Chooice of Flooring and dust reduction

[GWR-Kris]

Im close to getting the room ready for my railway after converting the rear of the garage. My question is what should I use on the floor.

I thought about carpet but dust and loosing small parts could be an issue, but saying grace could be if any trains would drop it may protect them. Or Laminate flooring, would reduce any dust and make it easier to find small parts.

Whats people use and why

Also what methods have people used to reduce any dust landing on the layout when not in use.

[The Q]

I'm using those interlocking rubber mats, Smooth-ish surface to pick things up from and brush up. Soft under feet if I'm spending a day on my feet leaning over the layout.

[LAandNQFan]

Same as The Q. Easy to lay, easy to clean, insulation for the floor of the shed, and since I bought mine they have come down in price.

[Bealman]

A great question!

I'll answer that from my Australian location.

My layout goes around the walls of the garage, concrete floor.

The best thing I ever did was to put carpet down. Serious! In garage parking car on it, but the comfort difference on the feet was brilliant.

Dust, dirt.... most of the time, my railway is worked on and operated  with garage door open. Yeah, you have to keep it clean. My problem is Aussie wildlife.

But, to address your question, I recommend carpet for the comfort, and regarding dust and keeping your track clean, run trains, and run them often!

[Newportnobby]

All I'd say is the best thing for finding small parts that have pinged off is to walk in bare feet so whatever is comfortable in that respect. The rubber tiling sounds good.

[themadhippy]

if its a garage dont get  carpet and carpit   mixed up,it could get embarrassing if you own a 3 wheeler

[daveg]

The railway room here came with pre installed carpet so I vacuum regularly but have one of those magnets on a telescopic wand that does help find 'lost' metallic bits.

Mick's barefoot approach can be good too, if potentially painful! 

Dave G

[Bramshot]

Mine (indoors) has laminate flooring, only because that was what was there before the railway was installed. Relatively easy to find lost parts, though they do have a habit of becoming invisible. I sometimes have to sweep everything up and then go over the pile with a magnet, which works provided what you have lost is ferrous. Have found loads of Dapol easi shunt coupler springs that have pinged off in that way and some are even re-usable! It is also useful if you have to move the layout table around a bit, slides nicely on the floor, whereas it wouldn't on carpet.

I have a variety of track cleaning devices ( as some of my track is not easily reachable), amassed while trying to find a good one.  The best by far is the CMX, the Dapol (Tomix ) cleaner is pretty useless, though works well enough in vacuum cleaner mode, and I have a Modelbahn cleaner which isn't much cop either, though it has a tiny magnet on one axle that detects motion and turns it on when pulled, and that magnet is also very good at finding lost coupler springs when they are still on the track.

On the layout I use a portable dust bug vacuum for large areas, and a very smal battery powered hoover with brush that I bought from now defunct Maplins for fiddlier bits like carriage roofs and locos, platforms, buildings etc.

[Railwaygun]

A small super magnet glued to the bottom / back of an old truck attracts all sorts of lost metallic bits