What are the best materials for supporting a foam based layout.

[rogergperkins]

robert3985, 
I agree with your comments about attention to detail on wiring and benchwork.
I am guilty in my eagerness to get trains running of creating a mess from wiring that looks like the web of a drunken spider.
I got a comment online after I posted a photo of my home layout and did not crop it to hide the mess of wiring.
I am promising myself to be meticulous with the wiring on the next layout.   I have wasted far too much time trying to track down
wiring problems with the current layout, A WORK IN PROGRESS, despite the use of Kato power and turnout wiring.
 

[LV LOU]

My experience is just the opposite.  Most modelers I associate with take a little effort to organize their wiring and glue and screw their benchwork.  However, most of them are building long-term layouts or modular LDE's of half a dozen modules or more.

Yeah, for sure I've seen sloppy modelers who bang a tabletop module together and nail track down to it and slap a grassmat on either side of the three track mainlines, but they don't last long because the interest isn't there for them...which is manifest by their general disinterest in attempting to achieve any sort of excellence. 

Some of us actually enjoy wiring and benchwork, as well as hand-laying turnouts and track, building prototype scenes (LDE's) and close-to-prototype operation.  Oh, did I forget signaling, train detection, dispatching as well as looking at what other model railroaders have done under their scenery too.

When me and my buddy Gregg Cudworth set up at shows, a lot of fellow model railroaders come over and take a long look at what's underneath as the modules are sitting there on their backs before the integral legs are folded down and locked in place.

I think you're gonna find that a lot of model railroaders here at TRW are very interested in what goes on underneath.

You know,I simply can't understand guys that build a railroad,and it looks like a bad Cub Scout project.Blobs of plaster all over the track,stupid track plan,benchwork pieced together from Pepsi signs and old pallets, wiring that actually scares me,ETC,and the guy runs brass locomotives on it..
  I was part of a round robin group.One of the guys has a really nice house.He has a huge living/playroom,very nicely done,nice furniture,bar,large screen TV,beautiful..I go there one night,and watch six guys build an ENTIRE 24 X18 LGB railroad!!!!  Benchwork,roadbed,wiring & track from a bare floor in SIX HOURS..Now,for those uninitiated,you don't just lay LGB track.It has to be bent on a rolling machine,kind of a coffee grinder hand cranked looking thing,and then the rail needs to be installed in 4" or so long sections of ties.It looked HORRIBLE,and this is the general way these guys do everything.A nice room with what looked like an abandoned coal breaker sitting in the middle of it..These guys all have HORRIBLY expensive stuff,HO,O,LGB  brass,1/4 scale,HOn3 brass,and they run them on garbage,all their railroads look they built them in a week....
  To me,my railroad is another big model.On my last RR,I spent the better part of 4 hours a night for six months just carving the scenery on a 12 X 6.Seems most model railroaders just want to "have" trains,not actually do any work..The whole point of it all should be to build something worth looking at..

[Scottl]

As interesting as the info on different foam types is, there is a lot of hot air in this thread- and not the kind used to extrude foam boards 

[VonRyan]

Heaven forbid anyone look at the underside my N-Trak module...
There are some weird was of wiring displayed under there...
My intention is to go back and organize everything into one coherent system, especially since the 10" line is laid with sectional track to help keep the geometry of the track scheme. Each joint is soldered and to each rail-joiner is soldered a feeder.
The actual benchwork of the module is select-pine 1x3 with a 1/4" furniture grade birch luan top. At points where the lateral supports meet the main frame of the module, there are 2x2 glue blocks to which everything gets glued and screwed. Were I to do it all over again, the only change I would make is to router the luan so it is a full 1/2" less than its original dimensions and the. Router a 1/4" recess in the tops of the main frame members so that the frame can double as the facia. I would also cut the main pieces of the frame on 45 degree angles so that there is no exposed end grain.

Foam is great for a home layout but for a portable layout or module, wood is the best way to go unless you are absolutely certain that you got the highest quality foam available that can withstand equal pressure as wood, and you recess the foam into the module frame to eliminate the need for a facia board to be added and it gives the foam that extra bit of protection from the stresses that can be presented when groups of people are around, be they model railroaders or not.



-Cody F.

[Chris333]

As interesting as the info on different foam types is, there is a lot of hot air in this thread- and not the kind used to extrude foam boards 

But seriously if you are at the store buying a sheet of pink foam get the 250 instead of the 150. The 250 is much better.

[OldEastRR]

I started this topic because I wanted to learn about the type of bench work that people on this forum use under extruded polystyrene foam.

Obviously there  are lots of ways to support a foam-based layout. For stability you couldn't go wrong with 2x4 framing and 8x8 timbers for legs. Would a completely foam-component framework (except for the legs) be sturdy enough? I don't know if anybody's tried that. And there are other experiments with foam and lightweight materials yet to be done. Will nanocarbon fibers be part of model railroad construction someday? For your purposes, roger, right now it's more like foam is considered a replacement for the plywood sheet (and Homasote) that was part of the traditional wooden construction layout. Foam L-girders? Foam bracing? Foam fascia?  It's a developing concept, and I think more new ideas about using it are still to come.