Am using fastrack “O” gauge. Lots of noise due to hollow construction. Anybody out there know best way to fill up area to reduce noise?
Another member mentioned using foam and a hot melt glue gun to attach pieces into bottom cavity. I believe he said use carpet padding. ALso mentioned that foam could be fairly easy to remove since hotmelt doesn’t adhere permanently to the fastrack type plastic. Your results may vary. I haven’t tried it myself.
There is a huge volume of comment on the forum about this topic, both how to reduce the noise and even whether it can be done. I suggest that you try searching for it. But set aside a weekend first to have time to read it all…
my nextdoor neighbor just bought a heap of fast track and made a Christmas layout. He commented that it is so quiet. I told him that people on this forum think it is noisy but he disagreed. Go figure 
It is quiet if you run modern engines with cruise control at slow speeds. It is much louder if you run postwar equipment at the higher speeds.
Earl
To my ears is it a bit loud, and mine is operating on thick carpet, and not on plywood or even homosote. It seems to me that it is not just loud, it has a uniquely annoying sound that is difficulty to describe, but it sounds a bit like the sound made by the skates of hockey players when they skid to an abrupt stop – only with FasTrack it doesn’t stop. It seems that the worst part is the sound is being produced by the pick-up rollers, and Hogwarts has ten of them; and while there my be some resonance due to the materials in and the construction of the FasTrack, I think that the bulk of the most annoying noise is coming right off of the top of the center rail, with much of the remainder having to do with the metal wheels hissing on the outer rails. If that’s so, it’s going to be very difficult to suppress.
See whether you think it’s less of a problem with freight cars with no pick-up rollers, and or cars with Delrin wheels if you’ve got any.
The noise is from the wheels/rollers on the rail head. The slower you go the less noise it makes. The plastic base makes matters worse as it acts as a resonance chamber/speaker. Trying to fill in the bottom is messy, expensive and will interfere with power feeds. You can easily alter the frequency of the noise by using no grip foam shelf liner. This won’t change the volume the noise as much as it changes the peak resonance.
Chuck,
Just so I am clear. Are you saying to use the “shelf liner” product* as the final barrier between the base of the FasTrack and the layout base (floor, carpet, table, homosote, or whatever) with nothing added inside the air-space; that is, inside the plastic cavity?
*Presumably that sheet material that looks like tiny, 3/16 inch, square, foam-rubbery pillows in a lattice-work?
Yes and no. Yes on final barrier, no on the pillowy version. The stuff I use is flat, comes in 18" x 4 foot long rolls and is smooth on both sides. Non adhesive, comes in white/taupe/black. It works great as shelf liner too! I tried the pillowy kind and found the track tends to stay put better with the smooth stuff and that is seems quieter even though it’s not as thick as the pillow type.
I suspect that the asphalt sheet material sold in auto stores for sound proofing/deadening higher end auto sound systems would work on the bottom of the track but I don’t know that I want asphalt goo oozing all over the place.
Home Depot, Lowe’s and other building supply companies sell thin rolls of insulation that’s meant to go over basement window sills. It’s the perfect size for fitting underneath FasTrack and quiets it better than anything else I’ve tried. And it only costs a few bucks.
However, it will raise the FasTrack off the layout by about an 1/8 of an inch or so (if you try to fasten it down with screws it will defeat the noise reduction purpose). The gap can be covered up with ballast or other scenery materials. This method was written about in another O gauge publication recently.
Check out this link but there is alot of extraneous to wade through.
http://www.trains.com/TRC/CS/forums/935130/ShowPost.aspx
Jim H
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riverrailfan Joined on 09-25-2004 |
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Re: FasTrack is too loud. Any cure? |
If the track don’t quiet down; Take it out and shoot it! That’s what a Redneck would do like Jeff Foxworthy!!
Lee F.
I just set up my layout under the tree and went with the homasote, and some batting material between that and the track itself to try and fill in the plastic gaps, but it didnt seem to help much at all. The Fasttrack is nice and easy, but for some reason nothing seems to quiet it down for me. I may acually try to purchase a different type of track, but I dont know what yet. I liked the looks of the old K Line shadow rail, maybe I’ll try that.
PJ
This is dealing with the MTH brand Realtrax, but this is what I have found A, B, C, D, E, F, and G comparison. I just did the test after reading this finding in this post…
I didn’t have an SPL meter, or a real time analyzer to measure the frequency response of a MTH Sante Fe passenger car rolling across 40" sections of straight track, but here is what I tried:
A: 2" pink foam sitting on top of my benchwork (no plywood, homosote, etc).
B: 2" pink foam sitting on top of a piece of plush carpet that has a 1/4" padding already glued to it. Cheap carpet @ 1.27 a sq/ft. Fibers down/foam up.
C: Track just sitting on the carpet. Fibers down/foam up.
D: track sitting on top of 4 .5" acoustic drop ceiling tiles (2" equivalent to foam)
E: 2" foam on top of the 4 acoustic tiles (4" total)
F: 2" foam sitting on top of 1 acoustic tile.
G: 4 tiles on the carpet piece.
Conclusion:
A is the loudest by far. I hear 3 sounds. The wheels, joints, and the whole bench reverberating. It’s the rail sound, plus a bunch more “noise” I’ll just call reverberation.
B: Reverberation is lower, but still there. Wheel roll and joints are more dull, but there is a midrange of noise from the foam.
C: Quietest by far on rail and click. Low noises are gone. Can’t do much of a layout with only carpet and a bench grid though.
D: 2nd quietest in the low reverberation. Sounds more like 0-27 tubular on carpet. Rail sound and clicks are the only thing I hear. Much thinner sound with the lowend gone. Maybe it’s the lack of low noise that makes whats left stand out…
E. Rails sound like D, but a little more bottom end back in.
F. Just louder than E. As you use more tiles, it sounds more like E. Adding tiles seems to lower the resonant frequency.
I’m starting to wonder if the sound from the track has more to do with whats in and around the room. I’ve used my MTH Realtrax on bare wood floor, carpet, bare plywood, etc. It sounds different on each surface but doesnt bother me. And I wouldnt call it loud. But then my house is filled with furniture, rugs, and lots of stuff. If your layout is in a room with bare floors, and hard objects, its going to be loud. If you have sofas and upholstered chairs, drapery and stuff, the sound is going to be absorbed. Maybe its the drapery in my house, my wife is in that business, that cuts down on the noise. Thats probably it, we have lots of fabric, pillows, drapery, big stuffed ottomans. So head on over to your local fabric store and stock up, get those draperies made, and lots of pillows. Your trains will make less noise.
All of the stuff in the room will absorb/deflect reflections, but anything that you can do to stop the source will only help, if it’s something that bothers you to begin with. My room isn’t that “live” either, but I don’t have much in it. Acoustic drop ceiling and carpet are my only absorbers. Just having my benchwork up against 3 sides of the room can’t be helping much either. My deciding factor really comes down to cost. That’s what my wife says, anyhow.
Wes
Nice test Wes,
My 2 cents would be to use tile adhesive or silicone (something flexible that absorbs sound and reverb) when attaching the track to whatever base you are using. You should be able to (hopefully) remove the track with a putty knife if you need a track plan change.
Anything with a plastic base is going to make noise (amplify the sound). It is hollow core that is causing the problem.
I had some FasTrack setup right on the carpet in my trainroom and there was noise. Set up Atlas 21st Century Track (no roadbed) and no noise… just wheels over rail, motor whine, and Railsounds/Trainsounds. This is why I’ve decided to go with 1/2 inch ply, with ceiling tiles, then foam subroadbed (not cork), then the track. I’ll ballast around the ties to secure it to the foam/ceiling tiles.
If you screw into the plywood you are going to get reverb from track…
I’m always amazed at the number of Fast Track complaint threads that are posted over the years. The subject is always noise and people have explained the problem and corrections to the N-th degree. I have come to the conclusion if you don’t like it get rid of it now. In fact if you don’t like noise you may not even want to operate your trains.
I have beaten the beast with my own techniques and yes ceiling tile is a key component if not the only major part of taming Fast Track. However you are still going to hear the great and unique sound of steel wheels on top of the steel hollow rails. It has not one thing to do with the plastic since I went to the trouble to actually take apart 8 sections of 036 and just used the rails. I went through the pain staking process of designing ties and guess what that same lovable steel to rail sound was there. It is the same sound that you would hear if you just placed the Fast Track on your living room carpet.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out it will make additional noise if you place it on a hard surface. This is an obvious different set of parameters. So if you don’t like the steel to rail sounds you will never like Fast Track unless you are willing to run your trains at a normal slow speed. Turn up the speed and you will turn up the volume of the steel on rails.
I have no loud noise problems with my Fast Track that I have used for my permanent layout. Using a combination of ceiling tiles, securing the track from vibration and applying real ballast over the plastic there is zero noise. However the steel on rails sound will stay and yes it gets louder the faster you run your trains. But it is more appealing than the clicks I get from Real Trax.
Really? Zero noise? [wow]