Deadening the sound of model trains running track over bare wood.

My 2rail atlas on bare floor very quiet even max 45 scale mph. 3 rail gets noisy above 18 scale mph.

What's wrong with Midwest Cork Roadbed? Has worked for me for 30 years and it looks good.

Phil:

Here are my thoughts, your mileage may vary.

• You are posting in the 3RS forum, so I'm going to take that to mean that you want to have your stuff look as realistic as possible.  With that said, you need cork or other means for roadbed. 
• I've used cork, and it is OK.  My current HO basement railroad uses it extensively, as I got a whole role of the 1/4" stuff from a former 3 rail colleague who didn't need it.  Could not beat the price.
• If I was in the market for cork roadbed, I'd use FlexBed, http://www.flexxbed.com/.  Hot Water used the predecessor material, over plywood, and it is very nice.  Put yard tracks on thinner stuff than what you use on the main line. 
• Use of the flex bed, or cork by itself, is not going deaden the sound that much.   You need to ballast the track, and glue it down with a 50-50 mix of matte medium, or "Mat-Mat" matte finish available from Michaels or Hobby Lobby.  To keep the cost down, fill in the track and profile with play sand, and then cover it with Woodland Scenics or Arizona Rock and Mineral ballast to finish it off.  Looks good, easy to do, and deadens the sound quite significantly.  A couple of my favorites are below.

Regards

Jerry

One reason I want to just shorten the procedure is we be moving in next few yrs and will tear down the layout anyway. i just looking for a easy way to enjoy what I do fast and easy. for the short time I have to enjoy my trains. I even thought of cutting old inner tubes in strips and laying it under the track.. 

Why not try some inexpensive carpeting.  Something with a low pile.  You can cover the entire platform with it in one easy step.  

I am a novice at all of this.  But after reading other threads on this forum about 'reducing the noise' .... I put Woodland Scenics Trackbed down (sprayed it with Sandstone paint for a ballast look by the way) and it made quite a difference.  My layout is Lionel Tubular and I used screws into the wood very sparingly. 

I'm also new to this but have researched the "noise" issue extensively.  If you're using Fastrack or something similar, it's going to make a lot of noise.  No way around it.  Try using Gargraves or Atlas as they both are the quietest out there.  I bought segments of track from all the manufacturers and tested them for noise.  The Atlas and Gargraves won hands down.

If that option is not in your budget, the Woodland Scenics Roadbed is a good product.  It will help out a decent bit but is a bit pricey for what it is.

The biggest conductor of the soundwaves is unfortunately the screws.  It doesn't really matter what you put under the track.  The screws will transfer the energy down to the plywood or solid base.  The only solution I've found is to put the screws in about 2/3rds of the way and use as few as possible.

I've seen very elaborate setups with all types of noise dampening material, some of it even double layered.  Kind of pointless though as the screws still transferred all that energy directly to the solid base (homasote, plywood etc...).  Their track was just as loud as mine.

Unfortunately for me, my track is on a shelf 8 foot up so I can't afford myself the luxury of loosening my screws as it's a safety issue for me.    Due to this, I have learned to accept and even enjoy the loud clackety clack.

If you can get by safely with just a few loose screws (pun not intended), it will help quiet your track down much more than buying a bunch of overpriced cork or other material. 

Just my 2 cents.

I think it was in Classic Toy Trains a few months ago.  The writer suggested using Zip Ties to hold the track down.  They did use some sort of roadbed.  I think it may have been carpeting.  Then using two Zip Ties, they pushed the first one down through the track tie until the knob of the Z T rested on the metal track tie.  Then using the second Z T under the platform, slipped it onto the upper Z T.  

This method would work well with tubular track.  

I posted about using rubber anti-fatigue mat here:

https://ogrforum.com/t...85#70411412173988385

and here:

http://www.modeltrainjournal.c...t=16740&start=60

(look under posts by Seaboard Air Line Fan, that's me )

You didn't say how big your track plan is but you could buy a couple of these mats and cover the whole thing.

Here's a photo of my old garage layout with the "yard" on top of a sheet of this mat.  I covered the edge with a piece of molding, unballasted it was very quiet:

Thanks for reply, I play in 2 rail but thought I'd get faster response from a larger forum. Weather here running mild now that we in the high 70s and easier to work on removing the HO and laying O scale track.to layout. I am using my old sub roadbed in most places that are longer runs. but have to rework the returns to larger radii on my old 11X38' layout. But with a move in future I was looking for easier/cheaper way to quiet the plywood to enjoy the trains more.  My main reason for faster cheaper is to that I want to expand the layout for my 4yr old grand kid to run my engines farther than just the yard track.

This has been a favorite topic of mine to read over the past few years. I have found a few common elements of quiet layouts that I have visited over that time.

The first is 3/4", 7 ply plywood for the deck. The second is some type of dense rubber/foam under the track. The third is pretty a much a given - that is Atlas and Gargraves are the quietest track on their own.

The Flexxbed product and a new similar product work for a roadbed. Many testimonies on various forums confirming this.

The second is indoor/outdoor carpet with a rubber backing. I am starting to acquire a taste for the look. This was a surprise. I visited a layout with 3/4" ply, carpet and Lionel tubular screwed to the deck. 4 ovals running scale engines and passenger cars where really quiet. You see the STD and pre-war train guys using this look and a recent "last video before a teardown" of PW and modern trains was a quiet layout. The tan or the gray look ok. Definitely not a realistic effect. But it's quick and quiet.

I don't buy the screws in the deck theory. Get a good sub-roadbed, roadbed and track will mitigate any theoretical or actual sound transmission.

I am just beginning to explore the anti-fatigue mat. A forum member just put up a FasTrack on it. helped a lot, but still, it's FasTrack or RealTrax. Thanks for info.

I can see buying a few feet of cheap indoor/outdoor green carpeting and gluing strips of it using it in place of cork. which would also give it a small rise to act like a raised roadbed. Then I could use that 50/50 mix to add the gravel look over the carpet. Sounds interesting.  Good idea to explore. 

If you didn't want to take up your track, I wonder if affixing foam board to the bottom of the plywood would dampen the sound.  It is probably less expensive and far less messy than trying to spray a bed liner on the board. 

Give these folks a look see!  Nice size FLAT sheets.  Russ

cork-underlayment-sheets

I used rubber matting of the type you would use in a bathroom under the floor.  It is self adhesive on one side and grey on the other.  I use tubular track screwed to 3/4 inch plywood (overkill but I had it in as spare shelving from a project) sitting on Mianne benchwork.  The noise level is much reduced as compared to tracks on wood as I had done last time.  It was also inexpensive and lent itself to scenery.  HTH.  

When I built my layout I wanted to try to eliminate the "drum effect" of the plywood. I ended up buying a couple packs of 2' X 4' acoustic ceiling panels and used construction adhesive (comes in a caulking tube) to attach to the underside of the table. These are the solid type panels not the foam ones. My Super O track is screwed directly to the plywood and is pretty quiet. Not sure how difficult it would be to do this on a table that is already set up though.

gnnpnut posted:

Phil:

Here are my thoughts, your mileage may vary.

• You are posting in the 3RS forum, so I'm going to take that to mean that you want to have your stuff look as realistic as possible.  With that said, you need cork or other means for roadbed. 
• I've used cork, and it is OK.  My current HO basement railroad uses it extensively, as I got a whole role of the 1/4" stuff from a former 3 rail colleague who didn't need it.  Could not beat the price.
• If I was in the market for cork roadbed, I'd use FlexBed, http://www.flexxbed.com/.  Hot Water used the predecessor material, over plywood, and it is very nice.  Put yard tracks on thinner stuff than what you use on the main line. 
• Use of the flex bed, or cork by itself, is not going deaden the sound that much.   You need to ballast the track, and glue it down with a 50-50 mix of matte medium, or "Mat-Mat" matte finish available from Michaels or Hobby Lobby.  To keep the cost down, fill in the track and profile with play sand, and then cover it with Woodland Scenics or Arizona Rock and Mineral ballast to finish it off.  Looks good, easy to do, and deadens the sound quite significantly.  A couple of my favorites are below.

 

 

 

Regards

Jerry

 

WOW your work is amazing.Nick

My newest addition was covered with 1/2 inch plywood.  It was much noisier than the original 3/4 inch bagas (board made from sugar cane pulp or residue) or particle board.

My solution was to use truck inner tube material and cut it into pieces slightly larger than the metal ties of my 027 track and install them under every tie.  I also had to install some under the Marx metal frog switches to keep the track level.  This has cut down the noise to about the same level as the 3/4 inch particle board.

Charlie

If you're using tubular track, for added realism and incremental sound-deadening, I recommend the 3RR rubber ties.