I’ve used both, and both work.
Foam is only quiter until the track is ballasted, then they sound the same. The real noise maker is the extruded foam layout surface.
Everyone says foam is more expensive, I’ve found that (at the LHS) the cost difference is minimal. $25 for a case of cork (75 feet) and $27 for three rolls of WS Foam (72 feet). The difference is about 3 cents a foot.
Cork does need some sanding and fine tuning, before the track goes down, while the WS foam is ready as soon as the glue dries. I like that the WS foam comes in 24’ rolls. Fewer seams makes for a smoother ride. And I find the foam cuts easier then the cork.
My only issue with the foam, is I wish is wasn’t as squishy.
Nick
I put both on my test layout to see which I liked better. WS foam: Easier to install. It holds it’s shape with tacky glue very well and needs minimal, if any, tacking until it dries. It’s flexible enough that you don’t have to split it at the center line (although it’s pre-split if you’d like to do that). It’s also far more forgiving of imperfect benchwork (screw-heads, etc) than cork. Cork: Easier to lay Atlas flex-track. It holds tacks well, so you can easily tack your track into place. With the WS foam you have to tack into the subroadbed (in my case plywood, requiring a hammer). It’s also easier to cut or sand an beveled edge if you need to. The WS sheets are nice, but it’s nearly impossible to cut a beveled edge with a knife (I haven’t tried scissors). So my final verdict is…I don’t know. I really like the ease of working with the WS foam. Since I am planning on handlaying some track (gluing, not spiking, although I will need to tack it in place), then cork may work better. If I decide to use ME flex track, which holds its shape better than Atlas, then I may stick with the foam. Randy
Simple trick for a beveled edge with the WS sheets. I used N scale roadbed and sheets for my sidings and yard, so it would sit lower than the mainlien on the regualr HO foam (I model in HO). So for the yard area, I took some strips of the N scale roadbed and split it down the middle, and put the flat side against the flat side of the sheets covering the yard area. Voila, instant bevel on the outside edge.
–Randy
The latest update: I started my new layout this last weekend, so I needed to tear down the old one. I had not ballasted anything, so it was just the track on the roadbed (half on cork, half on WS foam). The track and roadbed were glued down with Alene’s Tacky Glue. It was a piece of cake pulling up the track from the roadbed, with the cork a little bit easier. BUT, the real difference - I was also able to easily pull up the WS foam roadbed as well. Not a chance with the cork, if I could get any up at all it was in small chunks. Not that you want to be dismantling a layout all that frequently, but I can see myself changing a spur every once in a while, or needing to do some sort of maintenance. In any event, I now have roadbed to start on the new layout, and an advantage to the WS roadbed this time around. Randy