I believe this topic has been addressed before, but I can’t find it…
My HO layouts have always used cork roadbed fastened to plywood via brads, and the track attached to the roadbed via track nails. Going back to my Lionel days, I was given to understand (never tested it) that the nails or screws (as the case with Lionel) transmitted sound down to the plywood and thus amplified the noise.
So, I plan to at least use caulk to lay the cork roadbed on my upcoming layout rebuild. I’m not sure I’ll use caulk to afix the track to the roadbed, but if track nails are used they will not touch the plywood.
My question for you all is: Will the use of caulk (vs. brads) have any sound deadening effect, or is this something that one would only realize with larger scale (noisy) trains?
I have spiked (not nailed) flex and hand-laid track to cookie-cut plywood (noisy) and to homasote (relatively quiet.) I have nailed flex through nailed-down cork to plywood (somewhat noisy.) For my most recent effort, I have used latex caulk to anchor thin foam (fan-fold underlayment) to either plywood or steel (steel stud laid rain-gutter fashion,) and then installed the flex with caulk held with temporary track nails which were removed after the flex cured. The result approximates stealth! The only noise originates with the locomotive drive system or wheels crossing rail joints and specialwork. It does not get transferred to the great sounding board (aka the plywood subgrade.)
Just one person’s experience. Other results may vary.
Dunno. I never laid track or roadbed on plywood. Used to put Homosote on top of the plywood for sound deadening and because the Homosote will accept track nails, where as the glue layers in plywood are so hard the track nails in HO just bend over when driven in… On this, my current layout, I used 2 inch extruded foamboard instead of Homosote. I put 1/4" home made soft pine roadbed on top of the foamboard with adhesive and nailed the track down to the pine. It runs quietly enough.
If you want a quieter layout, I’d lay track on something quieter than plywood and not worry about sound conduction thru fasteners.
I’ve had extremely good results using caulk as the only adhesive to hold down both the road bed and track. Even if the sound level was exactly the same as with nailing, I’d still use caulk, because it has additional advantages. For one, it’s faster. For another, there’s no danger of driving the nail in too far and either driving the track out of gauge or splitting a tie. Plus there is a moderate price adcantage - not enough so that you can go out and buyy another loco on the saving, but a cheap brand $1.19 tube of caulk did all the track AND roadbed on my 8x12 double track layout.
When it comes to fastening track and cork roadbed down to a plywood base, I have always used water based contact cement for the roadbed and nails for the track. I pre-drill the holes for the nails with a #62 drill. I am currently working on a staging yard and have decided to fasten both the roadbed and the track with the track nails only. Does anyone have any comments regarding the limitations or problems of fastening with nails only? Peter Smith, Memphis
Why on Earth would anybody want to deaden sound on a model railroad? We go through great lengths to get the right number of vents on our favorite locos, detail our buildings to the Nth degree, weather our rolling stock to look as it did on a specific day on our favorite prototype, then want quiet trains??? Check out this video clip. I took it the other day on the Bay Coast RR. The sounds are NOT the locomotive or background noise, but 100% track (rails and roadbed). For a superior layout that is accurate, record the sounds of this video and play it very loudly during operating sessions.