My wife and I just moved to a new condo . . . with a gigantic basement. I’ve been allocated about 400 square feet for my layout.
I built my last layout more than 30 years ago. I used spline roadbed (loved those transition curves) covered with 1/2 inch homasote, and am considering doing the same again. Any ideas? Are there better methods today than when I was a young pup?
Hi,
Welcome back and congratulations on the 400 sq ft.!
In my humble opinion, a lot has changed in the hobby over the last 30 years. However, a lot is still pretty much the same as it was when I built my first HO layout in 1960. Spline roadbed is certainly still around, although I suspect there are fewer folks out there that can and/or want to use it as plywood or other methods may be considered easier and faster.
I personally prefer the plywood “cookie cutter” method, but as I said, there are lots of options out ther. Frankly, those railroads I saw with spline roadbed were typically really nice, but its too much work for me.
I’m sure you will get a lot of opinions on this, but in the end I suggest you use what you can do best.
Welcome back.
Bench work is about the same except for new materials. There is a lot of foam in use today. For dramatic scenery, the old methods will still work. For flatter areas, there are newer techniques, like using foam sheets on plywood. (Builders type foam that is blue or pink, not the white beaded foam.) Glue the roadbed to the foam, and the track on top of the roadbed. (The spline roadbed you are referring to is actually the sub-roadbed.) Then more foam can be used to layer up for hills, and you can carve it down for hollows. The foam comes in various thicknesses from 1/4 inch to about 2 inches. Look in Lowes and Home Depot for the foam. It comes in 4x8 ft sheets.
For roadbed, there is Homabed (pre-cut homasote), cork of course, and Woodland Scenics has some black flexible foam roadbed. I was MRR’ing back then too, and I have started using the new materials and like them. The WS foam roadbed works well and if you use matte medium for the ballast glue, makes a quieter roadbed than cork, plus it doesn’t dry out. Today’s flextrack and turnouts are really good to. But if you like to hand lay your track, you should use homasote for the roadbed as before.
Look on YouTube and do a search for Model Railroad scenery. You should turn up a lot of information videos to actually see what is going on these days.
If you think you may have to move sometime in the future, you can build semi-permanent modules. That is what I am doing. My modules are 2ft by 7ft, light weight box framing with luan on top, and foam on top of that. Most scenery will be done by using foam also. This make for a ridged light weight system. If you want to see my layout in progress, go to my web page whose URL is in my signature block at the bottom of this message.
Hope this helps.
Homasote is still good and still available, although you can get the right sized material for your scale with Homabed. They have a website. Cork roadbed still has a solid following. I just went with flex track caulked thinly to the surface of spline roadbed. In my yard, built on a slab of 5/8" ply, I wanted things to be quiet. A local carpet installation outfit had remnants of yellow 1/8" thick vinyl underlay, perhaps for commercial installations, and gave me some gratis. I like it a lot. It is easily cut and bends to conform to transitions. No mess. You can also get foam roadbed rolls from Walthers and hobby shops.
Crandell
Welcome back. Lots has changed over the years. As for myself I wanted to do it differently this time. I decided to go with spline and foam on open grid. I am delighted with the way it’s turned out so far. It is always fun to try new ways of doing things as that tends to open up new possibilities.
You Tube is a wealth of information, as is the internet in general. Here is a link that you might find interesting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1D4KBB_GC4
Ask lots of questions. The people on here are great. Good luck.
Brent