Some suggestions please...

The bench work sounds good. The extruded foam is a noise amplifier and every click, clack and buzz from your cars and engines will be 10 times louder than is would be on most all other surfaces and a fire hazard. if your going to use foam use the Blue foam sold at lumber and hardware stores as it is not a fire hazard also if you use 1/2" drywall on top of the foam you will deaden the noise 90% and get a much better surface to glue your track to.

DC power is fine just know one thing it costs alot more to switch over to DCC from DC than to start with DCC and have to rewire everything re-engineer all your switches and re-motor and add Decoders to all your engines at a later date. In my opinion if you want to go with DCC at any time in the future it's better to start with your first 2ft. X 8ft. module with DCC. Then it will be much less expensive in the long run and much more enjoyable as you start out learning as you go in a much smaller scale as well as alot less wireing and you get all the benifits of individual as well as multipul engine control with a single hand held controler and even control all aspects of switching as well as direction and speed control all in the same hand held and with out the need of a massive control panel. there is a whole forum section as well as in the MRH free magizne on DCC also a number of great videos here on the use and benifits of DCC  with lots of how to do it links to help you.

You're sure to receive alot more help from the rest of this forum on the benifits of DCC over DC as well as the best least expensive way to go and which units to use and the easyest to learn and operate.

GOOD LUCK and welcome back to model Railroading as well as welcome to the MRH Magazine and Forums.

Dan

if you really can't afford DCC and it will mean the difference between building and not building, go with what you've got.  If you've read the MRH issues, you'll know the term "chainsaw" layout.  If not, look at Scarpia's blogs and read the back issues of MRH.  Simple concept: build a small module or layout that you know is manageable given the time and resources you have.  Learn from all your mistakes and don't be afraid to go ahead and do things because you know in the back of your head its going to see the "chainsaw" sooner or later and will be dismantled in order to make room for the "final" layout you plan to build.  Use every opportunity to hone your skills on the chainsaw layout.  And perhaps you might make another chainsaw layout as well to learn more techniques.  

The idea is to go out and do something with the resources you have, not sit around like me and keep telling yourself "I'll start this as soon as I get this" and end up spinning your wheels.  I'm not quite that bad, but summer was pretty much like that.

Good luck.

first step - throw away the brass rail.  Perhaps one reason you never really got into building a layout was the problems inherent with brass rail.  It will frustrate you more than you need as you re-learn the hobby.  You are not saving any money by using the brass - just creating problems.

Artarms

The short answer is" "Yes, if I were starting over on my layout, I'd build it as a sectional".

I do my best work at the workbench, so if I were starting over, I'd design and build the layout using lightweight sectional methods.

I'd love to explore this idea more in the pages of MRH (hint, hint).

Much of what we do except for the modular standards that make our modules interchangeable in a club set up would be directly applicable to what you are proposing. 

We have monthly meetings in a library meeting room that is pretty much a business meeting followed by a clinic put on by one or two of our members.  At one meeting we did not have a clinic scheduled, so one of the members brought a 2 foot x 4 foot "module" base with a "time saver" switching game mounted on it.  It was made with a perimeter frame made of 1 x 4 lumber with 2 1 x 2 cross members with a luan table top that the track was fastened to.  The entire layout weighed less than 10 - 15 pounds.  I think a design like that would make a good starting basis for what you are talking about.  The Luan door skin material is plenty strong enough if you support it every 12 inches with a cross member.

I picked up a special issue from Model Railroader titled "How To Build Realistic Reliable Track."  One of the articles in there was "Quiet roadbed for trains with sound" by Bob Kingsnorth.  He did some testing with different designs of roadbed material combinations aimed at getting roadbesd as quiet as possible to allow the sound installed in locomotives to come through without back ground noise form the track.  He did it by listening to trains run on each type of roadbed combination he used.   The best performers were virtually tied, and everything else he tried was less satisfactory.  He used a typical plywood table top as his layout base.  Splined roadbed might be different, but your concept is more of a table top design rather than something built with splines.  He glued sub roadbed to the plywood with latex caulk, then glued the roadbed to the subroadbed with the latex caulk.  He did not test extruded foam (blue or pink) as far as I can tell.  The 4 quietest test bases were in a virtual "dead heat."  The first three used camper tape as the subroadbed material, and used cork, homabed, or flexxbed for road bed.  The fourth combination that seemed about equal to the first three used 3/8 inch foam rubber mat material for subroadbed and cork for roadbed.  From the chart, he didn't test homabed or flexxbed on the rubber mat material.  He did say the 3/8 foam might be hard to find; but Harbor Freight, Home Depot, & Lowes all carry interlocking foam mats to soften the footing on a concrete floor at work benches or test stations.

You might find one of these choices will work for you.  I would also recommend drilling holes in whatever shelf brackets you use and fastening your layout to them with wood screws to make sure the layout doesn't fall of of the brackets.   One screw in the center or one at each end is probably sufficient.  You aren't using the screws to support the layout, just to keep it from shifting or sliding off the brackets.

The major difference between brass and nickel-silver rail is that brass oxide is an insulator while nickel-silver oxide is a conductor (not a great one but a conductor). If you use brass you'll be forever cleaning rail.

Rather than throwing the brass rail away you might be able to use it for scenic purposes - abandoned track, stacks of rail (rusty), etc.

Charlie

Bundled and painted it makes a great flat car load.

If you're modeling HO scale or smaller, take the brass rail to a recycler.  It is much too large in cross-section and height to realistically use in scenery applications.

Wow....that was a quick response from all of you. Thanks a bunch for all of the good suggestions and insight.

The extruded foam available around here is the blue type available at Lowes. Never used it before so I wasn't sure of its stability qualities let alone it's acoustic resonance properties (thanks for that advice). I have read some articles from others that use it in thier layout construction. The last layout I had was 1/2" ply, over grid, with acoustic ceiling tiles (turned upside down - smooth surface) for the roadbed. It was relatively quiet when running trains (although my older Athearn BB locos are inherently noisy to begin with - not to mention being power hungry).

Never having used DCC I'm not all that familiar on any obstacles one may encounter in the process of switching over fron DC. I will be looking for posts, etc. on here and in the MRH e-zine for more info on that topic for sure. However, I have to agree that by using what I have available, would at least get me started doing something. I surley would like to get away from  the DC block system and have complete engine control. (just not sure if the finance dept. (da wife) could be sucessfully swayed in such negotiations:)

In response to the "chainsaw" concept...yes, this would be a good starting point for me to learn from trial and error and, seeing that this would not be a permanent lifetime layout, I could always make changes and revisions as I went along with the build (without having to tear apart the sectional element at all. (just remove tacked down track, etc, and repeat process until I get it right). This would apply not only to the physical trackwork planning, structues, and scenery ideas but with the operational configuration as well. In addition, by working from the workbench method (as noted) I could redesign and eveluate what would work and what would not work on the limited space available.

Yes, I have considered having a secure way to affix the sectional to the brackets. Good point. I'm currently evaluating some ideas I have on doing just that (the screw / bolt idea is a good one) especially since I am going to be installing this sectional layout 50" - 60" off the floor.

Last but not least, the brass rail components... I have found that working with the brass trackwork is a bit time consuming in regards to keeping it clean. With a small sectional, the maintenence required would not be that hard to keep up with (for now) as it would with a large layout. My last layout attempt (approx. 30" x 11') only took around 15 minutes with some denatured alcohol to keep things running well (actually, I probably spent more time keeping the older brass turnouts working properly). Re-using the old brass at a later date for loads, abandoned sidings, etc is a good suggestion as well.

So... again, many thanks to everyone for thier reply to my first post here at MRH.

And thanks to all the staff and supporters of MRH for this online magazine and all the knowledgable people here willing to help.

(By the way, does this editor have a spel chekker? Or am I jus missing sumthing? :)

Until later...

Michael,

 Is this what you are looking for?

That section is now in the back center of this photo - except for the freestanding section in the center and the "bridge" section spanning the garage door, the entire layout is built out of sections that are mounted on shelf brackets: