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"SHINE-O-MATIC" Brand New HO Track Cleaner Car (comes in kit form - Kadee couplers included) (Developed by A-Line) Fits Athearn or other 40' box cars

SHINE-O-MATIC     Brand New HO Track Cleaner Car  (comes in kit form -Kadee couplers included) (Developed by A-Line) Fits Athearn or other 40' box cars  (box car not included with kit)  Trucks supplied with kit have metal wheels.

First time ever available on the market from A-Line. Developed and tested on home and large club layouts.

Easy to assemble!

Trouble free operation!

No complicated moving parts!

Most effective way to clean track!

Non abrasive cleaning

Can be used dry or with liquids. We recommend Mineral Spirits for cleaning liquid. This will not damage the block or car floor.

Can be used in conjunction with liquid dispensing tank cars

Can be operated in both directions, pushing or pulling

Cars are optimally weighted so more cars can be run in a train without excessive drag

We found  that during development testing the S-O-M car worked great not only for cleaning mainline track, but for cleaning industrial sidings as well. By using small switcher locomotive and S-O-M car you can move in and out of these areas with ease. And not have to try and clean these areas by hand and end up damaging buildings or scenery. You could even put several of your S-O-M box cars into your OPS sessions and be cleaning the track while switching out industries !

We are also working on a 50' box car  Shine -O-Matic !   Let us know what you think and would you be interested in one ?

As shown in pictures below, white Cleaning Strip material is wrapped around the slider block and taped with masking tape. As the Cleaner Strip gets dirty, just rotate the block to new clean position. When one side of strip is used up, flip strip over and use the other sides. You can buy more Cleaner Strip material

Our Cleaner Strip material works great on your liquid tank cars. Our material is heavy weight material and will hold and dispense fluid a lot better and more even. Our material has a great price for the amount you get!

SHINE-O-MATIC - How it all Began

I am a member of the San Diego Model RR Associaton at Balboa Park in San Diego CA. Right across the isle is the La Mesa MRR club, in the same Museum. On a regular basis I visit their club and get a chance to talk withfriends there and observe their operaton, even partcipatng, sometmes. One of the subjects that comes up often is track cleaning. We talk about what equipment to use and what works best and is consistent. La Mesa uses a combinaton of Brass Tank Cars for dispensing liquid cleaner fluid (mineral spirits) and a set of track cleaner cars with brass rollers, with cleaning pad material wrapped around the rollers. Normally the cleaner pad is wrapped around a roller and put into a car. As the car is pulled the roller rolls over the track to clean it. The problem is, you can not back the car up or the pad will unroll. After many discussions with Charley(Chief track cleaner person) I found he was hot gluing the pad to keep it from unrolling. This was very time consuming because multiple rollers had to be purchased and pre-glued to have them ready to replace into the cars when they got dirty.

Watching the train run around the layout I thought how rolling over the layout was not actually cleaning and picking up that much dirt. It seemed to me that a cleaning car that slid over the tracks would pickup a lot more dirt. It would also do it faster than one that rolled. The designing began, using a sliding block, not a roller devise, was first on the list. I also wanted to have the cleaning car be stealth, so I made it fit a standard 40’ box car length. It needed to be simple to assemble, operate and maintain. The cost needed to be reasonable and the unit needed to be able to operate wet or dry. 

To get back to La Mesa’s problem, I used the roller cars and made a block that fit in the opening. I found strip material that was strong, heavy weight, had good absorbing characteristics and could be used wet or dry. The material I found was white, thus showed the amount of dirt that was being picked up. Because of block design it gave three surfaces to be used without changing the material. Just rotate the block in the car to a new clean side. You also had the advantage of turning the cleaning strip over and using the other side. Therefore, providing six cleaning surfaces, before you threw the strip away. The cleaning cars with blocks and the liquid tank cars made up the new Cleaner Train for the La Mesa Club. It has been running ever since with no problems and excellent results.

I continued to refine my design on our new track cleaning car, with much testing on San Diego Model RR Club and my own home layout. The SHINE-O-MATIC mock-ups ran great, with no problems. We got all the components together and packaged the first kits, they were advertised in our monthly PPW-Aline.com E-Blast, immediately orders came in. I took the time to contact our first customers by email to get their feedback, which was extremely positive. The Shine-O-Matc Track Cleaning Car is available in kit form - Kadee couplers included. All the accessories are also available at PPW-Aline.Com, order one and let us know how you like it!

Thanks    Joe DElia Jr.

Inventor: Shine-O-Matic Track Cleaner Car

Owner: Aline/Proto Power West/Arrow Hobby/New Rail Mode

 

La Mesa Model Railroad Club Testimonial:

Over the years we have used several track cleaning systems but none were as effective as the Aline Shine-O-Matic system. This system has allowed us to reduce track cleaning time and cost and is much more reliable than old systems and does a significantly better job at cleaning our railroad. There is no better track cleaning system on the market for home layouts or large super layouts in museums.
Mike,
LaMesa Model Railroad Club Member and San Diego Model Railroad Museum Board Member