Laying Track Indoors

[C&S]

The baseboards are started and soon I'll need to lay track.

It strikes me that just screwing the track to the plywood top is going to make operating a bit noisy. However I have a large piece of felt carpet underlay going spare. Suppose I put this down as the track bed and then glued a strip of brown paper on top, so the ballast glue doesn't just soak into the felt and make it stiff. Would this give a resilient track bed and lessen the noise? Opinions please, anyone?

 

[tram47]

Réseau "MOMI":

Railroad network "MOMI" : 1cm. of wood (plywood) , 2 mm. Of cork.

 

[madman1981]

I'm currently planning my indoor railway and i was thiking maybe cork board ?? its normaly cheap and you should be able to glue stuff to it with no probs.
Just not sure how much noise insulation it offers till i get some and try it.

 

[korm kormsen]

C & S,

i made some tests with felt-undercarpets too.
i will use them on the layout i'm building now.
instead of covering the felt with paper, my aproach is this:
mixing (coarse) sand with white glue and putting it upon the felt. (after the track is installed)

 

[C&S]

Tram47, Thanks for the picture. I did think of cork but was put off by the price - I'm trying to work on a shoestring budget. Also though a thin cork sheet might not soak up much noise.

Paul, Interesting video; difficult to tell how much noise just one train was making, but not too far above what I'd hope for. I will be using metal wheels so a bit of noise is inevitable, but I like wheels on rail joints - it's just the motor noise I'd prefer to minimise if possible.

Graham, the B&Q material sounds interesting. To save my searching the whole shop, what is it's "real" use? Looks like one pack would do it - or perhaps leftovers could it be used as scenic contour material, if flexible enough.

Korm, Good to know someone else has tested this method. If you're going to use it again, I guess it works OK, and I'll certainly test it myself

Food for thought in all replies; many thanks.

 

[adeshers]

The green stuff from B&Q is for going under laminate flooring. It is dense enough to take pins but not as dense as sundeala. It cuts easily with a Stanley knife. Hope this helps.

Ade

 

[dunnyrail]

Hi, I was thinking along the lines of that thin underfelt, Wicks do something similar. However there is another option, that is the sort of insulation that they use on Lofts. Wicks do this is 8x4 ft sheets. It comes in around 1 and 3 inch thicknesses, a friend of mide scrouged some from me to make a small 16mm NG layout, he used it as the main baseboard using just a sort of Tray made from Ply to strengthen the lot off. may be an option unless you ahve built the boards. But as a Top to existing would work very well and leave space for you to cut some out for a stream should you want.
JonD

 

[C&S]

Yes, I've already built some boards and the other side of the layout will rest on an existing cupboard, so the height from the floor is fixed. Adding in the roof slope above (and wanting a certain clearance along the rear of the board for buildings taller than the trains), I don't want to have more than a minimal thickness of underlay. Looks like it's the underfelt, after all.

 

[flyingsignalman]

The green stuff from B&Q is for going under laminate flooring. It is dense enough to take pins but not as dense as sundeala. It cuts easily with a Stanley knife. Hope this helps.

Ade

It's fairly fibrous and dusty; on a 00 gauge layout I gave it a coat of diluted PVA to seal it and keep the dust down.

 

[silverflyer]

I have used some of that black perforated siliconized ruber sheet that you put in kichen draws or toolboxes, to stop things sliding about.

Got it form Morrison's Supermarket, in a roll about 1 metre x 1/2 metre for £1.99 , cut into strips about 110mm wide, it's quite to run on and because of the holes it holds ballast in place.

 

[C&S]

I'm trying very hard to reconcile the terms 'shoestring budget' within the context of 'large scale model trains'tac

Started 10 years ago by buying second-hand from friends - Loco for £40, freight cars £10 each, turnouts £5 and £10 each, straights and R1 curves £2 each. Buying little and often, almost always second hand, as the project demanded it - sometimes subsidised by selling other models or getting modelling articles printed. I try not to use "new money" unless absolutely necessary.

Having had a modest layout for 5 years I had to "mothball" it, but continued acquiring whatever bargains could be found on eBay - and there have been one or two, particularly badly repainted items of no interest to collectors or slightly damaged models needing a little TLC. Now in a good position to build a new layout with just about everything needed in stock, and possibly a small surplus to sell off at the end of the day.
Silverflyer - that drawer-lining material sound interesting. Sounds like a trip to my nearest store will be on the cards soon.

 

[madmanx]

Just in case you haven't started laying yet, you might try 3mm white expanded polystyrene sheeting which you can get on a large roll from B&Q and elsewhere. Think it is also used under laminate flooring, but they normally have it alongside the big thick sheets used under concrete floor slabs. Great insulation / sound deadening properties.