I’ve been looking for one of these for a few months and finally asked Stan Ames where he got his. He gave me the right name for it (railbroom) and the guy who makes them, and after a search found one on eBay.

Since I didn’t need another tender, especially one labeled for the “Polar Express”, I turned it over to the shop crew.

The had an old work caboose laying around and managed to mount it on that.

The leaf blower worked OK, but this will keep the tracks cleared off without blowing everything else into the next county…

Nice. I have the guys Facebook page bookmarked, I want to get myself one of them too.

That’s pretty cool. How “good” is it?

Ken;

Nice sweeper. I kitbashed a passive sweeper a couple of decades ago. It’s not real aggressive with the leaves, but it does have a motorized rail head burnisher. Due to the positioning of the marker lamps and the shape of the brush, it earned the nickname “Groucho!”

Best wishes, David Meashey

Bruce Chandler said:

That’s pretty cool. How “good” is it?

It seemed to work OK when I saw one at Stan’s a few years ago. I haven’t used it here yet. It was a bit windy out. The brush is adjustable up or down. Has a 9.6v, 2000mah NiMh battery and a small charger. I just needed something to clear the sticks and twigs from the pine trees of the tracks. When it warms back up, I’ll find out.

I was pushing it around by hand and seemed to do the job.

Interesting…

Based on the photos it looks almost identical to the track cleaner sold by Reindeer Pass. That unit does not seem to be on their web site any longer, however?

The difference is the one above has a brush and the Reindeer pass one used 4 strips of 400 grit emery cloth, which both swept away debris and polished the inside of the rail heads.

Just an observation.

Jerry

Reindeer Pass was one of the places I looked for one of these. RLD, Star Hobbies, Nicholas Smith and a few others. I remembered seeing one online some where, but no go. Which is why I finally contacted Stan.

Apparently, the guy building them sells them on Ebay now.

I bought one from the guy who makes them back in Feb of this year. It works really well on our club layout which is under pine trees at the Florida Agricultural Museum in Palm Coast.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/264763904503?hash=item3da52891f7:g:DbEAAOSwc4FdLn4l

I have one. It flips debris right over the top of the brush to land right back on the track behind the machine.

I find a walk around with a small broom much more effective and faster.

A simple “Shroud” over the brush, prevents this…just fabricate it from an old plastic (Styrene) bottle…easily done…

Fred Mills

John Bouck said:

I have one. It flips debris right over the top of the brush to land right back on the track behind the machine.

I find a walk around with a small broom much more effective and faster.

I suspect you are pushing it too fast. Mine does not do that. (https://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-undecided.gif)

I had mine out on the layout today and it was kicking everything out in front of it.

Since my layout is indoors, I just use the battery powered DustBuster. I also run battery power RailPro, pretty soon I will have nothing to do, I guess I’m taking all the fun out of running trains.

trainman

John Lenheiser said:

Since my layout is indoors, I just use the battery powered DustBuster. I also run battery power RailPro, pretty soon I will have nothing to do, I guess I’m taking all the fun out of running trains.

trainman

If you had pine needles, I would suspect a hole in the roof! (https://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)