Quieting: Vinylbed vs Cork roadbed. Thoughts?

Used them both. Vinyl bed 3/8" over homosote is the quietest I have ever heard.

Scrappy

I have Gargraves track on cork roadbed on top of plywood. The track is ballasted. With three trains running it is very noisy, even without sound systems on. I suppose running shorter trains would help as there would be fewer wheels rolling on track. I usually run 2 20+ car freight trains and a passenger train and the room is narrow with angled ceilings (attic).

O Gauge trains are large and noisy in and of themselves.  I'm OK with the noise and actually enjoy the sound variations as the trains traverse bridges, clifftops (foam), tunnels, rail joints, etc. If you are looking for the quietest set up, most folks on here seem to prefer homasote. You might want to search that for suggestions.

Yep...vinylbed was quieter.  

-Greg

I plan to do the Dennis Brennan method. Glue a sheet of Homasote onto plywood. Mount the track directly on the Homasote. Then apply N scale cork on either side of the track. Lastly ballast. It should be easy and the Gargraves ties will look more in scale.

A friend has used Midwest Cork on his layout.  The last time I visited we ran trains.  I noticed that it was pretty loud, even over the sounds of the locomotive.  I used Vinylbed (the first version) on my own layout.  I think the new product is called Flexxbed?  Anyway, it seemed quiet.

My impression, purely on gut feel, is that Vinylbed is quieter than Midwest Cork.

I need to do a scientific comparison, perhaps recording the sound created by running trains over each roadbed.  I don't suppose anyone's actually done such a thing, have they?

Please keep your observations and thoughts coming.

George

George,

Well, some unstructured testing. I found a free app" Decibel 10th "on the app store for iOS. I researched and located some charts on acoustical properties of solids, rubbers and other material.

Cork is wood. When you get into vinyls and rubbers the db loss is at least 10 times greater than cork.

I used the db meter on an iPad and placed FasTrack on wood and then on 7mm laminate floor underlayment on top of the wood. (closed cell foam, vinyl nitrate) There was a noticeable difference of about 20db less.

It's still loud compared to Atlas or Gargraves, but helps a lot.

I've looked at sound barrier sheets used for automotive and aircraft use, which can be purchased in varying thicknesses.

Closed cars and those with pick-up rollers create a lot of noise versus a gondola, hopper or tanker.

Flexxbed has taken the time to have a product made for them that doesn't require any trimming or shaping for the roadbed look. They don't really describe what type that is. 

I would say that it would definitely do a better job of absorbing sound and isolating the sound from the sub-roadbed than cork, especially at 1/4" - 3/8" thick.

Wow Carl, impressive! 

Thank you for that substantive and informative post.  I think we have a decision.

George

Carl, thanks for the timely information. I'm vacillating between Midwest cork and FlexxBed. I have cork in my build sheet, but won't be sure until I actually order something.

George, be sure to compare all things equal. In other words, make sure the underlayment (plywood), sub-roadbed (Homasote, soundboard, foam, etc.) and track are the same to limit the difference in noise level to the roadbed and not other factors. I recently visited a layout with plywood, Homasote and Midwest cork with GarGraves track. I was surprised how quiet it was and decided to switch from Atlas to GarGraves as a result. I would imagine FlexxBed will be even quieter and arguably easier/quicker to install, but I haven't compared costs. I really like the look of FlexxBed and may not even add ballast.

I used cork glued to plywood, then the track is tacked or screwed into the cork. Its pretty quiet, but vinyl over homosote with out a question is the quietest....

Problem is now that I am up and running. most of the "noise" is coming from empty box cars!

DoubleDAZ posted:

Carl, thanks for the timely information. I'm vacillating between Midwest cork and FlexxBed. I have cork in my build sheet, but won't be sure until I actually order something.

George, be sure to compare all things equal. In other words, make sure the underlayment (plywood), sub-roadbed (Homasote, soundboard, foam, etc.) and track are the same to limit the difference in noise level to the roadbed and not other factors. I recently visited a layout with plywood, Homasote and Midwest cork with GarGraves track. I was surprised how quiet it was and decided to switch from Atlas to GarGraves as a result. I would imagine FlexxBed will be even quieter and arguably easier/quicker to install, but I haven't compared costs. I really like the look of FlexxBed and may not even add ballast.

Dave, I know and expect to compare apples to apples. 

I am currently using Vinylbed (FlexxBed's predecessor) on my layout right now and believe it to be pretty quiet. 

George

J DADDY  

you shouldn't have to put up with those noisy cars, let me borrow them and I'll see if they make the same noise at my place 

Clem

clem k posted:

J DADDY  

you shouldn't have to put up with those noisy cars, let me borrow them and I'll see if they make the same noise at my place 

Clem

Ha, yes I have quite a few to share... funny thing is my autos started to disappear from the layout... found out my son was putting them in those empty box cars... and you know what? The trains were much quieter!

Our whole layout is done with Flexxbed vinyl glued directly to 3/4" plywood. The Atlas solid nickel silver track & turnouts are glued to the vinyl roadbed, and after the glue was set, any and all screws were removed. It is VERY quiet, even for 3-Rail.

There is a company called Affordable Model Railroads, www.AffordableModelRailroads.com has a new roadbed made from a synthetic rubber that is quieter then Vinylbed, Flexxbed or Cork. They don't have it on the website yet as it is only new to the market. They built part of my railroad for me (that's how I found out about it...that's mainly what they do is built railroads for people). According to the owner they have been using it for several years on their railroad builds and are just now making it available for sale to the public. Right now you need to email or call them to order it (it may be up on eBay as he said they were going to try that too).

It comes in 1/8", 1/4" and 3/8" thicknesses and it has bevels in 30 degree which is more prototypical for yards and spurs, standard 45 degree and a 60 degree which is what I see in contemporary class one railroad specs for mainlines in their engineering manuals. You can also get it with no bevel.

I am using the 30 degree on 1/4" for my spurs and yards and 60 degree 3/8" on my mainlines and 60 degree 1/4" on my passing sidings. 

I put it down with regular old elmer's glue over foam insulation board and it is great. It comes in one piece 45" long (9" longer than everyone else) and I have bent it all the way down to an 18" radius (036 for 3-railers) on some of my sidings with no problem. It comes in a black color and so I have been using the 1/8" for my roads and parking lots also. Definitely worth checking them out. 

Hot Water posted:

Our whole layout is done with Flexxbed vinyl glued directly to 3/4" plywood. The Atlas solid nickel silver track & turnouts are glued to the vinyl roadbed, and after the glue was set, any and all screws were removed. It is VERY quiet, even for 3-Rail.

We used Flexxbed on our layout. There is a definite difference between Atlas O on plywood versus on Flexxbed sitting on plywood.  But there is no noticeable difference between Atlas O sitting on homasote versus on Flexxbed sitting on homasote. 

One feature I never see mentioned, and maybe it applies to cork but I wouldn't know as I've never used cork, is that any soft trackbed, like Flexxbed, is very forgiving. Meaning, if the connection points between plywood or homasote sheets are not 100% the exact same height, the vinyl "absorbs" the variance or at least distributes it over the length of the vinyl when the track is screwed down, so no sanding or whatever needs to be done to the plywood or homasote.  Along these lines, I actually screwed track down a little tighter on the inside length of a curve as an experiment to see I could create super-elevation and I attained a slight amount. 

Peter

 On my tin plate I used 1/2" plywood, vinyl bed and glue only.  I screwed only where absolutely necessary to hold track.  The room is Carpeted and Still way to loud for my tastes. I then added a liberal dose of aquarium gravel as ballast and now it is dead quiet.  I like the gravels appearance and comes in many colors. Mine is a permanent Christmas layout so I used red on the inner loop and black on the outer.

RAILROADS 2005 posted:

There is a company called Affordable Model Railroads, www.AffordableModelRailroads.com has a new roadbed made from a synthetic rubber that is quieter then Vinylbed, Flexxbed or Cork. They don't have it on the website yet as it is only new to the market. They built part of my railroad for me (that's how I found out about it...that's mainly what they do is built railroads for people). According to the owner they have been using it for several years on their railroad builds and are just now making it available for sale to the public. Right now you need to email or call them to order it (it may be up on eBay as he said they were going to try that too).

It comes in 1/8", 1/4" and 3/8" thicknesses and it has bevels in 30 degree which is more prototypical for yards and spurs, standard 45 degree and a 60 degree which is what I see in contemporary class one railroad specs for mainlines in their engineering manuals. You can also get it with no bevel.

I am using the 30 degree on 1/4" for my spurs and yards and 60 degree 3/8" on my mainlines and 60 degree 1/4" on my passing sidings. 

I put it down with regular old elmer's glue over foam insulation board and it is great. It comes in one piece 45" long (9" longer than everyone else) and I have bent it all the way down to an 18" radius (036 for 3-railers) on some of my sidings with no problem. It comes in a black color and so I have been using the 1/8" for my roads and parking lots also. Definitely worth checking them out. 

Starting to look at options and found this post interesting. You say definitively that it is quieter than Flexxbed - how do you know this to be true? 

When they suggested the roadbed I was unsure of trying something new so we laid out an 8' length on a 4 x 8 foam board of flexxbed, cork, the AMR stuff and homasote and ran a locomotive back and forth on it and listened to the differences....I know this isn't "scientific" but I figured when I run my railroad I will be hearing it with my ears and not a db meter so logic dictated that my ears would be the best test instrument.

I will admit it was very hard to hear any difference between the flexxbed and the AMR stuff, but both were noticeably quieter than the homasote and the cork came in the loudest.

OK, thanks. I did the same thing when deciding, except I manually rolled a couple cars back and forth over the track and trackbed to eliminate all other sounds that could interfere with an accurate, but subjective, determination. 

I emailed them last night. Maybe they'll be kind enough to send me a sample so I can do my own work unscientific scientific (lol) experiment. I like the fact that this stuff comes thinner than Flexxbed and with a more realistic bevel.

So what you're really saying is not that it IS quieter than Flexxbed but that you couldn't tell which was more quiet between this stuff and Flexxbed?  

Peter

There are free decibel meter apps for smartphones. They will give you relative accuracy as to which set up is louder. There is also the subjective factor as to which frequencies are muted by the differing roadbed configurations. One configuration might be slightly louder but the sounds might be more pleasing. That would be in the ears of the beholder.

For absolute loudness, the decibel app would give you measurable data.

I have cork roadbed on plywood in most areas, on cork/foam in others and they are both loud equally loud to my ears, though I haven't tested the difference with a decibel app. The long, narrow room carved out of an attic with sloped walls on each side also serves as an echo chamber. With sounds off, the level with 3 trains running is fine. With 2 or more sound equipped locomotives it gets unpleasantly loud.

Lots of factors go into the perceived sound level, but if you are interested in testing roadbed/underlayment configurations for absolute loudness then a decibel meter or app will tell you which is most quiet.

TRAINFUN - I completely agree that a db meter is unnecessary as subjective loudness and different sounds (pleasing or unpleasing to the ear) are what matter.  

RAILROADS 2005 posted:

When they suggested the roadbed I was unsure of trying something new so we laid out an 8' length on a 4 x 8 foam board of flexxbed, cork, the AMR stuff and homasote and ran a locomotive back and forth on it and listened to the differences....I know this isn't "scientific" but I figured when I run my railroad I will be hearing it with my ears and not a db meter so logic dictated that my ears would be the best test instrument.

I will admit it was very hard to hear any difference between the flexxbed and the AMR stuff, but both were noticeably quieter than the homasote and the cork came in the loudest.

Just so I understand, you used a 4x8 sheet of foam. Was it 2" rigid foam, Styrofoam or some other thickness? Was it on top of a sheet of plywood or something? Did you lay out 8' of each? Or just 2' of each in an 8' run? What kind of track?

2" foam insulation board from Lowes (the green stuff), over 3/4" plywood, 8' of each, atlas 2 rail 148 flex track, glued each down with elmers white glue, track also glued down with loctite power grab adhesive....no screws.

The flexxbed and the AMR stuff (can't remember what name they had for it) were very very similar. the differences i could tell were Flexxbed is gray and slightly denser and a bit harder to curve to smaller radius. AMR is black, slightly "squishier" and glue seemed to tack up quicker (although I didn't time it so that was just a feeling). Really the main difference for me was the additional bevel angle choices on the AMR, I really liked the 30 degree slope for the spurs it made it look much more realistic.

PJB - Correct without a sound meter it was subjective, but it seemed just a hair quieter to my old man ears....maybe someone with young undamaged ears could tell significant differences. Really nothing that would have stopped me from buying the Flexxbed, but since AMR are professional builders and that is what they used and I really liked the bevels so I went with it. They just recently finished the track work and I am doing the scenery and I haven't noticed any sound changes since I put ballast on a few section either so that was good also.

RAILROADS 2005 posted:

2" foam insulation board from Lowes (the green stuff), over 3/4" plywood, 8' of each, atlas 2 rail 148 flex track, glued each down with elmers white glue, track also glued down with loctite power grab adhesive....no screws.......

Thanks for the info. I've vacillated between WS, FlexxBed, cork, and now AMR. As it stands, my layout will have ScaleTrax O31 or GarGraves O32 on one level and GarGraves O42 curves on another, so ease of bending is a consideration, as is price, though my layout is relatively small at only about 80' of track.

It would have been interesting to see if there was a noise difference with AMR on a plywood/Homasote sandwich instead of plywood/foam. Or even AMR directly on plywood. I get the use of foam for landscaping, I've just never seen/heard a layout with foam. I used foam once with RealTrax and no plywood and it was too loud for me. Heck, had I not visited a layout with plywood/Homasote/cork and GarGraves, I wouldn't be considering GarGraves, but it was surprisingly quiet, at least to my old ears.

I checked eBay and didn't see anything, but then I'm not sure what exactly to look for. I also checked the AMR photo gallery and everything I saw had cork roadbed, so I wasn't able to see a sample pf the product.

I think if you email them they will send you pictures of the product, maybe a sample or at least you can ask. I don't have any track with the roadbed showing otherwise i would send you a pic of mine. 

Just did.

DoubleDAZ posted:

Just did.

Dave, I emailed yesterday. No pics but they sent me the dimensions and price. They say it's a little less expensive than Flexx and cork.  And they charge like $15 to send you a sample, and $12 for each additional sample. The gent who emailed is named Adams. 

PJB posted:

Dave, I emailed yesterday. No pics but they sent me the dimensions and price. They say it's a little less expensive than Flexx and cork.  And they charge like $15 to send you a sample, and $12 for each additional sample. The gent who emailed is named Adams. 

Got a very nice reply from James at AMR with photos (emailed you a copy). He said mine was the 2nd request he got yesterday, so apparently he decided to take some photos.

Initially, I had used 2" rigid foam over plywood for my layout with cork and scaletrax but found that the foam amplified the noise considerable as Dave noted above. I then used carpet foam underlay  under the cork which created a very quiet environment. It was 'cheap' too - actually free!

At the time (2009) I was unaware of Vinylbed or similar.

I am in the middle of setting up my new Standard Gauge layout. ( Prewar Build Thread.) The 1/2 inch board is down and I am ready for homasote. At least I think I'm ready. I tried a test where I placed weather-stripping in between the ties of four vintage Lionel Standard Gauge straights. I pressed it onto the board. Next to it I placed some of the same track right on the board. I Rolled a 400e on both. The weatherstripped track was very quiet, and of course the uninsulated track was very loud. Anyone else use this method?   (I should mention that the weather stripping held the straights onto the board very well. And also should mention that with this method you cannot screw the track down, for it will defeat the insulation.)