Road Bed On Top of Foam

High John, I suggest that you look at Woodland Scenics foam risers, which are very easy to work with and trim.   These will be easy to glue/attach to a foam base and foam mountains.   There are no issues with durability that would suggest a need for a wood roadbed.   And they are helpful for building a consistent and smooth grade.

Woodland Scenics foam risers

Ken-Oscale posted:

High John, I suggest that you look at Woodland Scenics foam risers, which are very easy to work with and trim.   These will be easy to glue/attach to a foam base and foam mountains.   There are no issues with durability that would suggest a need for a wood roadbed.   And they are helpful for building a consistent and smooth grade.

Woodland Scenics foam risers

Thank you. How does the track attached to the risers? I have seen some gluing the track to the foam. Just concerned how well that holds. Also saw some roadbed from Woodland Scenics.  Have you used that and do you screw the track to the table through the roadbed substrate? Again I am hesitate to secure the track to the road bed with glue. Thank you. You can see I have a lot to learn.

John, I also do not want to glue the track to the foam. What I do is to use screws through the track holes into the foam.  Obviously the foam won't hold screws strongly, so I use Gorilla Glue, a few drops down the hole before the screw goes in.   Gorilla glue is actually a slightly expanding foam glue that creates a very strong "socket" in the foam to hold the screw.   This is surprisingly effective (was surprising to me when I did my testing).    

I have also used a combination technique with a type of fastener intended for sheetrock, which looks like a screw and a socket.   I use a nail to set the position where the socket should go, then widen the hole, drop in some Gorilla Glue, then install the socket.   After the glue has set the track can then be installed with a screw, and even unscrewed and removed at a later time.

If I can find a picture I will add to this post.  Here they are.   They pics show the sockets going into 2" foam with a Woodland Scenics grassmat glued to the top of the foam.   Just to be clear, the foam is not visible in the pics, but it is what is holding the anchors, not the grassmat.

Here is a pic of my old layout.   A few points:

1) I found I had to use two sets of inclines/risers side by side to get a better setup for scenery.   If you only have a narrow area available then one set will work.

2) At the point in time the picture was taken there is no glue nor screws holding the track to the roadbed.  Weight and friction were enough.  I did ballast the roadbed - the glue used in that process is more than enough to secure the track.   There is no need to glue or screw down the track to the roadbed.

3) The roadbed was vinylbed which is no longer made but I've had the same results with their new product and cork.

Hope this helps.

-Greg