Woodland Scenics Tidy Track


santafewillie

santafewillie

Same Ol' Buzzard
Has anyone out there tried Woodland Scenics new track cleaning system "Tidy Track". I saw a youtube video last weekend, it looks like it might be a decent system. Opinions anyone???
willie
 
Hi SF Willie,

I'm a dealer for WS Products as well as a long time HO Model Railroader and forum member here and know the various difficulties that can arise in attempting to clean the rail with much of any scenery around the track.

After both, watching their video about this system as well as talking with Kevin at WS who demonstrated the products in the video I watched, I was very convinced that this system would be a great asset to both doing track maintenance as well as wheel cleaning of both Loco's and cars.

It seems to be quite well thought out and the pads can also be cleaned several times making them re-useable to last longer.

I really like the hand wand with it's flexable head for certain areas that might be hard to reach as long as scenery isn't in the way. It should also work well for reaching inside tunnels for the distance of the handle.

The cleaning wand comes with three each of four different pads, giving four varieties of coarseness for cleaning. Extra pads are available easily enough through me or others as well as extra Roto pad strip material when that becomes necessary.

The Loco wheel cleaning system would seem to have all other systems beat hands down as all wheels on the loco drivers are cleaned at the same time and for lead trucks, tenders or rolling stock it's just a matter of placing the car on the pads and rolling it back and forth a few times to clean the crud of the wheels.

I have the complete system on order less the dust monkeys for myself as well as another customer and should take delivery shortly. I feel WS has put a lot of thought into the product to ensure it works well!

I have all of these available and priced very reasonably. If I can get this for you or if you have other questions just let me know, ok?

Thanks for your inquiry, it's appreciated.
 
I've had the system for several weeks, and the only complaint that I have about it is the wheel cleaner. Its real hard to get a 16" loco to fit on that 12" frame! The track cleaner set is amazing! It cleaned over 6' of my track as a test in less time than it took using a brite boy. What's even better, even now the track is still nice and shiney.

Like I said, the only complaint I have with it, is the wheel cleaner tray is just too short. It would be great if they offered one for locos greater than 12" long, even better 18-20" long.
 
Say Carey,
Thanks for bringing that issue up, it's a very valid one!

Just to let you and others know I did contact customer service there and mentioned the need for either a much longer cleaning unit for guys that have longer loco's or possibly the Driver cleaner could be made is sections that coupled together so multiples could be connected together as needed.
 
The club I belong to bought one of the wheel cleaners, and the first thing we noticed was that it can't hold a big boy. My Genesis big boy needs the tender attached to turn the drivers. I had to hold the tender up while trying to get just the loco body to fit on the cleaner. It was quite the hassle. One of our members is kitbashing two of them together to solve this problem.
 
I haven't got mine yet but it is coming this week so I'll be able to see first hand about coupling to together? WS said that could be done by attaching something to hold the two together when set on the rail or if used off the rail by attaching the leads and alligator clips to the rails.

Hth
 
Back in the old days... I'm old... I kit-bashed a track cleaning car. It had a pad under it with a gravity fed liquid tube running to it.
I just used to push that thing around a few times before I started 'playing'.
It fit every situation and every piece of track and I never had to worry about scenery getting in the way.
Never had to leave my easy chair either. :)

Those were the good old days. :)
 
Ok guys, I just received the Tidy Track cleaning items yesterday as well as one for a customer which was delivered a bit earlier.

I just finished clean some track fairly easily with just the plain flat cleaning pads I pre-moistened with their cleaning fluid and went over about 12' of rail and switches. It seemed to work very good and fairly easy even when reaching through the uprights to clean the hidden track on a curve which does take a bit of practice but once you get the hang of it it goes along easily. When I came to the tunnel portal which is on a curve too it worked very nicely and the hand wand sure made it easy to clean well into the tunnel very conveniently.

I also used their Roto wheel cleaner on a couple of loco's and while I didn't think the drivers were dirty they seemed to run better, I guess due to the rail being clean and free of dirt.

I'm very pleased with the results. The cleaning wand and pads, the Rail Tracker Cleaning Kit as well as the Roto Wheel Cleaner are both available at very deep discounts to forum members.
 
The wheel cleaner would be a bit difficult for me to use. I have nine sets of permanently coupled (couplers tied together with wire) locos that would require one loco (in one case two locos) being held while one is being cleaned. Separating them isn't an option as they're also connected electrically via jumper wires.
 
jeffrey-wimberly said:
The wheel cleaner would be a bit difficult for me to use. I have nine sets of permanently coupled (couplers tied together with wire) locos that would require one loco (in one case two locos) being held while one is being cleaned. Separating them isn't an option as they're also connected electrically via jumper wires.
Click to expand...



Hi Jeff,
Thanks for bring this valid issue up for individuals with longer loco's. The actual length of the cleaning section that has the electrical pick-up strips/cleaning strips is 11&15/16".

The Roto wheel cleaner can be used end to end by simply removing the blank end stop plates on two of the units and butting them together, but if more units are needed the other end has a small ear phone type plug connector that would need to be removed also so that several could be butt together on a straight section of track to accommodate whatever length you need.

I would really like to see Woodland Scenics come out with units that are made to be used this way rather than having to remove the end possibly breaking something in the process. The thought of possibly breaking something doesn't sound like a good idea to me.

Each Roto wheel cleaner has track pick-ups when set on the layout rail. It's a very easy way to clean all the wheels at one time so lets hope WS comes out with a simple solution to the added length requirement.

I haven't tried using any of their cleaning solution on the driver cleaning strips yet but it should work just fine too? To clean the wheels on a tender or other cars just place the cars on the cleaner strip/s and roll back and forth about six time or more.

Sorry I don't have a simpler solution at the moment.
 
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