Road Bed Question

[Anonymous]

I'm in the process of laying more track (approximately 30 to 40 feet. I've laid the spline for two tracks to climb a 5% grade to the upper plateau which has only been framed to this point. I intend to lay 3/16 ply wood over the frame work and spline. What I'm thinking about is laying 3/8" foam board over the plywood and then the cork road bed on top before the track is laid. My thinking on this is I can shape the foam board to show some relief as well as allow for river beds to be formed without compromising the framing. Other considerations that I will be dealing with is switch machines, 8 in all.

Any thought on this?

[Anonymous]

I don't see why not. We utilize the same system on our layout. If you're going to have riverbeds, I presume you're going to have some type of bridge going across them, whether it be a truss, a viaduct, or a girder bridge, or some other type of bridge. The main support for the system will be the plywood, not the foam, although I've heard (but never seen) of layouts that do away with the plywood and use just the foam for the subroadbed directly on the framework.

Wish I could give a better reply and I hope I haven't made the issue more confusing for you.

[Anonymous]

on my 4 x 8 we have a thin layer of plywood and about 5 inches of foam on top as the sub roadbed...its a pain tacking the flextrack curves initially because if your turns are too tight the tacks move a bit and rip the foam (but there are diff. kinds of foam you can buy)...and its hard if you want to have elevation in the track for it to get a perfectly even slope. However we do intend on have a river flow under the track which will be quite easily done.

[Anonymous]

Fergie:

5% incline!! What will you use for motive power? Lashed mountain goats? [:-^]

Randy

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by rda1964



Fergie:

5% incline!! What will you use for motive power? Lashed mountain goats? [:-^]

Randy

5% is middle of the road for me. That's why I have the Allegheny, FEF-3 a couple of Mountains and the odd occassional run-a-way. My worst grade is 8% and believe it or not it's workable.