Foam or plywood...

[Jacktal]

In my mind,foam is a must.It will help deadening the noise somewhat to start with and just as important,it will allow for some expansion of your trackwork .By the way,you can't nail your tracks to foam but good wood glue does very nice for this.

Foam will allow you to create ditches,ponds,etc...very easily while digging your plywood base for landscaping won't.I like to have some ground that I can dig in if I should decide to let's say have a road passing under my trackwork,or create a small river or whatever else.

[streettrains]

[:D] only 39 here.. guess when I said climb, I made it sound like a long reach, the longest reach might be 3 feet, that is where I will have a train running along the wall and elevated, only worried in case of derailrment.. that's all..


wonder if I should lay off the foam on that stretch of the layout... basically that is where my big yard is going to be....

[tstage]

GrandFunkRailroad,

I guess if you think you'll be "climbing" on top of your layout, then maybe you should stick with the plywood. However, if you plan and make your layout "accessible-friendly" (i.e. reaches of 30" or less) then you shouldn't have to.

Foam is a great medium to work in. Whatever you decide to do, keep the width of your tables and shelfs reasonable. If you can't , then consider an access hole of some kind. It doesn't make sense to climb up on your layout just to retrieve a derailed boxcar or clean your track. GFR, I don't know how old you are but how many more years will you want to "scale your layout"?

Just some thoughts...

Tom

[streettrains]

I havne't got to the scenery stage yet, but want to get soem advice, is it necessary to use foam board? Can I just use plywood for the landscape and go from there? I am just worried about using the foamboard in case I have to climb up on and crushing something. You know what I mean?