HO foam roadbed help.

Arrrggghhhh. Snap track and foam! There probably aren't more difficult systems to get right and have decent train operation. Snap track suffers from the short sections of the track pieces and that means a lot of electrical and mechanical connections that can (and will eventually) go bad. Add in the flexibility of the foam and you are looking for troubles. The solution to "noisy" train operation is to put some weight into the locos and cars (NMRA has some weight specs) and reduce the number of rail joints in the track. Finally, don't run the trains at 100+mph as the prototypes never ran anywhere near that fast. I'll note that flex track isn't hard to work with (especially the Atlas stuff) and will allow for the radiuses necessary to make the curves fit the layout with no problems.

-- Bob May Losing weight is easy! If you ever want to lose weight, eat and drink less. Works evevery time it is tried!

One of my experiments was cork over foam over plywood. This was much quiter than either foam or cork only over plywood. My chosen glue is Liquid Nails for Projects (U$1.27 at Home Depot; caulk gun necessary). A notched putty knife helps to spread the glue.

My layout is now 4" beadboard (messy, but free), with 1/2" pink foam roadbed glued down and painted, and track glued to that.

I second the motion for flex track. You'll save a fortune in rail joiners alone. You'll also have fewer joints, which means fewer connections to go bad.

Keep a yardstick handy (I use a 4 foot drywall ruler) if you want straight track. Start at one end of the track and pull the track until it meets the yardstick, then pin it down until the glue dries. Liquid Nails gets tacky inside of 15 minutes. For pinning the track down I use 1/2" brads. Once the glue is dry they come out with pliers.

Jay CNS&M North Shore Line - "First and fastest"

TryFuture Floor Wax.

Dave Decker

Robwjm2 wrote:

And remember: It's a commodity, meaning it's raw material, like cane sugar or flour (store brand is as good as Gold Medal). Nobody does anything special to it. It just grows the way it grows. Get it where its cheapest if you don't mind doing a little extra cutting.

Jay CNS&M North Shore Line - "First and fastest"

Thanks for all the info. I may have to rethink the way I do this layout and figure which direction to go in

Rob