I have some flextrack in place in my layout, and it seems to be less noisy than the typical individual pieces, but am curious is there any other ways to quiet down my layout other than the flextrack???
Thanks in advance to everyone for their expertise.
Thanks, Carl
Building the CF&W spur-Rock Island TN.
You did not specifiy what your other kinds of track pieces are. If you are comparing flex track to snap track sections, there should be no difference in sound level if the same subroadbed is utilized. However, if your other track is Bachman EZ-track or Atlas True Track sections (There are other other brands as well) which have the track inbedded in a rigid, plastic roadbed, these roadbeds act as sound boards that magnifies the sound in the same manner as a megaphone woujld your own vioce. Soild, plyable roadbeds, suck as cork, rubber, homasote, and AMI roadbed will absorb sound until you add ballast to them. Gluing the ballast in place can make the roadbed hard and noisy again unless you use a flexible cement.
What kind of noise are you bothered by? If it’s the clickity-clack as wheels pass over rail joints, then flex track will help because you will have fewer joints than with sectional track. You can also reduce this somewhat by making sure that you don’t have gaps or mis-alignments of the rails at joints. Good track work will be quieter than marginal trackwork.
Leon is right about the low-pitched drumming noises though. That’s more a function of the base material, roadbed and how they’re glued together than the type or length of track sections.
Another option, of course, is to get sound-equipped engines. Then you won’t care about noisy track anymore.
I think what you need is some kind of cork or foam roadbed. I recommend the Woodland Scenic ones, make a huge difference. I had the same problem when I put my Kato Unitracks on plaster clothes terrains, it’s like a soundbox of a speaker! However, I decided to just glue down with Scenic Glue which dampen the high pitch sound but still have the rumble sound which sort of simulate the real train going pass so I left them like that.
It is what you have the track resting on that is propogating the noise. I have had trains go dead quiet, except for decoder sounds, when traversing a wooden scratchbuilt trestle. When they approach and leave the trestle, they are considerably noiser.
When I used EZ-Track, I used latex caulk to fix it to 1" extruded Dow Styrospan. That foam was in turn caulked to 5/8" plywood. Even though I had EZ-Track, I also added a thin layer of beach sand ballast to improve its looks. When all was said and done, it was only moderately noisy, and I attribute that to the foam and the plastic fake ballast acting in much the same way as the sound box on a guitar.
The secret to sound attenuation, if the roar and rumble annoy you, is to ensure two things:
a. make sure your track/ties are supported on a surface that is soft and flexible and that is itself glued to a material with a different density. The dual densities serve to absorb more sound frequencies: and
b. glue your ballast lightly. If you use a heavy mix of matte medium or white/yellow glue, you will create a long hockey stick of ballast, a solid one, that will resonate along its length. Think of a tuning fork. What I do is use a mix of 6 parts water to one part carpenter’s glue, and only add enough that you are solidifying the top 1/4" or so. This tends to suspend the rigid ballast above sound-propogating material, and it also makes for easier track removal in the event of a change of plans or damage. By solidifying the outer crust, you encapsulate what is below it and loose, but that looser stuff can move a bit and absorb sound.
One other idea…try spline roadbed. If you use something like 1/4" MDF in 5 or 6 plies, you will be very grateful for the mostly silent running. Lots more work, but man does the track ever look good on curves and transitions.
I found even when I installed 1/2" of WS foam subroadbed it made a big difference in deadening the sound - however, when I added scenery etc. it did seem to get a little bit noisier again, apparently some vibration was leaking thru the scenery (plaster etc.) to the layout top.
The other side of the coin is that railroads are noisy. One of the great railroaders actuily built a sound chamber in his long bridge to get the noise.
I use WS foam roadbed and that does quiet things alot.
ARTHILL-Didn’t you find the WS foam got real loud after you ballasted? I’ve got a stretch that’s 1/2 foam and 1/2 cork. You can really hear the noise volume go up when the train transfers from the cork to the WS foam.
Mine got QUIETER after ballasting, at least on my test bed which is a 2x4 piece of 2" foam set on a pair of sawhorses (talk about a drum…) with no bracing or framing under it. WS foam roadbed is glued on with latex caulk, flex track is glued to the roadbed with latex caulk. I sprinkled on WS medium grey ballast and fixed it with a mix of white glue and rubbing alcohol (I have hard water and no matter how much detergent I added to the water, it just puddled up - mixing the glue with alcohol made it soak right in). Running a few cars back and forth, it gets quieter when it hits the ballasted part. It’s rather evident since the whole thing is a lot louder than my actual layout which has the foam glued to a 1x4 grid framework.
–Randy
It’s what you put the track on, not the track itself. Put the track on soundboard. They have it at my Home Depot. Bit messy though. But go take a look at it. Homosote should be pretty close to soundboard. Use Homosote roadbed. Not sure where you would get that.
I use the foam Woodland Scenics track bed and all I get is the clickety clack over the joints. I use a lot of flex track too, which makes the clickety-clack go away.
It is a bit weird to have clickety clack in some places (sectional track) and not others (flex track) instead of the steady interval clickety clack of the prototpe, but I don’t lose sleep over it! 