Lux vacuum and rail cleaning wagons

hi there ... the dapol track cleaning car was originally made by tomix in japan ... re- badged and sold in uk as a dapol - they prob done a deal with tomix. - i bought a n guage version of it in a model shop in sydney a few years back. the vacuum function works very well! ... its amazing after a few circuits to see just how much fluff is in the "cannister".

when i was at warley show last year and at the scottish model rail show this year, there was a "stall/shop" that visits from germany called JapanModelRailways and supplies these cars under the tomix brand.

they also sell the dcc converter board which just slots in once u take the old one out and allows u to plug in a decoder to vary the cleaning intensity from your handset!.

i havent done my conversion yet but i bought the kit and it looks very straightforward to fit.

this shop also sells a liquid cleaner that can be put into the cleaning cars' onboard dispenser and this then trickles the fluid onto the cleaning discs to give your rails a really excellent clean!. bit like a carpet shampooer with whirling brushes and cleaning liquid!.

i also have the cmx track cleaning tanker which dispenses liquid onto a pad that then sweeps across the rails. used together the results are almost as good as ud get by hand esp on the harder to reach areas of a layout!.

well worth the money id say!. eventually ull need to clean yr rails manually with a track rubber/other method - i dont think there is a replacement as effective as hand cleaning yet, but these do help prolong intervals between manual cleaning.!

***Brasso is a super fine abrasive in a carrier liquid - it has no "polish" in it, all the shine is because the smoothness of the clean metal reflects light well. There may well be a chemical inhibitor in it too, to delay further oxidisation, but I am not sure.

This use of super fine abrasives to polish ges back many many years, on anything from furniture to armour and decorations and still works well because any smooth surface stays cleaner as it does not encourage added oxides/grab and hold dirt.

Brass, and any metal polish that is similar, is applied wet, dries on the metal as it is rubbed into it firmly then removed totally when rubbing is done... It is a true pain to do but it does work well.

I often do exactly the same sort of thing to loco wheel treads and pickup areas using a really good quality material designed for very high level audio connector use. It makes a BIG difference.

Your part of the world has a fine tradition in working silver, copper, brass, gold etc - find out what they used (the older more traditional craftsmen) to polish their work, and I'd bet the same stuff will work well on your track!

Richard