Foam or plywood...

[rrinker]

My thoughts on this are, if I REALLY need to go up and down a lot, there's always the Woodland Scenics grade and riser pieces. But depending ont he area you model, the track IS mostly level, a few grades here and there. The railroad did this on purpose - grades hurt performance (not as much on the model, physics just doesn't scale down, so a typical model can handle 20 car trains on grades a real loco would be hard pressed to get up all by itself). It's the landscape that goes up and down. If I have area where I need a great amount of relief, I would stack two or more layers of foam and put the track on top, and cut away what I needed around the outside of the track to leave the railroad on a high fill. Cuts are even easier, just glue some extra pieces of foam on top and cut to shape, then use whatever scenery technique you prefer on top (hyrocal and towels, sculptamold, etc). The foam is easy to cut and shape, so you can easily make long ramps to gradually change the elevation of the track, at any grade percentage you want, but if the grade I was doing was one of the ones that WS makes in their incline pieces, I'd just use those - for example, there is track on one layer of foam. Then I have an area where there are two layers of foam. TO transition the track between the levels, the WS inclines are used.
I don't see any reason why you couldn't cut strips of foam like you would plywood subroadbed. It's sturdy enough to be self supporting wit risers on 16" centers, although if you make it too narrow it might not be (too narrow being barely wide enough to hold a single track). I don't know what the limits are, I haven't tried it this way yet.

--Randy

[orsonroy]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Tim_Seawel

Hey Guy's I'm new here as you can tell by the post count, but I am returning to rr modeling after a hiatus of 21yrs. I will be starting my 3rd layout a small around the room shelf layout. I like the idea of using foam for everything on the layout. All the photo's of layouts under construction show a level track plan. I intend to have several elevation changes and was wondering how this is accomplished with the foam as roadbed on its own. How is it supported for grades or is it supported at all. My previous pikes I used L-girder benchwork and some cookie cutter style subroad bed. Does the 2in foam lend itself to this style of construction?

Thanks Tim

It all depends on what your trackplan looks like. If all your track is going in the same direction (up or down), then just elevate the entire layout. If one track is going up and the other is going down, split the foam and work it just like plywood cookie cutter benchwork. If you've got multiple tracks heading in all different directions, I suggest rethinking your track plan!

My current home layout is a three level foam-based layout. Since I hate helixes, the entire layout is one constant grade. To simplify construction, I just used shelf brackets attached to the walls, using chalklines of the gradients as reference. On top of the brackets are 1/4" plywood and 2" foam, the ply being used mostly to give me a mechanical joint between the brackets and the benchwork.

[mcs08097]

One comment about cookie cutter benchtops. They are great for changing elevations with a single piece of plywood, but you better be pretty confident about your wood working skills.

My current layout is a variation of the Berkshire Valley Route plan I found in an Atlas layout book (an out and back with a double track figure 8 main on 4' x 12'). The benchwork alone took several months to complete (working a couple a nights every other week or so) Lots of cutting and ripping 1" x 4" stock even before you start to assemble.

The bottomline. If I had to do over again, a flat plywood deck with foam buildups would be the way I would go!