Question on foam & Vinyltrack vs Homosote

Hi there StackM, our club made some new modules a few years ago. We discussed what we were going to use ,as Homosote was the 1st choice, then we talked about foam board sheeting, and many others.

I did some reasearch after the fact, and if I had checked out this site (noisehelp.com) then went to the sound proofing materials section, we wouldn't have used the materials that we did!

What I'm recommending, is do your home work. Above all remember you will probably be making a 1x3 or there abouts, to mount your board on, and that is the beginning of a "Drum". Follow the suggestions from the noise help site!

 Also one other thing, remember you'll have metal wheels, and hollow metal rails, this right here ="noise". If you haven't bought any track yet spring a few more dollars and go with solid rail, as it will be quieter in itself...................Hope this is of some assistance....Brandy

The vinyl road bed will do all the noise reduction. If you are talking about the rigid foam, I doubt that will do much to reduce noise. I think that is more for making scenery or allowing you to cut out for lakes, rivers and valleys. It may provide a bit of noise reduction, especially if you fasten the track with screws to the foam instead of directly to the wood base. I think you will find products like Flexxbed (vinyl) road, the soft foam like Woodland Scenics road bed or cork will do the most to reduce track noise. Solid rail track (Atlas-O or Scaletrax) will also be quieter than tubular or hollow rail track.

Having said all that, track is a very personal preference as is the noise level of your layout. Some folks like thee track with the built in road bed and say it is not noisy. Others don't like it and say it's too noisy. You may not be able to stand something the someone here says it the greatest thing going. I would suggest some experimenting before settling on a permanent installation. 

I built my Christmas Layout this year entirely out of foam board.  The layout is 5 X 8 and 4" thick.  The top 2" being solid foam board and the bottom 2" being honeycombed.  I'm using tubular track secured with long screws through the foam board with washers and nuts.  In addition, the foam board is covered by indoor-outdoor carpet.  

I was basically going for the Postwar look :-)

At any rate, I was expecting the layout to be quieter than it is.  It's quieter than running track right on plywood, but not as quiet as I was expecting.

I am running Postwar Lionel trains, however.  So I'm not sure how quiet I can really expect all this to be.

Hope this helps :-)

I would try some track on the track bed over the wood. It will save steps and if need be, you can screw down a stubborn piece of track.  If it works for you, the trains will be running quicker!

Homasote IS quieter as an underlayment than foam. As you know, that's what Homasote is made for. And it will hold a screw if you need it to. 

I used knife blades for a jigsaw that were specifically made to cut Homasote without mess back in the eighties on an HO layout I built. Not sure if they make these anymore??

Hope this helps! 

Dominic