This idea for cleaning wheels without lifting the loco from the track came to me after I had spent what seemed ages lifting each of my locos off the track to clean the wheels.

The key component is a pair of Peco Wheel Cleaners, PL-40 illustrated. These are mounted in a section of track which is used only at low speed. I’ve installed mine at the entrance to the loco shed. The flying leads are connected to the rails each side so that a loco can be driven over normally without losing power. The check rails help in keeping the wheels in line, and I mount the wheel cleaner slightly raised above rail level, since the brushes will deform slightly under the weight of the wheels. This should be clear from the photo of the complete installation as shown in main picture.

When it is desired to clean the wheels, the loco is driven on at full speed, and then restrained by a finger placed on the buffers, so the wheels continue to rotate without the loco moving. This is done for each driven wheel with a pickup in turn, taking care to let the loco move back and forth by a few millimetres so that those wheels which are still on the rigid rails do not grind grooves in the rails. My locos are heavy, typically about 2kg for an express loco.

On locos which have insulated wheels on one side only, any items which are close to the rails and electrically connected to the frame may cause a momentary short circuit as the loco comes on or off the brushes. My Lenz DCC set has a very sensitive overload trip, so to reduce the risk of this cutting off the power I feed the brushes through a 10 ohm resistor each side, and when I build a new loco I insulate guard-irons and sand-pipes from the frames when necessary.