5 inch gauge track-cleaning wagon

A 5 inch gauge track cleaning wagon, built by a prolific model engineer who had several steam, battery-electric and steam outline locomotives to his credit, along with a garden railway on which to run them all.

He found that oil dropped by the locomotives caused problems with adhesion on the aluminium rail from time to time, hence this gloriously Heath Robinson device - disguised as a Great Western wagon - built to clean the railhead using a reservoir of white spirit, a mechanical pump and pair of rollers geared to the wheels.

Not something we see every day of the week (ok, we've never seen another one, other than years ago our on our OO-gauge railway!).

If required, it wouldn't be a big job to strip out the cleaning machinery leaving a well-made, quite nicely detailed coal wagon.