cork strips

Cork is one of several roadbed choices available. Any of them is better than direct to plywood. Contrary to popular belief, it is ok to screw down the track through the roadbed to the plywood. Your goal is to remove the small gap between the track and wood. That is where the noise comes from, the vibrations being transmitted.  There are better ways to mount the track which does not use  screws to the wood, such as caulk or silicone sealer. The main effort is to reduce any vibration points. I have effectively used indoor-outdoor carpet as a base on the plywood. The pile absorbs more noise than is being transmitted by the screws.

Thats a start, there are many discussions on soundproofing your layout, but thats not what the original question was about.

swav posted:

Cork is one of several roadbed choices available. Any of them is better than direct to plywood. Contrary to popular belief, it is ok to screw down the track through the roadbed to the plywood. Your goal is to remove the small gap between the track and wood. That is where the noise comes from, the vibrations being transmitted.  There are better ways to mount the track which does not use  screws to the wood, such as caulk or silicone sealer. The main effort is to reduce any vibration points. I have effectively used indoor-outdoor carpet as a base on the plywood. The pile absorbs more noise than is being transmitted by the screws.

Thats a start, there are many discussions on soundproofing your layout, but thats not what the original question was about.

Thanks.  Thinking about using cork. Also was told it drys out fast. I have seen a rubber road material from Woodland Scenics. 

Used cork strips between plywood and GarGraves Phantom Rail on my layout. Has been there for a number of years now with no shrink or dry-out problems. I bought cork in rolls with one side adhesive from McMaster Carr. Easy to roll out and stick down.

Because of the built-in roadbed of FasTrack, you would not use a roadbed material, like cork.  If noise is a concert, FT is not for you.

I personally have used FT on boards, and do not find the sound too bad, if trains are kept very slow.  That's easy with Legacy, but not conventional.  For this reason I plan on using Atlas for my permanent installation as I have lots of conventional locomotives.

Bill, what do you have in the way of track and rolling stock so far? Did you just buy a set and are starting out? Or have you been running on the floor and now want to build a more permanent layout? How big is your space? People use all kinds of materials for sub-roadbed from faux grass carpeting to self-adhesive cork squares to acoustic tiles to carpet padding and so on. I've used RealTrax and just adding a layer of white batting for my Christmas layout made a difference in noise level. It's still too loud for my tastes and I'm switching to Atlas or ScaleTrax for my permanent layout. I don't know that cork roadbed will work well because I don't think it's wide enough to cover the bottom of the FasTrack, but I have no personal experience with either. There are other vinyl/foam roadbeds, but I don't know if they are wide enough either. Even tacking it down well will still leave a hollow void beneath the rails, but I don't know how much noise will transfer and what level of noise you consider tolerable. SWAV is right that most noise comes from vibration, so a strong tight base probably does more to reduce sound than anything else.

DoubleDAZ posted:

Bill, what do you have in the way of track and rolling stock so far? Did you just buy a set and are starting out? Or have you been running on the floor and now want to build a more permanent layout? How big is your space? People use all kinds of materials for sub-roadbed from faux grass carpeting to self-adhesive cork squares to acoustic tiles to carpet padding and so on. I've used RealTrax and just adding a layer of white batting for my Christmas layout made a difference in noise level. It's still too loud for my tastes and I'm switching to Atlas or ScaleTrax for my permanent layout. I don't know that cork roadbed will work well because I don't think it's wide enough to cover the bottom of the FasTrack, but I have no personal experience with either. There are other vinyl/foam roadbeds, but I don't know if they are wide enough either. Even tacking it down well will still leave a hollow void beneath the rails, but I don't know how much noise will transfer and what level of noise you consider tolerable. SWAV is right that most noise comes from vibration, so a strong tight base probably does more to reduce sound than anything else.

My layout is a U shape.  8feet long , 12 feet wide and 8ft. long.  42 inches deep. I will look at RealTrax. 

Thanks for the help. I am new at this.

Bill

I am running Linoel Steam locomotives. With some 3 passenger cars.

Yeah,  I think I can get use to the noise.

Thanks again.

Bill

 Bill,

Sorry, I wasn't suggesting you look at RealTrax at all. I'm not too fond of it myself, but then I'm not fond of track with plastic roadbed to begin with. It came with the set I bought and I think you're better off with what you have. FasTrack has a lot more track sizes, so if I were going to use track with plastic roadbed, FasTrack would be my choice for that reason alone. My point was to try a few things to see what helps. Heck, I'd put a couple of blankets down to see what that does to cut the noise. Or go to a carpet store and see if they'll give you some of their throw-away padding to test.

I'l just jump in here and give you'all my3 cents---might get some change back---but I'm on my 2nd layout and haveused under rug padding and it makesquite a diff noise reduction. The way I get it is keep an eye on trashday and numerous folks throw the stuff away----works great!