"Carpet Central" Observations and Questions

My grandpa replaced the carpet in his family room about a year ago (maybe two now?) with stuff that was a lot thicker than his old carpet.  That's the only room in the house we can set his G scale stuff up in and thought we'd have some major problems.  I spent some time and cut out some cardboard strips, slightly wider than the track and simply slid them under the loop.  Worked well when we did it.  Now we just set it right on the carpet and haven't had any issues yet.

The cardboard would work for you too, but something like plywood would probably be neater looking for a layout in the living room.  The foam might work too, but I think plywood would work better for what you want.

Definitely go with thin plywood.

One more thought you might want to try in terms of being neat is the big foam boards you can get at a craft store. The thicker boards would be best but they are light weight but very strong and they come in black and white which may look more low key than plywood or the pink foam board considering where you have the trains now. AC Moore will have them and I would think any good craft store near you.    Good luck.

Masonite or its equivalent will get you a stiff yet thin and rigid base to redistribute the weight, and there will be no chance of splinters from brushing the edges of jigsawed curves, Gman.

I would recommend going with plywood.

I have a 13' x 40' layout on plush carpet(finished A frame attic and cannot raise layout). All my track is lionel O gauge.  I used 1/4" plywood and cut to simulate berm. Layout has been down 11yrs and plywood has not warped with track screwed to the 1/4" wood. However I have had to screw the 1/4" plywood into the subfloor through the carpet to keep curves from opening and to level out my double crossovers. This could have been avoided if the under floor is important  Wood  cut to switches and curves with as much lead in an out track as possible would have avoided much of the level and opening  problems!!.  In some cases I have 8' wood  straights with track sections screwed to them.  Wiring was under the plywood and created most of the leveling problems. As you can see, with old age, I can no longer get down on the floor, and things have gotten messy. stan 

Update:  I added some temporary fairly stiff cardboard under the track sections and it is making a difference.  This weekend I plan on applying a more permanent solution and will keep all apprised of how things go.

I mounted some GarGraves and Ross to 5/8" particle board that I cut out to make it look like roadbed. I painted it with the Rustoleum that simulates granite to give it a look that somewhat simulates ballast. I cut the board into sections so the thing breaks down into large but managable sections. It works great on the carpet and I can add additional sections as I see fit. Here is one of the curved sections.

Just wanted to send out an update.  I spent the weekend laying down a "sub roadbed" made of ... wait for it... foam board.  I was going to go with plywood but before investing the money and and time (and mess) I decided to do something a little easier to see if it was at least a step in the right direction.  24 hours later, it's making a huge difference.  The foam board proved to be largely modular - I can slide pieces in and out and it natually creates some nice groves for layout wiring.  I plan on covering it with grass mat and doing some more trimming but I think it looks pretty decent.  If I were modeling winter only, I'd be almost done  Perhaps the best thing about it is that if I mess a piece up, it's a buck at the dollar store down the street...  

Functionally, it seems to be solving a lot of the problems I was having; namely inconsistent power and traction.  The big Allegheny I MUCH smoother around the track and has had no issues with spinning tires.  I must confess that I changed the traction tires too; they were shot.  I was quite proud of myself and kudos to the LHS for teaching and watching - they made me do it but made sure I didn't screw anything up.  through the process I learned how to align the rods right every time, and I hit the nuts with blue Loctite.  The new skins, coupled with the solid track surface, is making the running much better all around.  I still have some switch issues, but those are largely solved at this point.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed and moving forward with testing

Note:  The Allegheny was a real mess inside the rods and wheels.  The washers and the rods (and the hole the screw goes into) were covered with oil.  Nasty.  This was my epic fail for over-lubrication.