EZ Track Noise

[Irbricksceo]

Hey all, in a few days (once the shipment comes) I'll be laying the track for my layout finally. Having finally gathered enough cash to get the rest of it (college is a large money suck). Since I already had a lot of it and, while it isn't the prettiest, it looks alright to me once ballasted, I decided to just go ahead and finish it with eztrack rather than replace the 250+ dollars I already had acquired over the past two years.

Naturally I'm pretty excited however as its going down for good this time, I need to get it right. I had an Idea to help with the noise created by the empty space under ez track and I wanted to run it by you guys, see if you thought it would work. My idea is to fill in a bunch of the open space under the track with Foam Backing rod (also called Foam Caulk Saver). Its a foam cylindrical material, comes in 20 feet lengths and is about 3/8 inch thick, compresses nicely though. I've used it with great success to deaden the noise in modified nerf guns which are notoriously loud and I thought it might work well Here. I've about 40 feet of the stuff and its rather cheap (about 4 bucks a roll) so I figured I'd use two rows of it under the track on the main loops and the remnants on the sidings. Think it will work?

I've been looking forwards to finally getting a setup for quite a while so here's to the first step! now I just have to start saving up for scenery!

[jbrock27]

What if you put the EZ track on top of foam board?  Is your plan to have the EZ track right on top of wood?  Didn't Saved1 employ some sort of sound deadening material?
I always found keg parties to be a drain on the college wallet

[Doneldon]

I always found keg parties to be a drain on the college wallet

Jim-

True, but you learn so much!

                                    -- D

[jbrock27]

Ya sure do!

[Irbricksceo]

The track will be laid on a piece of 2 inch extruded insulation foam. This will indeed be a noise damper however i have some concerns that the noise will still be pretty high, one of the disadvantages of this type of track compared to flex on cork bed. (Though nowhere near what it is now, where I have it on plain plywood, its ridiculous)

Its funny how many things can be a drain on the wallet ain't it? Real life has a tendency to impede my ability to buy whatever I want.

[Terry Toenges]

For sound dampening, I have good luck using rubberized shelf liner (the kind with the little holes in it). It comes in a variety of colors.

[electrical whiz kid]

Two suggestions come to mind:  One is to use the 1-inch Styrofoam with a plywood backing.
The other is to use a material I looked at (and may still use) that is used under the "click-floor" system.  It is stable, consistent, and not all that bad on the wallet; especially if you know someone who has some left over material from a floor job.  Use this on top of the foam; it will deaden the sound pretty well.
SGT C.

[Irbricksceo]

hmm.. I'll see if i can find some scraps to test those ideas. I'm not gluing anything down just yet, want to make sure everything will fit where I want it and that, when it eventually exits, scenery will fit so I'm doing a lot of testing and measuring for now.

[Irbricksceo]

Also, even if nothing ends up really working to get the noise down, its already better resting on the foam than it was on the board. Now I need to solder feeders eventually.. the uneven power distribution is gonna bite me in the tuchus if I don't!

[Saved1]

E-Z track is noisy when placed on wood even on top of styrofoam and if you use metal wheel sets the noise is greater but the sound can be deadened some what to a manageable level. You can try some of the things you mentioned plus what has already been mentioned.

here's how i did mine and it cut the noise down considerably (90%) I used 3/16 inch thick cork in the middle of the empty section of the track and then added some 3/16 inch weathering stripping to fix the rest of the void like this,





then i rested the track on top of some S gauge 1/4 inch foam i got from an outside source (if you want the outside source pm me and i will be more then happy to give you the info)

by all means do try different materials and find which one works best for your needs

[Len]

Having about half a 25lb bag of plaster left over from a project, I just fill the void under the track with plaster and smooth it off with a plastic spackle spreader. Let it set up overnight, and way less noise in use.

Len