Woodland Scenics Foam Riser System

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

I HAVE JUST DEMOLISHED MY LAYOUT AND I AM NOW PLANNING MY NEW AND MAOR EXTENSIVE
LAYOUT.
HAS ANYONE HAD ANY EXPERIENCE WITH WOODLAND SCENICS FOAM RISER SYSTEM? I WOULD LIKE TO HERE THE PROS AND CONS.

THANKS TO ANYONE WHO ANSWERS

2

Pros: Fast and Easy

Cons: You can only do 2%, 3% or 4% grades, nothing higher, lower or in between. Also depending on how much you need, rather pricey.

I’m using them to build my N scale layout. If you’re in N scale, you can use one riser to support double tracks. To save money I used blue or white foam for any of the sections that didn’t change elevation. Also, if you stack two incline risers on opposite ends you don’t have to buy the flat elevation risers to continue the incline.

3

Actually, you have to distiguish a full Woodland Scenics type foam layout from simply using their risers to do track elevations over plywood or foam. Plywood and construction materials aren’t cheap either and especially in N Gauge, I doubt Woodlands Scenic’s stuff would be much more expensive. You can cut down on the benchwork if you use foam, but if you’re going to do the foam over a traditional L-girder wood base, the foam will add to the cost. I like the ramps. I’ve always had problems getting even inclines and this makes it a snap. It also forces you to understand what a 2% or 3% or 4% incline really means. It takes a lot of track to gain 4 inches every 100!
Abbie

4

You actually can do grades of other than 2, 3, and 4 percent. There are illustrations right on the box of the inclines that show you how to do this by combining different sets.

The biggest con is probably the cost. But if you look for the similar discussion over in the main section, you will see that if your grade has to be on a curve, the WS system is by far the quickest and easiest way to go. For straight inclines, the more traditional cokkie-cutter approach, even if you use extruded foam insualtion as your table top, is almost as easy and a lot cheaper.

–Randy

5

I am very happy with it so far. Don’t have to worry about making the grades uniform, and curves are a snap. Simple to work with. Pretty durable. Just ordered another set yesterday (I’d go off on a tangent here about unhelpful LHS’s, but why bother).

6

Rutland,

I just finished building this double-curved incline…I finished it in about 15 minutes at the most. It was much easier than trying to cut blocks and curves from my supply of 2" thick foam.

For what it cost, it was money very well spent, in my opinion!

Don Z.

7

I’ve used it for my last layout. Its flexible and easy to work with in general. Keeping the roadbed level and true while covering it with scenery material such as plaster cloth is a bit tricky. But worst part is the vertical kink at the top and bottom of the rise. As a result, I’m unsure whether I’ll use it again. Personally, I think the cost is not unreasonable. I don’t throw my modelling money around, but I’d have to say that its a trivial part of the total cost of a layout.

8

i absolutely love the stuff…in my opinion it’s worth the price…i hate doing math and this stuff is self explanatory…when i expanded my current layout i started using the inclines from one side to the other and it worked very well…thumbs up from me!!

9

Greetings,

I used the risers on my first HO table top layout. I really liked working with the material. I too found that the kink at the top and bottom of the inclines to be a pain. What I did to solve this was to sand the top between the incline and the flat to make a nice transfer. On the bottom I used some sculpt-a-mold and filled in the bottom of the incline. This was then sanded smooth. The last thing I did was to avoid having the ends of the sectional track lay over the area where the two section of foam butted together.

Christopher