Tha Atlas car?

Might be worth looking into based on your question.  You might be better off solving the issue in the first place and stopping the dus

Atlas track vacuums

They work great BUT after some use you'll find the track pickup method starts to fail. They use springs between the truck and frame to conduct and when they get dirty they start to fail. I replaced mine with some super flex wire and they have worked great since. You will be surprised at what they pick up and initially you will have to stop and clean them out every so often. -  Ken 

“Atlas” track cleaners

... are actually Tomix imported by Atlas, and come in both HO and N scale. It has replaceable cloth or abrasive powered cleaning disks, a vacuum, and a tank for cleaning fluid.  There’s space for a small decoder if you want to  add a speed control for the vacuum. I don’t recommend using the abrasive disks/rail grinders, but it”s a nice cleaning cat otherwise. it has to be pushed or towed around the layout, power is only used for cleaning, not motivation.

It’s not meant for DCC, but if you install a small decoder you can use it and control the motor speed from your throttle. If you have a Digitrax system, you could run it on address 00 and control the vacuum speed just as you would with an analog engine.

I use these one

I use these ones from years in N scale

The motor used in these cars are Faulhaber ones.

I have a special train with vacum cars and polishing cars; the results are amazing.

These cars are DCC or DCC ready

https://www.lux-modellbau.de/

Some of us live on dirt

Some of us live on dirt roads.  I have more dust upstairs then in the train room...

But this is a modern house with plywood T&G sheets and a second layer on top of that.  No dust gets through the floor.  
But up stairs... is a whole different story.

-Doug M

Spend money?

Why? Get a piece of masonite, cut to fit under a car, attach it to the bottom with loose screws, with just enough pressure to allow the masonite to rub along the rails. That's what we used for years on a club in an attic. Also, get a good vacuum attachment with small nozzle/brush. Those are the cheapest ways I know of. Other than this, can you figure a way to seal the room? Or a good air cleaner? Just ideas, IMHO. Morgan

"Get a piece of masonite, cut

   Hi Morgan. Yeah I've seen masonite slider track cleaning cars over the years. I'm wondering if there is a better pad material for dust, perhaps some kind of replaceable cleaning pad like a swiffer duster uses? ....DaveB  

There are....

several videos on You Tube where they make drum, use the swiffer and mount it in something like a gon.   Some type springs for good tension and you are good to go.  Some use the "white eraser" pad but if you have more than normal dust not sure how well that would work

@DaveB

+1 for the Atlas vacuum car.

Have you tried the "box fan with HVAC filter" method to catch dust before it hits the layout?

If too much still ends up on your layout, you could also use your compressor and blast some low PSI compressed air to get the dust airborne again and get it to end up going through the box fan filter. A blast of air might be less destructive than vacuuming the layout, plus you'll remove dust from more than just the tracks.

Air compressor

Hi Yaron,  I do use the air compressor at times. I also have a cordless Ryobi vacuum that I can run over the tracks.  I just thought a track cleaning car would be more fun that walking around with the vac or air nozzle. My layout room is partitioned off from my wood shop but there are two doors connecting the spaces and lots of dust gets tracked into the train room when I'm going in and out working on the layout. I run a shop vac over the floor but it's hard to keep up with the dust when working on a project. I'm modeling in S scale so can't use an Atlas vacuum car, I'll have to look at youtube and see if I can build a swiffer gondola that Steve mentioned. ...DaveB

Lightweight handheld mini vacuum

I use the inexpensive, lightweight handheld mini vacuum shown here for this purpose. Its disadvantage is the need to change batteries every so often.

An interesting project would be to modify this for mounting on a flatcar with the nozzle pointing down, or with a nozzle extension. In S scale and larger, there should be enough clearance. Rigid mounting to the car would be important since the body vibrates in operation.

USB vacuum?

You could probably make a vacuum car out of one of those mini USB vacuums they sell for cleaning keyboards and inside computers. Either wire up a little circuit to convert track DCC to 5 volts or use a rechargeable battery pack. 

If you have a 3d printer you could even print a special Y-nozzle attachment that splits the suction so it's only over the rails.

Here you go Dave....

Not sure why these didn't post too...

Dust

Vacuum, yes and not, if you have structures, scenery, it's difficult to vacuum some area of a layout without damaging the scenery and structures.

I think, even if it's difficult in some case, the first thing to do is avoid any dust production in the train room.

Covering the layout when not in use is a good way to go too.

Blowing dust with compressed air is not my favor because you fly away most of it and vacuum only a part of it; I prefer to use vacuum brush, a brush with a  vacuum tube next to it.

I'm in the way to make a big reflection about this because I'm in the starting block to begun construction of my extension for my N scale out.l

First dust,

The room must be clean before construction; most of the hard work like electricity and similar work need to be finished and cleaned to before any layout construction; this mean a big and good planning before construction.

This follow by prohibiting as far as possible  any construction work which produce dust, like sanding, cutting wood, plaster work; any work which produce some trash need to be done with a vacuum in hand and this vacuum need to have a .real dust filter 

All the wood must be cut outside the train room, I will spray paint all the pieces of wood of the benchwork before use them,  no backdrop with plaster board or massonite which means a lot of sanding, no hard shell with plaster.

The backdrop will be an hanged vinyl floor, not often used in USA but with a good background in Europe; hard shell will be red rosin paper, no dust again, no rock molds done in the layout room; ground will be goop, again a limited dust production.

Further the layout will be covered when not in use.

Course during time dust will accumulate in any way, but I will try to minimalise dust; may be I will place a air filter for the layout room.

As a example of result, Georges Sellios use similar approach for his FSM; he also cover the layout when not in use.

This could be in the future an excellent thread by sharing positive experiences which have finally reduce dust in a layout room

best bet

your best bet would to first improve the dust collection, disposal in the wood room.

take a box fan or two to suck all the air out of the wood room. and blow it outside. drawing new air from the train room. makes it drafty but just put on a light jacket.

and set up every tooling and work table, as well as floor pickups. with a suck tubing to the outside. you could even build up a dust bin out there.

but then as to cleaning up the layout. back to a compressor. to build up some pressurized air to blow off the layout.

and back to a couple box fans to clean the air in the train room. place filters on them to catch the “stuff” in the air.

and then a number of masonite drag cars. and a couple of the better cleaner cars.

?? maybe a special train with a built in vac for those hard to get at areas?

might not run any oil on the rails, aka run them dry.

DUST

How about the Woodland Scenic Dust Monkey product?  I've been using them for several years now and for the cost you can't beat them. 

Here is a link to their video for this product. 

https://woodlandscenics.woodlandscenics.com/show/video/DustMonkeys

Regards,

Mark

Plus one for the Dust

Plus one for the Dust Monkeys.

Terry

Air Cleaner

If your wood shop is creating dust that is affecting your railroad you should consider stopping it at the source using a air cleaner in your shop.  Expensive but it's only the cost of a couple of loco's. 

https://www.rockler.com/jet-1000cfm-air-filtration-system?

Dan