ??
 
I'm liking this hopper car containment of a pick-up roller even more,..

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Wonder if a sectioned up paint roller would work?
 
What if you didn't have to use any cloth at all, ...nor contend with how to attach it to the roller. Just cut off a 1" wide piece of a low nap paint roller,...then insert its little metal internal weight and drop into the hopper car slot from the top (don't even have to remove the car from the track).

EDITED: I visited a friend yesterday, and just happen to look thru some of his paint rollers,..

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a shorter (3") different roller with likely too much nap
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And BTW I'm not suggesting the use of just one of 'dirty fluid pick-up' roller, but perhaps have a selection of several types.
 
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I'm sorry for the misleading photos I posted of the paint rollers. I had 2 different samples there, the larger one with 3/16" nap, the smaller one with 3/8 inch nap.
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And I haven't even explored the various foam ones, etc

I am also NOT thinking these type roller might be the only choices a person could have,..perhaps they could have a selection of choices they could just drop into the hopper car??
 
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Textured Paint Roller

Had to make an errand to HomeDepot this afternoon, and saw this paint roller design for applying textured paint,.... I think that means it needs to try and absorb and maintain a goodly amount of paint,....humm isn't that what we might want our pick-up car to do?
It no longer has to scrub the track with fluid as our CMX car is doing that job. It's just picking up any excess dirty fluid. So it's roller may not even need to be weighted to any great degree?

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Good points made about that bigger nap, short roller I posted earlier.
WAY too much nap... you're gonna get cleaning fluid all over your painted ties and ballast. The idea of the handi-wipe roller is to confine the fluid to the tops of the rails. I'd bet it doesn't roll well, either, (too light) and weighting it will just exacerbate the "too deep nap" issue.

Not to mention making it very difficult to roll.

I agree about the deep nap. It was just an example I ran across when visiting a friends garage this afternoon.

BTW, this is suppose to be the fluid pick-up car, not the dispersion car,.... that one runs in front of this one.
 
Another good reply on that other forum,..

Brian: I admit that I don't have nor need a track cleaning car. But I do know logic and use my smarts as best I can. It would seem to me that a "secondary car" may only need an absorbent cloth. No abrasive. I don't see the need for a foam nor any plastic.

The cloth I use with my fingers now - is nothing more than an old tee shirt. That's what I use 1. to clean rails with mineral spirits and 2. if necessary to wipe after. But to be honest, I don't usually bother. I just rub the rails with ms til they shine and then dab the graphite. I've never noticed any residue. But then, I'm rubbing vigorously and that probably don't leave any ms on the rails.

In your case, when using a car that spreads ms over the rails, you are not rubbing, so a second car to wipe up is apparently what you are trying to do. And that's where I suggest a cloth. Something absorbent, but definitely not abrasive. And I don't see where foam can do it better than a cloth. Any old cotton should be sufficient. And I'm thinking that a cloth would not only pick up the residue, but do a slight polish as it slides.

How about the old box car with Masonite? Or a cloth over the Masonite? I'm not being snarky? but it looks to me like you are over thinking this "secondary car". I'm not sure it has to be heavy, just enough to keep the cloth rubbing along the rail.

Another thing. That graphite should last for 6 months or so. So if you find you have to clean like this very often, then I doubt you'll get a lot of "goop on the cloth". Re-applying ms more often means there's something else wrong. Realize this is all MHO, using what little brain I have! LOL
 
HELP,
I want to cut a rectangular hole in the bottom of this hopper, while keeping relatively nice smooth walls. Any suggestions appreciated on how to do it?

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I don't think I have wire saw.

Its been suggested that I just rough cut a small hole, then file the edges down

I had to get my chop saw out again today (for another project), so I figured I would go ahead and cut myself a couple more rollers that could be cover in any number of the materials being suggested. It basically a much bigger diameter roller than the small Centerline one.

Cut from PVC tube,..I cut a couple for the coal hopper car, and a couple for the smaller width Baby Ruth car,..to run some experiments.

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The coal hopper one is almost 1.25" wide, while the other one is about 1" wide. That wider width assures both rails are covered even on tight curves. Cheap enough as well.

And these would require much less number of layers of cover cloth, perhaps only one,..much greater coverage area compared to that relatively small Centerline car roller.
 
I don't think I have wire saw.

Its been suggested that I just rough cut a small hole, then file the edges down

I had to get my chop saw out again today (for another project), so I figured I would go ahead and cut myself a couple more rollers that could be cover in any number of the materials being suggested. It basically a much bigger diameter roller than the small Centerline one.

Cut from PVC tube,..I cut a couple for the coal hopper car, and a couple for the smaller width Baby Ruth car,..to run some experiments.

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The coal hopper one is almost 1.25" wide, while the other one is about 1" wide. That wider width assures both rails are covered even on tight curves. Cheap enough as well.

And these would require much less number of layers of cover cloth, perhaps only one,..much greater coverage area compared to that relatively small Centerline car roller.

I have one of these, they're about $12 I think, quite handy in and out the house for all sorts of small jobs.


Or something like this small hacksaw, but this would be more awkward to use tho'.

 
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Yesterday after a few other projects I decided to have another look at my 2 track cleaning car projects.

First this conversion of a coal hopper into a track clean-up car to replace the Centerline cars. I had expressed some reservations in how to cut out the bottom of the car. i began by first trying to use a large dia diamond cut-off wheel in my Dremel tool (large dia so I could reach and cut off those ribs deeper down along the sides. I thought maybe the large flat area of that cut-off disc would keep me in-line with the sides. It did to a certain extent, but it was too easy to get it slightly out of line and aggressively cut into the inside surfaces of the car.

My thoughts then turned to experimenting with a oscillating/cutting tool I had from harbor freight.
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The straight sides of these cutting heads made the cutting a little less hectic. I clamped the car body in a vice between two pieces of pvc foamboard to protect the car from those aggressive faces of the steel vice. At first I tried to make a very 'close' cuts, but then decided to just rough cut it, then 'file down' the high spots.

You can see here it appears to be a very rough cut, but in reality it was not as bad as it seems. Some of what you seeing is a very slight melting of the cut edges. Eventually I came to the conclusion that there must have been some slight 'melting' occurring. One thing I had forgotten about was this tool's adjustable oscillating speed,...turns out I had it on med speed, and likely could have cut that down.
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At first I considered the use of a tradition file to trim things up, but the I resorted to an older track cutting tool to flush things up, the a final finishing with a razor saw on its edge,..
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Ended up with nice smooth sides that contain that 1.120" wide PVC roller just fine,
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Certainly a lot cheaper than a centerline car.

BTW, the choice of a hopper car rather than a gondola, etc was to have those nice deep sides of the hopper that help maintain the cars rigidity after having a big section of its bottom removed.
 
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Babe Ruth Cleaner Car Advantages

Yesterday I decided to just run a loco around some areas of my layout currently operating on DC current,..in preparation to adding DCC to the upper level for a beginning. Why not tow a track cleaning car behind that loco?

My new coal hopper cleaning car was not ready yet, but my old Babe Ruth conversion could be employed.
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I was very pleasantly surprised to find that I appreciated the sound that the Babe Ruth car put out. It let me know things were moving along even when I took my eyes off it to attend to other items. It was also a real plus when I chose to run it down the helix to the lower level,...and in reverse back up the helix. I may well choose to make the coal hopper version a sound emitter as well.

Another big pulse appeared. That big roller would simply roll along on very clean track, but when it came to a troubling spot it would stop rolling and slide. That sliding action appeared to be a better cleaning action,..noted by the extra dark strips on the cleaning cloth.

BTW, I applied the MS to the roller with a small brush.
 



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