SHINE-O-MATIC - How it all Began

I am a member of the La Mesa Model RR Club at Balboa Park in San Diego CA. On a regular basis I run trains at the club and get a chance to talk with friends there and observe the operation. 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 combination 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 guy) 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. 

     I continued to refine my design on our new Aline 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-Matic Track Cleaning Car is available in kit form. 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