Right now, the hobby is experiencing a revolution in electronics (DCC, on board sound systems, etc.). With that comes a greater need for cleaner track. After all, that's how we get the information from the power source to our trains. To do this you have a choice. You could clean the rails by hand, or find a good rail cleaning car.

Centerline Products has a whole line of rail cleaners from N to G gauge. I received their model D30 in HO scale to review. My first impression was made as I lifted up the box to open it. You could tell that the frame was made of metal.

The design was well thought out. Model D30 comes with Mantua trucks and McHenry couplers. However, the frame is machined so that any common scale trucks would fit it. The frame has been drilled so that couplers and boxes can be mounted to it, or you can place the McHenry couplers in the Mantua Talgo trucks that are provided. The frame has a lip around the top outside edge so that a body can be placed over the middle of the frame and run with the rest of your stock.

In the middle of the frame is the heart of the cleaning system -- the patented "limited slip roller". It is a solid knurled brass roller covered with common everyday Handi-Wipes. You can buy them precut from Centerline, or cut them yourself. For me this is a feature I really like. You can buy something that can be serviced with common household goods. You're not chained to a manufacturer. This brings me to another point, the liquid recommended to clean the rails with is GOO GONE. You can find this at just about any K-Mart in the country, or Centerline has it available in three sizes.

After you wrap the Handi-Wipe onto the roller, you simply drop it into the frame. If you plan on making the car go in both directions, Centerline recommends that you wrap a thread around the roller a couple of times then tie it off. This keeps the Handi-Wipe from unrolling.

As the cleaner travels along the track, the GOO GONE is left on the rails and helps break up the junk on all the wheels. On the next round, the Handi-Wipe picks it up.

I am one who prides himself on having a clean track. I have to because I like to run my trains slow. I was a little embarrassed when it took both sides of three Handi-Wipes to clean a 24' loop. After that, the cleaning car just seemed to maintain the track because I haven't had to change the Handi-Wipe since.

One of the most important things to do in this hobby is to take care of your track. Centerline offers a good non-abrasive option in the war against grime. A product that's worth every penny.

I have just had an opportunity to test a new type of rail cleaning car, Centerline Products' "limited slip" roller type cleaner. Centerline president Dick Webster loaned me one of the ten cars produced as pilot models. The cars will not be available in any quantity until April 1st, but Dick assures me that, if anything, the production run will be nicer than the test batch.

The Centerline Products rail cleaner uses a weighted, absorbent roller that has been saturated with track cleaning fluid. This free-floating roller is guided along the track by the open frame rail cleaner car. The roller appears to roll freely, but because it is pressed against the rear edge of the framework it actually slides along the rails to a certain amount, providing the "limited slip" feature. If the roller pad encounters a high switch point or rail joint, it simply rolls over it and then goes back to limited slip mode. Because of this feature, it is not only highly resistant to derailments that seem to plague sliding-pad type rail cleaners, but also requires less power to move.

Centerline has sold HO and N scale versions of this car for over a year, and the principle is well-tested. A check with a local hobby shop that stocks the HO and N versions indicated that customers were satisfied with their rail cleaning cars.

In testing, I discovered several unadvertised features of the Centerline Rail Cleaner. First, it will negotiate the 24"-radius curves of the Atlas sectional track (the Hi-Rail version will run on O-27 trackage). I suspect it will take a much tighter curve, but none of my friends had curves tighter than 24".

Second, the car will operate in a bi-directional mode; you can clean stub-end sidings by pushing it into the siding and pulling it out. This will clean all but the last four inches of the siding.

Third, by removing the roller end cap you can add or subtract weight. A heavier weight cut through the track dirt easier, but it also increased the load dramatically; a lighter weight would be easier to pull but might not clean the tracks as well. The idea is to load the roller with as much weight as your locomotive can handle on your stiffest grade, but not to load it with more than 75% of it's volume filled. When we filled the roller with extra weight it actually performed worse than when filled to about 3/4 full. The out-of-balance tumbling action seems to help.

The car body is a one-piece silicon-bronze lost wax casting. In shape, it is mostly utilitarian with two bolsters for the trucks and couplers and a square "well" that guides the free-floating roller. The trucks and couplers are standard Weaver O Scale parts. The roller is cut from a 3" Shur-Line paint roller that you fill with BB pellets or pennies and cap with the provided caps. The carbody casting had been polished to the point you're almost afraid to touch it.

The car comes complete with trucks and couplers (the Hi-Rail version uses Weaver's Lionel-compatible trucks and working couplers), and can be assembled in about five minutes (the Hi-Rail version is delivered ready-to-run). Six roller covers are provided with the car, and these can be washed in your automatic washer.

Does it work? My O Scale (2-rail) sample showed dirt marks on the roller after just one pass on a rather small layout. After two passes, the locomotive pushing the rail cleaner ran noticeably smoother.

48/ft., OSN Hi-Rail editor Dave Evangelisti tested the O Gauge (3-rail) version and found that not only did the track car clean the rails, but that the wheels of the cars pulled in the train with the rail cleaner were also cleaned. Thus frequent use of the rail cleaner will also keep your wheels clean. The rail cleaner had no problems on 3-rail sectional track or Gar-Graves flex track.

Centerline states that you can use almost any solvent that will not melt your plastic ties, but that you should read warning labels carefully to watch out for flammability, toxicity on contact or fumes. A safe bet would be to use a commercially-available track cleaner like that offered by Lifelike Products at your local hobby shop. People using tin-plate or steel track are advised to avoid water-based solutions. On his Hi-Rail layout, Dave used mineral spirits. DO NOT USE fluids that give off toxic fumes; read the labels before you use any solvent.

Do you need the rail cleaner? Well, some years ago I had a cast bronze diesel that weighed almost twelve pounds. On rusty steel rail that engine still found its connection. The new engines are much lighter and the nickel-silver rails seem to oxidize with a nearly invisible, but insulating, coating, so this track cleaner seems to fit the bill. Clean track reduces the wheel-destroying arcing (sparks) caused by dirty track.

Although the Centerline Rail Cleaning car looks like nothing on prototype rails, I suppose it could be disguised as a small freight car, or perhaps as a caboose; although I think you'll want to be careful of the extra weight and drag. The O Scale version weighs 15 ounces without the extra roller weights that you will add (the O gauge version weighs 17 ounces without weights).

Is it worth the money? I think so; not only does the car work as advertised, but it is extremely well-built and with occasional replacement of trucks, couplers, and rollers, it should last a lifetime.

Centerline Products has designed a new rail cleaning car that, while working on the same principle as the original, has a new frame design that will allow it to run with a carbody placed atop the frame. Like Centerline's other cleaners, it employs the company's very successful design of a free rolling cleaning pad set inside a heavy frame. The 15/16" wide roller is made of 3/4" diameter brass and is designed to be covered with a replaceable, absorbent cloth pad. The brass roller has a knurled surface that helps to hold the pad. The car comes with ten pads made from 15/16" wide strips of Handi-Wipes. Additional strips can cut from Handi-Wipes or ordered direct from Centerline. As the car is transported around the layout, the pad, which is soaked with a cleaning fluid, scrubs the rails. When the pad becomes dirty, it can be replaced with another.

The 4" long frame of the car is made of epoxy coated, die-cast zinc and with the trucks weighs approximately 4 ounces. The Model D30 series comes in four models: D30, which is equipped with Mantua freight trucks with X2F couplers and also includes McHenry conversion couplers*; D32, which comes with Kadee freight trucks and Kadee No. 5 frame mounted couplers; D34, which is equipped with Talgo style freight trucks with European Märklin type couplers**; and D36, which has 4-wheel HO bogie trucks with couplers and also includes British OO scale couplers.

Our test sample was the D30. The car was ready to run out of the box. All we needed to do was set it on the track, wrap a strip of cloth Handi-Wipe around the roller, put a few drops of cleaning fluid on the cloth and place the roller inside the opening in the frame. Goo Gone, a citrus cleaner recommended by Centerline was used as the cleaner. If the cleaning car is only to be operated in one direction, the cloth pad does not need to be secured to the roller. However, if the car is to be run in both directions a thread needs to be tied around the pad to keep it from unrolling. This is covered in the instructions.

The cleaning car was pulled around the layout with a locomotive, and almost immediately two parallel black dirt stripes appeared on the pad where it came in contact with the rails. The car did an excellent job cleaning the rails and the small amount of cleaner left on the rails helped to clean the wheels of the cars following behind. It ran smoothly and didn't snag on anything. The car's small size allows it to handle curves down to a 10" radius. Its standard freight car width keeps it from hitting switchstands and other nearby objects, and allows the car to be hidden beneath a 30-foot removable carbody. This is a fine working car that would make an excellent addition to any HO scale maintenance-of-way fleet. It certainly beats cleaning the rails by hand using a rag or abrasive block.

Centerline also makes two similar cars in N scale. The D10 has a die-cast body with Bettendorf trucks, metal wheels and attached standard couplers, and the D12 comes with Micro-Trains freight trucks and Magne-Matic couplers. Both cars operate the same as the HO cars.

This new S gauge rail cleaner has such a simple design you wonder why someone didn't think of it sooner. Basically, it is a simple brass body, fitted with American Models' hi-rail couplers and trucks, with a cut-out center. A heavy brass cylinder fits into the hole, wrapped with a Handi-Wipe or similar material and saturated with cleaning fluid. As the car travels around the tracks, the cylinder turns, but with some resistance. This "limited slip" feature is what Centerline claims makes the car unique. (They have patented it.)

Since the rail cleaner has sprung trucks, the cylinder stays in contact with the wheels at all times¹. Securing the cloth around the cylinder with a thread is a good idea, because letting bare brass come in contact with your tracks is not a good idea. The Handi-Wipe comes unraveled pretty fast if you place the cylinder incorrectly.

We found the rail cleaner to perform just as the manufacturer claimed it would, except that it did deposit dirt back on the tracks if you let it go around too many times without changing the cloth². You will probably have to experiment a little to get the car to perform optimally. An added benefit is that the residual cleaning fluid left on the tracks will clean the wheels of any cars and locomotives that follow.