What Roadbed to Use?

I’m building my first layout. It is a swithing layout with two towns, around the walls of a small room. Benchwork has 1-inch foam board over 1/2 inch plywood. The track plan is coming together. Now the question is should I use cork roadbed. foam roadbed, or no roadbed (because of the foam board base)?

Hoping to learn from those with experience.

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I don’t imagine there is a ‘right’ answer to this – each person probably has a preference that works for him.

I also have plywood covered with foam. I did that so I could have some variation in the surface, carving foam down or adding foam upward.

I used cork. Since most of my layout is mainline track, the cork was a good base for ballasting and made the track sit above the surrounding surface.

Bonjour, meme avec une base en polystyrène le liege vous permettra de bien former votre ballast.

I started out with foam (Woodland Scenics), but I switched to cork on my later layouts because foam was too flexible which led to problems with laying track.

Rich

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Well, I would not lay track on foam under any circumstances, but I’m old school.

I use this: https://www.cwhomaroad.com/ and flat sheets of homasote for yards, hidden trackage, etc.

Sheldon

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If you plan to use nails to secure your track then foam is not a good option. I have sheets of homesote on all my plywood; then cork for mainline and long sidings and just the homesote for yards and industries. Both hold nails well, homesote somewhat better than cork. When I did all my work 25 years ago I wasn’t aware of homeaboard else I would have used that in place of cork.

Regards, Chris

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I used cork, but only because pre-cut Homasote roadbed was not available at the time. I did try Woodland Scenics foam roadbed, and didn’t like it. I found it too soft, when temporarily pinning the track during gluing, and unlike cork and Homasote it can’t be sanded if there are any imperfections. In my opinion, the sub-roadbed needs to be perfect, perfectly clean, and adhesive needs to be smoothed perfectly to use the WS product.

Nearly all “mainline” trackage is elevated in some way, and using cork, etc. helps simulate that. Laying directly on the foam sheet would be appropriate for industries and yards.

I also prefer the product Sheldon uses. They also offer a shallower branchline profile of 30 degrees which may suit your switching layout better than a 45 degree mainline profile.

One drawback is that, although it is very dense, its still a paper-based product. Its hard to take back up intact if already caulked or glued without tearing apart. So any adjustments to its placement needs to take place when your adhesive of choice is still not set.

In the real world, there are no roadbeds in yards - it’s basically flat terrain with some drainage. So I only installed roadbeds for my mainlines and small sidings.

Simon

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Same here. I just transition down from the cork roadbed to the plywood subroadbed.

Rich

Is that actually a true statement? Or is it that all tracks are at the same roadbed level? And that roadbed level may or may not be lower than the mainline?

Well ok, there is roadbed in that there is a ballast base, but visually for model purposes there is no noticeably raised bed.

I lay my yards and industrial trackage on sheets of homasote.

Sheldon

Exactly my point. You put roadbed under your yards, you don’t lay them on the sub-roadbed.

Why do you do all-capital spelling for things like FORD and your railroad name but put that brand name in all lower-case?

Agreed, tracks in real yards sit on some kind of levelled ballast or stone but visually, tracks are not raised separately with ditches on each side. On my layout, my yard rests on a large sheet of flexible foam, about 1/8" thick. I used cork roadbed on the rest of the layout, for the mainline, on top of a plywood base. If I was using foam, I would raise it for the yard, and not use separate strips for a roadbed, such as cork.

Simon

Well, true enough, Homasote is a brand name. But they do, or did, have competitors and “homasote” has become, or maybe at a time when it was more prevalent in the building trades, was used generically like “Kleenex”.

Homaste is no longer in the mainstream of construction like it was several decades ago.

Never gave any special thought to it until you asked.

I was not disagreeing with you, just pointing out how the other poster, or other less “technical” modelers might have viewed the discussion. It seems a great many people in the hobby today do not have much back ground in the the technical aspects of the prototype, unlike modelers from my generation who were interested in learning the why and how of the prototype.

That is not a criticism of anyone, just an observation of how the hobby has changed and attracts a larger range of people today.

Myself, with help from my father, started pretty seriously into the hobby at age 10/11. By age 14 I was working in the local hobby shop and doing most of the train repairs there. My 7th grade science fair project was on the development and operation of the Westinghouse Air Brake. At age 19 I was the full time train department manager of a different hobby shop. That was all nearly 5 decades ago…

As for putting ATLANTIC CENTRAL in caps, I have never seen a piece of railroad equipment lettered in lower case letters…

Sheldon

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I’d suggest using cork roadbed on the foam subroadbed. I’ve got cork roadbed over 2” foam on 1/4” lauan plywood. Some people complain about how loud running trains are on foam, so the cork and the plywood help mitigate some of that noise.

I use yellow carpenter’s glue to glue the cork to the foam and the track to the cork roadbed. Pushpins hold everything until the yellow glue grabs, which surprisingly, is only twenty or thirty minutes before I pull the pins.

Hope this helps,
DFF

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I use cork for roadbed. Track is adhered to the cork using adhesive caulk, like Dap 230.

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There is no right or wrong answer, if you use cork, you can use PL300 caulk [or something that is safe for foam] and if you do use cork, you will need to sand the shoulders before you lay the track and ballast (or you can use foam roadbed from Woodland Scenics or Walthers).

Years ago, there was a product out called instant roadbed, sadly that never caught on and the company has been out of business. You can read previous issues or you can watch plenty of videos, all I’m going to say is the most ovious quote It’s your railroad, run it the way you want to run it.

Jason

Thanks for all of the responses. I really appreciate having access to all the wisdom in the group.

Sounds like cork is probably my best bet. Now I just need to find a good source and an affordable price…but that’s what Internet research is for, right?

I used Woodland Scenics foam roadbed on the previous layout and cork for transition areas. I will not use WS roadbed again because it is too soft, but it was nice how quick/easy it was to install.

For the new layout I am planning to try a different foam roadbed that a guy (sparks00033) sells on EBay. It is much firmer than the WS roadbed. We shall see…

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