Well, I'm about to start building a "permanent" layout after 20 years of two layouts that were set up on luan doors on sawhorses that can be dis-assembled. (Better than it may sound; it had grades, walk-around memory throttles, and a basic level of scenery, was not at all just on bare wood).
The semi-permanent layouts (they typically were left up for 4 - 6 weeks at a time) did also have a more traditional section (forming an "L" with the main layout) that contained the main terminus, engine facilities, a small yard, and some staging. This section is traditional cork underlayment mounted on plywood.
Something I really want to avoid is the astonishing amount of noise created on this plywood section. Despite the cork, the plywood acted as some sort of sounding board, while the track on the main sections that was never fastened down, was as quiet and smooth as could be.
I suspect that one answer is to use Corning rigid insulation foam instead of plywood, and I'm going to do so where possible. But there will definitely be places where I won't have much clearance under the track, and plywood is going to be the only solution for the sub-roadbed (I've heard that MDF or particle board are even worse in this regard).
Has anyone else experienced this (I assume so, can't see anything different or unique about my situation)? Is there a solution?
You will find the foam to be almost as noisy. The usual culprit is the hardened/glued ballast acting as the fret and string against the wide and uniform density foam board.
However, you should/could still use the foam board, but use a soft adhesive to fix it to the frame members under and around it. All you need is DAP Alex Plus with Silicone (caveat - I haven't actually tested that specific product on extruded styrofoam insulation board to make sure it doesn't dissolve it, but I believe it should be okay). This isolates the foam from the wood elements of the frame...mostly.
Secondly, you can use roadbed, perhaps a different foam or cork, but also use the same adhesive. Similarly, you can use the DAP to fasten the ties to the roadbed product. Each time, you isolate from contact the one element from on whatever it rests.
Last very important point. Figure out how to isolate the bottom of the ballast from the foam board. It might be a good idea to place a subroadbed 1/8" thick under the cork or foam roadbed, but wider by about 2". The ballast grains will fall on that element which will isolate it with a substance of a different density than either the cork, the ballast itself, or the foam board surface of the layout on which it all rests. Sounds involved, but nothing worth while comes easily.
-Crandell
The quietest layouts were the older type that had haf inch plywood sub roadbed and cork roadbed, and built on L-girder benchwork. Now days it seems that folks are reverting back to 'tables' or modules using builders foam and such.
My present layout is built in 2x7 foot sections. The frame is furring strips covered with Luan (SP) with a layer of one inch builders foam on top of that. (The builders foam allows you to contour the 'land' easily.) To try and minimise the noise, I used Woodland Scenics foam road bed and used matt medium for the ballst glue. It works OK. But at the same time, I don't 'race' my trains around fast like kids do. The faster they go, the more noise.
Elmer.
The above is my opinion, from an active and experienced Model Railroader in N scale and HO since 1961.
(Modeling Freelance, Eastern US, HO scale, in 1962, with NCE DCC for locomotive control and a stand alone LocoNet for block detection and signals.) http://waynes-trains.com/ at home, and N scale at the Club.
The club I go to has used 2 inch styrofoam and it is still very noisy, I on the other hand went with "L" girder with 3/8 inch ply then 1/2 inch foam and cork road bed this has made it much quieter. Then again a lot can be said for sound absorbing materials in the rest of the layout room, i.e. carpet tiles and acoustic ceiling tiles so that what sound there is is not amplified and bounced back at you.
Kay.Div.
Our large HO scale club layout and my home HO scale layout are built on hollow core doors with two layers of Sound Board on top, plus cork or foam roadbed.
Sound Board is available in the insulation section of Home Depot, Lowe's, etc. here in Arizona, and comes in 4x8 foot 1/2 inch thick sheets. It's held down with latex caulk.
Thank you all for the comments. It sounds like the culprit is the actual fastening down of the track, almost no matter what the substrate is.
Cacole, how effective would you say that the use of the Sound Board is?
If you don't mind the extra expense, regular old pine "one by" lumber makes nice and quiet subroadbed. It's also a lot easier to haul home than 4x8 sheets. I once had a spot where I went from a curve cut from 3/4" plywood onto a 1x3 for a 6 foot straight section. When the train moved off the plywood onto the 1x3 the decrease in noise was amazing.
I have the right to remain silent. By posting here I have given up that right and accept that anything I say can and will be used as evidence to critique me.
steamnut Cacole, how effective would you say that the use of the Sound Board is?
That is very interesting. Was the track firmly fastened to the pine? (Just making sure).
Dear Cacole,
I read up on Sound Board prior to replying to your first post. There are many competing products. All of them claim to be "unique", "the best", "the only". A number of detractors say they are all voodoo science.
With respect - and thanking you sincerely for your two posts - you have not answered my simple question. How effective did you find it to be?
Sincerely,
Steamnut
My track is spiked (not nailed) to Homabed roadbed on Homasote on 1/2" plywood or directly to the Homasote for yards, sidings and spurs. The Homabed is fastened to the Homasote with brads; the Homasote to the plywood with screws; the plywood to the framing with screws. No adhesive attachment anywhere. The system is very quiet as-is; however, it is not yet ballasted-we shall see!
Dante
steamnut That is very interesting. Was the track firmly fastened to the pine? (Just making sure).
On top of both the plywood and the 1x3 there was cork roadbed glued down with contact cement. The track was nailed down with Atlas track nails (through the cork and into the subroadbed). There was ballast which was held in place with matte medium - fairly typical 90's construction.
My club uses a variety of "base" subroadbed. It is "L" girger and riser for the most part, except where 3/4" sheet birch is used for yard and industrial areas. The quietest is where we are running pine spline (masonite spline also reduces sound transmission), next is wher subroadbed is strips of 1x pine or cookiecutter 3/4 ply. the greatest sound transmission is where running on the larger 3/4 sheets. Extruded foam is only used for scenery in spots and not anywhere under the track. The larger the surface area of track location, weather on plywood or foam, the greater the chance for the base to act as a "sounding board" Some will find that large expanses of extruded foam alone and not mounted on a plywood base, tend to have the greatest sound transmission. The more the "flat" sounding board is broken up or isolated, as Selector mentions, the better chance to disrupt the vibration path.
Modeling B&O- Chessie Bob K. www.ssmrc.org
Hollow wood core door will amplify sound, usually no matter what you put on top. Foam will also amplify sound unless the area beneath is coated with some sort of sound deadening material.
I use the Old way, 1/2 inch exterior one side smooth ply and 1/2 inch Homasote, 3/8 inch round head track spikes, every 8th tie, ballasted. And don't hear a peep of noise, other than clickety clack of the wheels hitting joints or switchs, a lot of it is open grid, all DC. 12'1/2 X 40 X 12'1/2. I live in the Midwest, with all the season's. Speaking for myself, with 62 yrs, of playing with trains.
Striped
Just adding an experience. In my first adventure into modular layouts I used the 2" extruded foam instead of plywood for the surface. At the time I also used the AMI Instant Roadbed. A friend of mine made his modules and glued the track directly to the foam. The first time a train ran from my module onto his we thought it had derailed because of all the noise. It did not. The foam acted like a drum head and actually amplified the noise from the track that was directly attached to it. The entire weekend of the show we were constantly getting panic attacks thinking something was wrong when it made the transisition. For future shows we made noise insulating skirts for his modules. P.S. I do not recommend the AMI Instant Roadbed, while it worked for noise insulation it didn't work well for anything else. I've switched back to cork and Woodland Scenics foam roadbeds.
As others have already pointed out, I also noticed: 1. when the sub-roadbed is not a "sheet" of anything the noise is less. 2. nailing the track into the plywood is like putting a microphone on the track. 3. Layers of substances of different acoustical properties seems to help reduce transmission of unwanted noise.
1. Rigid construction foam is not intrinsically any quieter than plywood.
2. Dimensional pine may be somewhat quieter than other common materials, but this is probably due to it not being a sheet (see below) rather than to it being a different material in itself.
3. Avoiding big sheets of plywood OR foam will help quite a bit.
4. There is no consensus on fastenings. Some have used nails with good results, while some say this is a path to problems. Others have used hard glue, others have used soft glue.
· Noisiest – by a substantial margin – was the cookie cutter section.
· Second noisiest was the main line – track on homa-bed over cork sheet on plywood.
· Noisy but almost tolerable – track on 1/8th inch cork sheet nailed through it into the plywood.
· Use dimensional pine wherever I can, as the base.
· I don’t want to do hardshell scenery, but I should make sure that large pieces of foam are de-coupled from the trackbeds.
· Cover the base with a sheet of cork. Use a “soft” adhesive, as sparingly as possible.
· For additional de-coupling, use some kind of sound-deadening material between the cork and the track. Perhaps an automotive product, or perhaps a DYI loudspeaker product.
· Use a “soft” adhesive to glue the track and ballast down.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
riogrande5761How does homosote fit into this equation, or homabed? Just curious for the old school folks?
Please see my comment yesterday. By the way, I did not spike or nail track into the plywood below the Homabed/Homasote. Besides being difficult, that would likely transmit some noise.
Quote:
riogrande5761 wrote the following post 6 hours ago:
How does homosote fit into this equation, or homabed? Just curious for the old school folks?
Get a copy of Model Railroader's How to Build Realistic Reliable Track. Read Bob Kingsnorth article on page 34. This should answer all questions.
DR Hill
I used rubber cement under the cork and along sid it before ballasting. I also glued random lengths of foam strips on the bottom of the foam, perpindicular to the sheets.
An interesting topic, as I am in the early stages of "next layout" planning and have several materials available to use in construction.
JMK,
Did you attach the random strips later, so that you saw a difference or did you put them on before you ran trains?
I'm wondering if a dissimilar material (strips of wood, plywood or homosote) would have a greater or lesser dampening effect, than ones of the same material.
An open question: Has anyone tried two layers of 1" foam attached with caulk, rather than a solid sheet of 2" to see if there is a difference? My current layout base is several layers of foam (due to poor planning) on 1/2" plywood. It seems quiet to me, but my hearing is less than perfect. Don't have any others close by to compare it to.
Thanks,
Richard
I have 2 layers of 2" foam and it's worse than my previous layout, which was just one layer of 2" foam glued to open grid benchwork. I originally started out building this one in my previous place where it was just going to be a simple L shapped ISL, and one of the things I was going to have on it was a local feature where the tracks crossed over a street and then there was a siding with a coal dump for a coal dealer, so I build the first module as 2 layers of foam so i could carve away most or all of one layer and still have a solid base. When I moved and expaned to a full room size layout, I just kept building them the same way. Bit of a mistake. I also put a layer of 1/4" plywood under this one - coul;d be that that makes it louder and not the 2 layers of foam. It made it a real hassle to drill holes for feeder wires, that's for sure. The smallest long drill bits tend to be too large, and one side of my room has a sloping ceiling so I was not able to get the drill with long enough bit over the track. I had to resort to turning it through the foam by hand, then it was in enough that I could attach the drill and finish the hole.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
rrinkerThe smallest long drill bits tend to be too large, and one side of my room has a sloping ceiling so I was not able to get the drill with long enough bit over the track.
Pick up one of these:
Chuck one end into your drill or driver and insert an adjustable drill chuck into the other end.
Jim
I have used the foamy shelf liner that comes in rolls. It is cheap, easy to work with, and seems to really deaden the sound. It even comes in a variety of colors. You can put it right under the roadbed or in between layers of wood/insulation. What I DON'T know yet is how durable it is - whether it will hold up to a lot of traffic. It has enough give that it might let the ballast break up if it is right under the roadbed. Anybody else have any experience with it?
Mike