I just bought the Poultry Dispatch car at the train show in Ponchatoula, LA. Saturday. The rubber band was deteriorated although the car is excellent. This thread helped me figure out how the rubber band was strung. Several others suggested trying to get the spring kit or using music wire to replace the rubber band. These seemed too long, too much trouble and maybe too costly.
I went to the kitchen drawer and got a rubber band assortment bag bought at Walmart or so and found some small 1 inch in circle diameter rubber bands. I undid the bracket and anchored the rubber band and routed it in the figure X. I played with it for 20 minutes adding as small piece of kitchen match stick to add tension under the band at the tip spring and adjusted to get it to work well.
It would not arm when the door was closed so I glued a 1/2 inch sliver of 1/16 thick match stick and glued it to arm on the door so it would push the mechanism further. It now arms when door is closed.
I figure the rubber band will last at least 5 years. I will not store it in a hot attic and it is not under much tension. I have super glued rubber bands to make replacement belts for cassette tape recorders and they have lasted several years.
The rubber band fix is the best cure for me and will only take 5 minutes and removal of two screws next time. In my case this was the easiest and quickest fix.
I have observed that the rubber band powered sweeper man will sweep quite actively for 30 seconds and still shows some effort after one minute! I do not know how this compares to spring activated sweepers.
Charlie
