I have a dilemma here and I was hoping someone might have some good ideas. I am putting a layout under the Christmas tree. The big issue is that I have the old Rivarossi engines with the deep flange wheels(yes, I am married to those engines, they have sentimental value). So I have to use code 100 track. I have not found any snap track with code 100. And in any case, the snap track tends to flex out and not stay flat, which under the Christmas tree is a killer as the engines have trouble staying on the track when it’s not sitting flat.
Anyway, I’ve purchased the 18" radius code 100 track and also purchased the Upson roadbed(which is awful stuff, BTW). I was hoping someone still made real wood roadbed and I could use that to attach the track. I could not find any real wood roadbed that was available online. This upson stuff is awful stuff, no way to use that as a roadbed that can stand on it’s own.
Anyway, the obvious answer here is to cut my own wood bed in 18" radius and attached the upson to it and then the track to the upson. This being the silly season I’m not going to have a ton of discretionary time so if there is something I can buy premade I will jump at it. And if not, what’s the lowest amt of work for me? I want to build something I can take apart and store in the attic once Xmas is over. I am thinking some that comes together at the centers of each half of the curve.
Why not try one of the tracks that comes with the roadbed attached? Altas and Bachmann both make HO track with a plastic roadbed. This track has joiners in both the track and roadbed making the track far more stable.
My quick and dirty answer would be, pick up a 2 x 4 sheet of 1/2 inch plywood, make a template of a 120 degree curve sector of 18 inch (centerline) radius, 4 inch width roadbed and attack the plywood with a saber saw. You want six sectors, so they will stack up 1 inch thick with 60 degree joint overlap. A quick coat of grey paint, then screw them together into two half-donuts (only need about 6 screws per overlap - 3/4 inch flatheads) Put them under the tree, screw the overlaps together, then proceed to the upson board (I wouldn’t use it, but you already have it) and sectional track.
Assuming you have a saber saw and a power screwdriver, total fabrication and assembly time shouldn’t be more than two evenings. Cut the segments and paint them one evening, assemble the second.
Wish I had the means to get stills out of an old 8mm home movie - my first stint as a model railroad engineer in 1968 when I was 2 years old. The ‘layout’ was a small under the tree thing - only it wasn;t on the floor. It was about 4x4, with a basic loop of HO track on cork roadbed, and the tree was set in the middle of this. I don;t have any other details of how my Dad built this, seems liek it was just you standard flat plywood train layout kind of thing.
The rub is I haven’t found any track with the roadbed attached that is code 100. If it exists I would look at it. Also, that type of track tends to bend outward once all the sections are together and when it sits on a rug or something soft the whole track ends up sitting at an outward angle. The engines don’t run very well on that type of setup. I know, in previous years I’ve used engines that could run on code 83 snap track and it’s just not a great setup.
I small sheet of plywood is the easy answer but…my wife has a tree skirt she adores so I need something that will just sit on top of the tree skirt and not obscure it. I’ts all about aesthetics[:)]
Call me stupid, but it seems to me the quick way is:
A 4’x4’ sheet of 3/4" plywood should work. {cut down a bit for the 18R circle if need be} The tree skirt should lay flat on the plywood and the Bachmann EZ track, which is code 100, should lay on top the tree skirt. That would be the quickest way to do it.
If you find that that doesn’t work so well, then you have the plywood needed to cut out a circular road bed about 4 inches wide to mount the road bed and code 100 Atlas track to.
Get a 4x4 ft sheet of 3/4" plywood and a can of white spray paint. Paint the plywood. Use Atlas 22" radius track or other code 100 track around the perimeter of the plywood. Put the tree and tree skirt in the middle. If your tree skirt reaches to the track, just fold it back from the track.
Tru-Scale plain wood roadbed is still available. See http://www.troutcreekeng.com/bkho.html near the bottom of the page. It’s after the track listings and track gauges. The Tru-Scale roadbed is very nice stuff, and comes in the desired 18" radius, straight, and flex. But Tru-Scale roadbed has the same drawback for your purpose as nearly all roadbeds do - it doesn’t fasten to itself, it fastens down to something.
I’ve done Christmas tree layouts (Lionel) in 2 ways - depending on the whims of SWMBO when it comes to Christmas decorations.
The first is track directly on the bare floor or carpet. For this, you need to use a track with a built-in roadbed, even in O. Trust me on this one - I’ve learned the hard way.
The second method is probably better suited to your situation. I made a box of vertical 1x3 lumber - use the better grade stuff. Mine was 46" x 60", but dimensions are easily adjusted to fit your situation. I glued 1.5" thic
Thank you for all the kind replies. After the input that the Bachmann snap track was code 100 I gave it a second look. I am fortunate enough to live not too far from Walthers and was able to run over there and take a look. It is indeed code 100. And it is much better quality snap track than the ones I’ve used in the past. It has a decent locking mechanism that doesn’t cause the track to flex outward. And it actually uses normal rail joiners so the track stays in line. Job done and I won’t lose a couple of nights here trying to carve up wood for a rail bed.
Just be sure to get the kind with nickel-silver rail and not the steel rail - Bachmann makes both. I had a 4x8 oval’s worth of the steel rail type and it was less than useless. I set it up as a temporary test track to run locos and test decoders, and even with 4 feeds spaced equally around the oval, I had slowdown and power problems. My first test run of my previous 8x12 layout was conducted by hooking up 1 pair of feeders in a corner, before I even installed the bus line underneath, and there were zero power issues. I probably could have left it like that at least until I painted the rails, but I did hook up a proper pwoer bus and connect allt eh feeders to be absolutely sure there was power everywhere. Main point - get the EZ Track with nickel-silver rails, I think that’s the gray roadbed color, NOT the steel rail, which has a black roadbed.
Here in my office we set up some Bachman EZ Track for a loop under the tree. A little Flitz and a BriteBoy does wonders. The track is a TANK…indestructable, which it needs to be in a setting like this.
I saw another guy do this…a great idea. He used concrete paver blocks to make a small riser for the track. The blocks set on the floor, and the whole thing was solid. He didn’t use anything to attach the track to the blocks, but you could use any variety of things, including hot glue, just to lock it up. He put the snow blanket stuff around it and it looked great. Painted the concrete blocks white. Would work for any scale under the tree.