My wife is the ultimate shopper. She found this Dirt Devil vacuum at the Dollar Store. I don't know how much she paid, but if its over 5 bucks, she moves on. Just about a perfect size for N. Has a little brush attachment for rubbing the junk loose. Not a lot of power, but it gets the fluff out of the tracks. Loose ballast, too. But it won't pickup bigger chunks, like people, vehicles, scenery. It plugs into an USB port to charge. Cool. I have been using the little mini vac she picked up also. Cumbersome. A lot of vacuum, so you have to be careful of unglued scenery, people, cars, etc. Both of these units have a drop area to recover your scenery, people, etc. What are you guy's using?
I use a "Dustbuster" powered by battery to vacuum the home layout. Small soft bristle brushes work good for roofs and so on.
I'm too cheap to use anything except the crevice tool on my household canister type vacuum cleaner (and that's always fraught with danger), so I use a soft clean artist's brush and simply whisk dust away impelled by a gentle breath from yours truly.
I have an old Bissell upright that went into semi-retirement (basement duty) when I bought a Dyson Ball. The Bissell is as noisy as a vacuum can be but it still does the job and has a bunch of nifty attatchments that work well. I also bought a very narrow opening attatchment at Home Depot that works well for detail vacuuming on any 1 1/4" hose. As a side note I have to add that if it is possible to fall in love with a vacuum cleaner, then I have with my Dyson. A lot of money, I know... But with two cats and a dog, I almost look forward to vacuuming since I bought the Dyson Ball.
Hi, I use the small Shop Vac that you conveniently supplied the photo for Since the hose is really stiff I attach a hose from an old vacuum that is very flexible and it adds about 8 feet of hose. The extra hose helps keep the vacuum on the floor. I purchased an attachment package that has small tubes and fittings. It makes this a bit more controllable and helps with not vacuuming up the N Scale people. Gary
I got a Home Depot Bucket Head vacuum. It's a vacuum motor that attaches to a standard plastic 5 gallon bucket. Great suction but too top heavy and not very maneuverable. That dirt devil definitely looks like something that would be just perfect.
I use a small Shop Vac with a filter of nylon stocking that doesn't prevent sucking up small objects, but does prevent them from experiencing a bad trip into the giant dust bin, as immortalized here a few years ago by Verne Niner.
Small hand-held Everstar Turbovac 800 with homemade nylon filter and tree-cleaning attachments made from plastic bottles. Works great. Looking for right tubing to make tunnel-cleaning attachment. Scott
