The Necessity of Roadbed with Model Railroads

In one of my earlier attempts at building a model railroad I chose not to put down roadbed and tack the track directly to the board. I came to learn quickly that this was foolish and unprototypical. My reasons for doing such a thing, of course, were convenience. I did not like how the raised plastic roadbed was so high up and wanted it closer to the ground, however, I did not want to spend the time and money laying separate roadbed. In the end it turned out to be worth it for a person of my skill level to just accept the necessity of utilizing plastic roadbed like Atlas's Tru-Track or Bachmann's EZ Track on my first try. Of course, what I did applies that universal wisdom in model railroading, which is that you will not build the greatest layout of all time on your first try.

So what happened? Well, first of all, Atlas's Tru-Track comes with plastic roadbed and "regular" track imbedded in the middle. I removed the regular track from the roadbed and nailed it down, in holes in the ties which you will see on most model railroad track. I ended up losing all that track when I failed, since it is impossible to rip up regular track without losing it (whereas it works with embedded track). Oh, and btw, I actually recommend Atlas's Tru-Track over Bachmann's simply because it can come out of the bed whereas EZ track cannot, but that is neither here nor there.

Anyway, the problems I ran into were smoothness and prototypicality, or lack thereof. You see, roadbed has a way of deadening the sound of the trains running over the track and plywood/styrofoam (which I also foolishly chose not to put down, to be covered in another article) it has a rattling sound that sounds unrealistic and toyish. The roadbed is designed to deaden the sound. Also note that virtually all track is raised to some extent. Now I did not want the roadbed because Atlas's Tru-Track (and Bachmann's) is raised to the same level as mainline track, whereas most tracks are not raised nearly as high. However, I found out later that this small sacrifice in prototypicality does not justify going to the other end, where the sacrifice is even worse. The track can be a bit higher than it ought to instead of right on the ground, which looks downright bad once you get it set up. And then again there's the problem, you can't preview until you set up.

Now, the only modeler who pulled my minimalist approach off well is the famous Dave Barrow. I saw it in a model railroading periodical a few years ago. He did all he could to minimize everything and focus purely on the trains and switching. He took out all roadbed and styrofoam, however, he did not have a knotty piece of plywood like I did and I did not take it into account. I also failed to take into account that mine is loop whereas his was a switching railroad. Now on a switching layout I can see doing as he did in the name of practicality, but on a mainline, even a small loop, I cannot. I am today firmly in the pro-roadbed camp.

Now there is more than one type of roadbed. The three most common ones I have seen have been cork, homasote, and the plastic roadbed that comes with beginner's track. Cork is simply ground up cork put into sheets. It's a little bit easier to lay down than homasote, so they say (I've never tried it) but not as absorbing of sound. Homasote itself is a unique material and is a bit softer than cork, and is generally said to be the "best" style among modellers, for its absorbance of sound and for its realistic height. I'm not sure what homasote is used for outside of railroading, but I do know it is something (since it did not originate with model railroaders). I've also heard it described as one of the harder ones to put down as it involves actual cutting and fitting (but then again so does cork).

Now we come to my recommendation for beginners. The plastic roadbed that comes with track embedded in it is often derided as "beginners" material and yes, it certainly is. However, it is so much easier to work around. One of the key rules in model railroading has to be that you start small, at your skill level and work up. This type of track, which is actually fairly new in model railroading (at least relatively, being an invention of the past decade or so) is the best bet if you are new. As I said, I recommend the Atlas version because you can actually take out the track from the roadbed for more advanced use. Ballasting the roadbed itself is a separate issue which I will probably cover in a later article.