On 2/15/2008 3:15 PM Puckdropper spake thus:
Good point, and having never worked with N scale, is there even enough room for rolling stock to clear a small round-head screw on top of the ties? I'm thinking something like a #3 or 4 screw (pretty teeny-tiny).
Except it must be noisy...
Hmmm... My first attempt at brain surgery was a disaster - the patient died. ;)
I'm with Roger. Go buy "Track Planning for Realistic Operation by John Armstrong" and "Trackwork and Lineside Detail"... both by Kalmback - probably available at Amazon if you can't find locally. These will help to give some good concepts of prototypical railroads for the model railroad and how to achieve them. In other words maybe if a lot of modelers read these books first they could have saved a lot of time and got the layout they wanted the first time around and not spend 5-10 years to "learn" by building 2, 3, 4 layouts to get it right.
I would also add that another way to learn is to join a local club if one is so inclined. It usually pays to hang out with & pick the brains of those more experienced.
Doug
On Feb 15, 12:46=EF=BF=BDpm, David Nebenzahl wrote:=
lywood is hard to
Why waste the time?... if it's all about temporary and not learning how to lay track properly why not just go out and buy premade Bachmann track (with the real simulated plastic ballast look) , snap it together and Voila! Instant layout! Screw... no wait... forget the damn screws, OR tacks, nails, white glue, CA, Barge (for that Rod Stewart twist), liquid gooy stuff, duct tape, staples, bailing wire and any other means of mechanical bond.
Heck, forget the plywood... just plop it down on the living room floor and pretend the plush carpet is a vast sea of vegetative scenery.
Doug
Brain surgery was one of those I got right the first time! *8^)
Hmmm, I've heard this recently, from a very wise sage ... where was that??
Paul
On 2/16/2008 11:57 PM stealthboogie spake thus:
Don't see a call for all the sarcasm; several other folks here suggested that maybe the OP would do well by treating this layout as an experimental first project. So I fail to see the harm in screwing, or otherwise *temporarily* fastening *real* track (not EZ-track) to a plywood deck. The idea is to get a feel for how to lay track, and how to design a layout, and do it in such a way that the track can be retrieved and reused when they decide to build a *real* layout.
Is that OK with you?
stealthboogie wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@64g2000hsw.googlegroups.com:
But it's not about a temporary layout. It's about an expendable first layout. It's more important to get track connected together properly than go through all the trouble of roadbed, track plans, and all that. If, at the end of the day you don't know what a quality track connection feels like, or looks like, your trains will never run right. Laying track directly on plywood eliminates all but one or two other factors. It's learning to walk on your skates on carpet before you even attempt to learn to skate on ice.
If the OP feels after laying a loop of track on plywood that he's learned enough to start a real layout, that's great. If not, he can take the track up and try a different system. Perhaps throw a snap switch in there and have a siding. As a kid, doing this kept me busy for quite some time. I learned how quality track connections were made, and when I "became a model railroader" (rather than a kid with a trainset) and started using cork roadbed, the trackwork was quite good.
Puckdropper
- snipped-for-privacy@64g2000hsw.googlegroups.com:
ote:
quoted text -
Back in the mid-seventies, two friends and myself decided to build a model railroad in a garage. We fussed and fumed over the track plan for about three weeks until one of the guys said in frustration, "Let's just put the tracks down and play with the trains!" That we did and were happy. It's still good advice.
No. Surprisingly it isn't noisy at all.
Hmm... Well that's good. I'm in the process of designing a small layout for my apartment and this thread is most valuable and contradictory all at the same time!.. hehehe... (contradictory to what i thought was right)
Well, you do want some noise. The right kind of noise, of course. If the substructure acts as a sounding board, it will distort the noise, which is what you don't want. It will also tend to amplify the lower frequencies, ie, the gear train's coffee-mill noises. This was/is especially bad with older locomotives. Newer ones have nice quiet gears. I've built 8 layouts to the point of running trains (but only two or three progressed much beyond that level), so I've heard it all. ;-)
If you use 1/2" or thicker plywood, and screw/glue it down on a 1x3 or deeper frame, with maximum span of 12", then track on cork will be very quiet. Too much mass and too many fixed points for the structure to be a good sounding board. OTOH, track nailed directly to the plywood will be noisy compared to track glued onto cork, but often (not always) fairly quiet anyhow. Same goes for roadbed on risers: the heavier it is, the less noise. The net effect is that you can hear the gear noise all by itself, metal wheels will clickety-clack over rail joints, etc. If you file shallow notches in the railhead at 39ft intervals, the clickety-clack will take you back...
Foam OTOH avoids the problems. You don't need as solidly built a substructure to get the noise level where you want it.
HTH
{snipola}
Naaa, i guess i'll just use the blue or pink foam like i planned hehehe...
It depends on materials used. Strangely, using track fixing pins on top of thick spruce plywood results in much more quiet sounds compared to blue insulation foam (we tested one made by Dow). The blue insulation extruded foam board resulted in a very noticeable and high-pitched noise which is amplified back to viewers (it's heat-insulating material, not noise-insulation, by the way).
Out module group preferences are in this order (best to worst):
- cork roadbed upon around 10 to 15mm thick spruce plywood
- direct track fixing pins on thick spruce plywood
- cork roadbed on top of blue insulation board
It would be a good idea to experiment a bit (we are still trying to reach a consensus in our group).
Cheers, N.Fotis
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