This `model' is completely freelance and does not reflect any known actual railway vehicle. I have built it purely as a means of speeding up the cleaning of trackwork on the Poole & District Model Railway Society's 4mm (OO 16.5mm gauge) clubroom layout. I built it from scrap, using a brass plate from an old door lock as a chassis, a small block of wood with 1/2 a 3oz lead fishing weight fixed on top of it and a `Peco track rubber' screwed to the bottom of it. the track rubber is held on the rails by the lead weighted wooden block. The wooden block fits through the oblong hole in the `chassis' (the hole that the lock-arm would locate into on the door post plate) the chassis has `HO' bogies fitted to the chassis through what were the screw fixing holes in the door plate. The abrasive `track rubber' is screwed to the wooden block with one centrally placed countersunk woodscrew, the track rubber is rotated slightly `out of line' with the track to ensure contact with the rails on sharp curves. One handy hint here is to tighten the screw into the track rubber until the screw has formed a slight `dent' in the rubber, this bends the rubber upwards in the middle slightly which stops it catching on pointwork and `following' rails that run across the line being cleaned, if you overtighten the screw it will bend the edges of the rubber down too far and catch on crossings pulling the cleaner sideways, I have used the Lima bogies & wheelsets with 1.5mm flanges which will help keep it on the rails. The wheelsets bogies and coach body were from an `HO' Mk3 BR Brake 1st coach which had a badly damaged plastic moulded chassis & was unlikely to be used as all my 4mm modelling is to `OO' scale which is noticeably larger than `HO'. I removed the rounded Mk3 ends and a central section shortening what was the passenger area of the coach by two windows. I fashioned new `flat' coach ends from a plastic sheet of `Ratio 4mm' planking, shortened the roof & internal `glass' mouldings by 56mm, glued it all together on a flat surface & finally fixed it to the chassis. I removed its old running numbers & markings badly, then gave it a heavy coating of `dirt & grime' and its ready to roll. I have tested it on my own Out-n-back OO test track `the Helensburgh & Willow View branch' with pretty good results. It also helped me to locate a silly mistake on one set of points, each time it passed the points in the facing direction the track rubber jumped slightly, where the checkrail was actually slightly above rail level the top of the checkrail was `cleaned' and not the top of the running rail! Lowering the offending checkrail from .8mm above to .5mm below rail level cured the problem & the Track Cleaner polished up the running rails nicely :)
Revision 1a
I am also working on a `Swarf collection vehicle' which will be run behind the Track Cleaning Vehicle to megnetically remove any metal particles from the track after abrasive cleaning. The two vehicles will be close coupled and given fictional running numbers based on a progression of the real DX 791xx series allocated to Plesser and Theurer RPM 100 Rail Profiler and SBM 110 Swarf Wagon pairs. These models will bear no physical resemblance of the real equipment being part of a purely functional 16.5mm gauge track cleaning train, in service it will be hauled by my modified Lima Type3 diesel electric locomotive until a suitable motor bogie becomes available to motorise the track cleaning vehicle itself, which would probably mean scratch building a new body with a driving end to give me something to practice on before I start the 4mm 4TC set. :-)
There is also the possibility of a Two car DMU kit I've got my eye on being built as the `SERCO test train' Iris, fitted for track cleaning & debris collection. but I'm gonna test this basic design thoroughly at the P&DMRS for a while before going any further.
After a short test period on the P&DMRS OO layout, I have found that as a track cleaning device it works but is slow, requiring a very high number of passes to get a reasonable result. After a bit of cleaning up after it I have decided to modify the design, doing away with the `track rubber' as it gradually disintegrates during use leaving a nasty trail of rubber and metal particles all over the track which cannot be good for your locomotives! The magnetic `Swarf collection vehicle' picks up the metal particles but does not address the problems of the bits of rubber that can cause havoc in locomotive gears and drive mechanisms.
I have opted for a couple of small bits of hardboard, which will do the job quite well itself but I have also glued some `emery cloth' (400 grit ot better will do nicely) to the underside of the harboard making an abrasive `pad' under the coach with the weight moved closer to the rear of the wooden block to place its centre of gravity slightly behind the center of the abrasive pad. As this vehicle will be hauled in one direction only, by biasing the weight to the back of the abrasive pad the leading edge of the pad rides over pointwork with less chance of a derailment.
The testing continues...
This track cleaning vehicle has now been scrapped as there are RTR track cleaning vehicles available for 16.5mm gauge layouts which operate more efficiently. I would personally use a high frequency electronic track cleaner if I ever get round to building a OO layout of any size, Gaugemaster provide a ready to use unit that is most effective at ionising dust and dirt on track and locomotive wheels at a reasonable cost.
