Cheap track underlay

[johnrobbo69]

 


Hello everyone, newbie mistake, think I might have posted this twice.......sorry!!!

as you can probably tell I'm new to this forum having finally started to model a railway instead of just "playing trains". I had OO scale but my grand designs (that never came to fruition) just seemed to eat space much to the annoyance of my dearly beloved. Now an avid N-scaler making lots of mistakes along the way but thankfully only at a cost to my time and not monetary (yet).

I was looking for a substitute for underlay as I'm using PECO set track and flexi on my 5'x3' baseboard. To be honest it all seemed a bit of a faff!

After having but a new suite into the downstairs toilet I was left with a large amount of the white foam underlay sold for laminate flooring. My grey matter started churning and the next weekend with the aid of spray carpet adhesive a 5x3 sheet was glued to my baseboard. Track duly laid eventually and after being pinned down a trimming session followed with a scalpel and I was left with neatly laid track underlay which does cover quite well with ballast though I haven't PVA'd it yet.

It should be quite hard wearing bearing in mind it's intended use and does cut down on track noise. It also has the benefit of being a fraction of the price of purpose made underlay.

I'll probably find that someone has already done this and it's old news or someone will come up with a horror story but in the meantime I'm quietly pleased with myself and am a few bob better off than I thought I'd be!

Hope this is useful to someone.

[Newportnobby]

Nice tip, John.
If you have trimmed everything away apart from the track, you may find you have to place the same underlay under buildings (platforms etc) in order to keep the height variances the same

[Malc]

Hi John,

I started off with foam underlay, but after pinning down the track, I had a small scale roller coaster on my hands. In addition, some of the point work was a bit iffy. I removed it all and pinned down to the MDF baseboard. Now I have a level track.

[MikeDunn]

Hi John,

I went a step further than you - rather than laying directly onto the underlay, I've glued down the main structural aspects to the layout and have plaster-clothed the entire board. This way, I should get the dampening qualities and also have a firmer structure to build on.

Mike