Track cleaning car revived

Got the CMX Track Cleaning car working again.

"Track Cleaning" is another one of those internet forum debate topics. Everyone has to do it, there are lots of products and solutions out there, and there are a few people who post extraordinary claims such as "I just put a drop of flubber oil on the track once every 10 years and never worry about dirty track again". But the reality seems to be that there is no perfect solution, so you keep trying stuff until you find what works for you.

I won't go over every thing I've tried, however in the end I've always returned to cleaning by hand with rubbing alcohol and a paper towel. Alas, that doesn't work for out of reach track, and it's also a slow process. Furthermore, experience is that it's easier to keep clean track clean proactively than to reactively address dirty track. So I figured that it is best if I start a regular habit of automated track cleaning for this new staging area now, before it gets dirty. And that means finding a cleaning car that works.

The CMX solution looks pretty good, actually, and it seemed to work well today. I bought this car a couple years ago, but ran into a problem. The CMX has some very detailed instructions. One thing they talk about is using either very strong solvents which are good for very dirty track, but dangerous, or milder solvents which are good if the track is already pretty clean. The list of mild solvents included Fantastik and Formula 409. Well, as far as I can tell whatever 409 they were thinking of was a different 409 than the one I got -- which is possible since manufacturers often use the same product name for lots of similar things. In any event, I simply used the wrong solvent. Too sudsy, it got gunk on everything. The CMX car was a mess and the track needed manual cleaning.

So, I set the CMX aside and tried the Atlas cleaning car I got at the same time. I, alas, opened it to find it was for DC only. But, I found someone on the internet who was selling imported DCC board decoders for the car. I bought one, but it didn't work. Possibly because the instructions were a Google Japanese translation. At that point I gave up, picked up the paper towels and rubbing alcohol again, and put the two cleaning cars in boxes that went into my "project stack".

Today I opened the CMX project box, used water, an old toothbrush, and a scrubbing pad to clean everything off. Put all the pieces back together and tested that the car ran okay. Then re-read the instructions and used 70% rubbing alcohol (hey, it's not strong but it is a solvent I know and trust). I fiddled with the valve to get the drip rate correct and ran it around the track a few times. The only thing is I don't really know how well that solvent cleans -- but if I find dirt accumulating I'll use something stronger.

Oh, and my Kato F7 had trouble pulling the car. The CMX car is heavy and of course has a lot of drag on the track. The 6-axle SD90/43MAC did much better. It's worth noting that the CMX instructions (which are really written for their HO version) mention that with dirty track you may need two engines to push the cleaning car.