I have recently built a layout with my son out of Bachmann’s EZ track system. I know its not the best, but this is for a 12 yr old. It is also easy, and fast to get trains running. My question is this. I have laid it on top of foam. Is it worth adding cork to it? What would be the advantage or disadvantage to doing this? Has anybody tried this?
It might reduce any noise you might be having a little. The EZ-tracks built-in grey roadbed is in lieu of using something like cork, so you’d basically be adding another layer of roadbed under the roadbed. I used it in part of my last layout and had no troubles, on a long straightaway those 36" straight sections make things go together fast!! Once you have the track the way you want it, you can add ballast over the roadbed to make it look very realistic.
E-Z Track(r) has the plastic ballast bed built in. That is what the cork under flex or snap-track is supposed to represent. Unless you are going to extend the existing track with flex, cork is unnecessary.
I personally have some heartburn with cork. It dries up and crumbles when exposed to high temperature and single-digit humidity - and my layout space is a non-climate-controlled garage in the Dessicated Desert. (I substitute thin extruded foam, carved to shape as necessary, for cork. Five years and counting, no problems yet.)
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Granted that stuff is noisier then a mother inlaw, as the hard plastic actually echo’s the sound putting a layer of cork down is definitely a great idea, but you don’t want cork roadbed as it’s not going to work/fit with the easy track plastic roadbed. Go to AC Moore or Micheal’s crafts and buy yourself a roll of sheet cork. It’s about 3/16" think. I would roll the sheet cork out flat and weight it down with something heavy so it sits flat. Lay your easy track over the top and trace it out with a sharpie you can then take a #10 exacto blade and cut the cork out. glue the cork down to your table or bench work with some Latex adhesive caulking and do the same with your easy track on top of the cork. Granted cork is not the best stuff to use as it does tend to dry out over time. What would be a better choice is to go to Home Depot and pick up a sheet of Homasote and glue it down to your table or bench work and then glue your EZ track down to it. A 4’x8’ sheet of Homasote is about $20.00 so your not talking a whole heck of a lot of money.
To echo what Chuck said, I used cork on a layout in the early seventies and haven’t used it since. My current layout is using Kato Unitrack with the ballast strip. It’s similar to the EZ-Track, except that EZ-Track is really meant to have separate ballast added after installation. That’s why the ties are so high, the gray strip the track is on is really replacing cork roadbed that you would then be ballasting over.
EZ-Track is all I used on my current layout. It was laid down on white foam over plywood and is held in place by a coating of plaster of Paris that comes halfway up the plastic roadbed of the EZ-Track. The plaster also serves as the scenery base. I have no problems with noise from the track, no amplification, no vibration. The ballast was applied just as it would be for flex track on cork roadbed.
If you’re looking to quiet easy track you might try using the foam sheets that woodland scenics makes… They’ll help a little, but as an earlier poster pointed out, that hard plastic is a sound conductor… I’ve been tempted to try the ez track, but I have so much atlas code 8o that if I didn’t use it and opted to buy the other, the controller at the PB&J corporate office might mose me out to the bunk house…