My initial starter set came with Bachmann E-Z track and so, for better or for worse, that is what I have stayed with. I’ve been having some derail issues with the Bachmann turnouts and on the advice of this forum, I ordered two Atlas turnouts. I Installed one with some misc. foam underneath and it immediately performed better than the Bachmann. I would like to give a more permanent base to the Atlas track. I was searching online and found some Rapido Foam Road Bed. Does anyone have experience with this product or would you recommend something else.
I have never used Rapido Foam Road Bed.
Various materials have been used for roadbed over the years, with cork roadbed being the most popular by a long shot. Cork can be glued or nailed to the material underneath. Cork can be sanded to get rid of ridges and dips. Commercial cork roadbed normally comes split into 2 pieces that butt against each other in the center, and is generally 3/8" high. I personally don’t like cork because it eventually crumbles IF left unsealed. But if you paint it, add ballast, or otherwise seal it, it seems to last longer than the layout.
But it really depends on what you are modeling and how you are modeling it. Commercial cork roadbed is too high for the era I am modeling. And it doesn’t hold track spikes well if hand laying your track.
Homasote is great for hand laying track, but is too high for my purposes. And too messy to cut.
I am currently trying door skin for both commercial and handlaid track to get a lower profile for modeling 1900-era branch line track.
Fred W
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I have some experience with Cork bed (Midwest) and It’s done me good. With that you also don’t have to worry as much if a track or turnout dies, as you don’t have to rip up all the ballast and scenery under or by the roadbed just enough to get the track on top out, and that’s pretty rare. In my opinion, Regular track also conducts power better.
Here is a picture of the Atlas Turnout (replaced the Bachmann one) using cork material as the bed.
This turnout works incredibly well. I have even successfully backed up my freight cars with no derailments.
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There are several foam roadbed types. Woodland Scenics probably makes the most readily available and I believe the Rapido product is basically a copy of that. There’s an Ebay seller who claims to have a good foam roadbed product and will send you samples.
The biggest latest news on foam roadbed is that Walthers announced they’re selling their own version in Gray. I don’t know if it’s available yet, but you might check that out.
The issue with foam roadbed is its weight resistance. You can see some foam roadbed flex when heavier locos run over it, so it can sometimes be a bit sketchy in use. The better roadbeds don’t compress, but still offers great noise damping, which is something cork doesn’t do as well. About the only thing more stable and robust than cork is direct plywood mounting.
we’ve done this before on the candle line if we had any in stock our first go to is to lay modelers gravel and make a bed for it.
but our second response is to take some items like trestle supports or something that can fit underneath it and make a makeshift support (kinda like the beams underneath a bridge)
the taxing thing with the second method is periodically checking track connections but that’s what maintenance is for.
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