Model Railroading > Track cleaning

Does anyone have any experience with the Atlas (or whoever it was) track cleaning car with the vacuum pickup? I know my layout could stand a couple round trips with a track vac. I don't run enough to keep the rails clean and I think the dust is my enemy.

Yes. These are of German design. The vacuum is pretty effective when it works but the problem is that due to
electrical contact or DCC problems, the motor does not work a good amount of the time. It's DCC controlled.

Regards, Jim Evans

The car picks up an amazing amount of debris.

There's a number of discussions and photos about this car in the TO archives. Seems to be very well thought of.

I also hardwired the contacts from the wheels to my DCC decoder. Those springs against the metal plate don't work at all. After making the fix, it works great. With the decoder, I can control the speed of the vacuum. I include it in a "work train" of cleaning cars.

Dear ?,

As mentioned, you need to hard wire the trucks or this unit will eventually stop working. Springs are used to transmit electricity to the motor and eventually they get gunked up with dirt and quit.

In the corrections dept, these units are from a company out of the UK (Dapol) not Germany and the original release from Atlas was DCC ready. You can buy Dapol units today from MB Kleins FYI. Numerous contacts to Dapol to tell them to hard wire their trucks and that the spring system is flawed have been ignored and unanswered by Dapol. You can buy replacement springs if u do not want to rewire.

Bruce

http://www.atlasrr.com/HOFreight/hotrackcleaningcar.htm

https://www.modeltrainstuff.com/HO-Scale-s/2.htm?searching=Y&sort=3&cat=2&show=30&page=1&brand=Dapol



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/28/17 04:26 by brfriedm.

You might want to contact DapolDave direct on www.RMWeb.co.uk, but I think he has left the firm ( which may be why you are getting no reply),and now is in business on his own producing his own designs

Thanks but I have gotten quite good at hard wiring them myself so no biggie. Also, with my newly purchased Lux Modellbau vacuum car, this is now the go to car as it is far superior to the Dapol but obviousluy more expensive also. Thanks Bruce

shortliner Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You might want to contact DapolDave direct on
> www.RMWeb.co.uk, but I think he has left the firm
> ( which may be why you are getting no reply),and
> now is in business on his own producing his own
> designs