Benchwork - Roadbed

New soft roadbed material?

Hi Fellow Train Nuts,

While killing time looking for inspiration at a Home Depot in the laminate flooring dept., I came across some interesting underlayment. It is made by a company in the USA called PALZIV in Louisburg, NC. The product is called ECO Cork Foam underlayment.  http://ecfunderlayment.com

It is a soft foam material, has a six mil moisture vapor barrier attached which I hope can be removed easily. I was wondering if anyone had used this material under their cork or foam roadbed.

36" x 25', in Canada costs about $70 CDN.

Christmas Benchwork

The week before Christmas, and the days right after found a great deal of time to make a concentrated effort on completing a majority of the benchwork on the railroad. We implemented a few new techniques on the upper levels and found these to be very effective. Next up, all the Masonite: spline, fascia, and backdrops. Details in following posts

Building Spline with Homasote - Time Lapse Videos

Many years ago, I bought Joe Fugate's well-done video series about the construction of his Siskiyou layout. The section on Masonite spline roadbed convinced be to try the method. Having built several plywood cookie-cutter layouts over time, I was ready to try something different.  

Joe Baker's picture

DOMTAR Pulp and Paper Mill - Bench Work

This blog will document the bench work for the DOMTAR Pulp and Paper Mill - Rebooted

 

Late 2016 Update

Well it has been a very long time since the last post and life has been equally busy. Despite the craziness, still found time to get to the basement out of the summer heat and subsequent winter cold, and get some things accomplished on the railroad. Starting this project, I really didn't have a general idea of how fast things would move and how far we would be in roughly a year, but we have reached that point and I am actually quite surprised.

Pine shelving as staging yard roadbed - fix or redo?

I started building the railroad in my basement around 20 years ago. (It has been dormant for most of that time until recently.) After building my around-the-walls-with-a-big-peninsula L-girder benchwork, the first thing I did was to build the first of two hidden staging yards. Being young[er] and without patience, I went out and bought some 1x12 pine shelving to serve as the foundation for the track. The tracks, 10 in all, are spiked directly to that pine base. Cringing yet?

Sheetrock Spilne Joint

Does anybody know how Joe F.  stabilizes the spline/sheet rock joint?  I have a technique that works for me with spline/plywood, but I am having trouble getting my head around the sheetrock/spline.

Thanks

Roger Bodwell

La Luz, NM

Progressive Rail in N Scale

Slowly building N Scale version of Progressive Rail in a 19" by 72" space.  This railway is based on a prototype, and an article that appeared around 2002 in Model Railroader, which was designed for HO scale.

The goal is to use code 40 rail, and hand laid turnouts throughout the entire scene.  Another goal is for this layout to fit in my camper, so I have something to work on at night when I travel and go camping.

fernpoint's picture

Cornhill and Atherton - Lower deck construction

Now that the staging yard is complete I can build the rest of the lower deck:

The exit from the bottom of the helix runs into the small town of Glanton and then running over Insular Gorge (whopping big trestle here) enters Cornhill, where we interchange with the Antioch and Southern RR - actually the double ended staging yard that feeds either end of Cornhill.

Rob Clark

Metrolink's picture

Benchwork advice for a slightly different approach? [New, updated drawing!]

[REVISED AGAIN!]

Layout information:

• Scale: N-scale.
• Layout-height: 39" (44.5" including 4" benchwork + 2" foam).
​• Minimum radius: 15"-16-3/8" (Kato dual-track).
• Track: Kato Unitrack + turnouts/Kato Unitram track.
• Control: MRC 3000GS/MRC 2800 dual-cab DC-controllers.
• Location: non-insulated garage located in Southern California near the beach.

New layout goals:


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