Track cleaning car

[BlaineBB]

Hello ... I just purchased a Bachmann Track Cleaning Tanker Car - UTLX - from Amazon.  This may be a dumb question, but do I need to apply the E-Z Lube cleaner solution to the pad BEFORE running the tanker car?  Or do I just run the tanker cleaning car right out of the box?  I recently cleaned the tracks with the E-Z solution, so my tracks are good.  I tried looking on Bachmann's website and on YouTube for an answer, but found nothing.  Thanks for your help.

Blaine

[Desert Rose]

Its a dry pad cleaner, just run the tanker cleaning car right out of the box. I use a brass brush to clean the pad off when it glosses over. I have run the same pad for four years using this method.

[BlaineBB]

Thanks, Benjamen ... I appreciate your reply.

[Ralph S]

Track cleaning.  This question will always be a question asked on this forum.  But since you asked a specific question, I'll provide my thoughts.

"Do I need to apply the E-Z Lube cleaner solution to the pad BEFORE running the tanker car?  Or do I just run the tanker cleaning car right out of the box?"

In my opinion, you can do either.  Adding cleaning fluid will work but it will be based on the type of cleaning pad.  Some pads the fluid will flow fairly quickly to the track, other pads it may take some time for the fluid to flow through the pad and onto the track. 
In my case, I do both.  That is, I have two track cleaning cars.  One I use to dryclean the track and the other to wet clean the track.  Since I have a track cleaning train, I run the wetcleaning car first, and in between with two flat cars and the MOW caboose and lastly the dry cleaning tank car.  I use the cars in between to give the cleaning fluid time to lift the crud from the track before the dry cleaning pads move over the track and dry the track.  I'll be working on a ballast vehicle (converting it from DC to DCC) to replace the two flat cars.  My desire would use the ballast vehicle to drive the tracking cleaning unit instead of having to use one of the diesel locomotives.

Kinda got of the subject, sorry, but as you can see from my opinion doing either will support cleaning of the track.  If the track is really filthy, then wet cleaning should be considered, since dry cleaning the car may be to light to really remove harden crud.  The question I can't answer is how fast or slow should the train cleaning cars move on the track.  If you go slow maybe one of two passes may work.  Moving cleaning cars fast then maybe four or five passes to get the same cleanliness.  And yes, that isn't a good answer.    Hopefully some of this info may help.

[trainman203]

I've never seen a HO track cleaning car that really worked. They just can't put enough weight down on the rail to do any good. There's nothing quite like manual physical pressure on the rail, which far exceeds whatever the car can put down on it.  There are many opinions of what is best to use or do so I'll just throw mine out as my preference. A "Cratex" non/ abrasive block.  And not just on the top of the rail.  On the inside top corner too.