Train Your Garden

Easy Street Line needs some maintenance -of-way gear, including a motorized sweeper to help clear leaves, acorns, sticks, and errant ballast from fouling the line.

The above video is the first iteration of the motor brush car. It started as an attachment made for a Dyson vacuum. The attachment wasn’t too wide, was inexpensive, and already had the major components I needed – a motor, brush, and frame that holds both.

Then I cut apart a flat car and used a piece of lexan to mount the vacuum attachment to both car ends. A spare dewalt charger was used for the battery mount, so the car will run on dewalt batteries, which are common on the ESL.

Below is the “after” shot from sweeping the line (the upper one in the photo); the car works better than anticipated! Next up: 1) mount a mini blower 2) integrate an on/off switch and potentiometer to regulate the sweep speed, and 3) paint and accessories to make this into a proper maintenance-of-way car.