Dapol B800 OO Gauge Track Cleaner

Who would have thought that a sprinkle of Mary Poppins could be carried over to the model railway world? It turns out cleaning can be fun and Dapol have proved it by creating the B800 DCC Ready OO Gauge track cleaning wagon. An ingenious way of turning the boring task of cleaning your track into a new way of enjoying your layout while removing the unrealistic elements involved in track cleaning.

The Problem

Due to the constant electrification of your model railway, dust is constantly being sucked towards it just like money to Richard Branson. Allow this to sit for several months and build layer upon layer and you have a serious problem – a non conducting element between the power source and the locomotives motor.

The Solution

Before the Dapol B800

The typical solution before the Dapol B800 came about was to either use a hard rubber brick that looked like a painful bar of soap used by a coal miner. The other traditional solution was too use white spirit or other thinning acidic agents to break down the grime into a liquid substance that could be wiped away with a cloth. Dust and other debris that found its way between the tracks could be easily hoover using a small hoover such as the ones found at gadget shops.

These of course “broke character” and involved a giant hand similar to God reaching through the clouds completing wrecking the idea of a mini railway system.

After the Dapol B800

Thanks to Dapol and their fantastic team of modellers/developers an easy to setup and use system has come onto the market. The B800 DCC Ready OO Gauge Track Cleaner is a long tall wagon that looks like something that could exist in the real world. Inside it features a cleaning arsenal only matched by the women from the TV programme “How Clean Is Your House“. Built into the unit is:

• A motorised abrasive head that can grind the layer of tough on gunk.
• Another motorised head that holds a buffer for polishing.
• A drip fed brush that coats the track in a fluid to help break down dirt (built in reservoir).
• A vacuum cleaner for removing dust and debris from on and around the track (built in bag).

When run on a traditional analogue railway layout all the tools will run at full power as soon as the line is powered. Add a 8 pin decoder chip to the equation and you are then put in control of each tool separately using 4 functions.

The Dapol B800 Dcc Ready OO Gauge Track Cleaner really is a revelation when it comes to cleaning track and can make the whole process a lot more enjoyable and give you more reason to run “special services” for the maintenance of your layout.

Whats It Cost?

The important question that im sure you will be asking yourselves is what is this going to set me back and can I live without it? Its priced quite competitively at £53.00 for the unit with 2 spare heads (Cheltenham Model Centre). You can however get a fantastic deal for the unit by purchasing a bunch of the accessories at the same time, again from Cheltenham Model Centre by following this link –> Dapol B800 w/ Accessories Bargain Pack.