Review of Woodland Scenics Foam Road Bed

By Mark J. Redmond

One of the things I was contemplating as I started building my latest layout was did I want to use Woodland Scenics foam roadbed or not. I have done layouts with cord roadbed and without. After some discussion with a local hobby shop and Matt Furze I decided why not try it and do a review.

Well, here it is.

When it comes to laying roadbed there are only a few choices. Cork roadbed, Woodland Scenics foam roadbed, modular track with the roadbed already attached or no roadbed.
Cork roadbed has been around for a very long time. It is tried and true, and recently manufactures have added cork roadbed already formed for turnouts and crossovers.
The modular track with roadbed is made by Kato and Atlas. Great because no extra work to add roadbed, beginners will like it, but not so good as it only comes in specific lengths and radii. Modular track does not offer flex track and lowering of sidings to ground level must be done by raising the ground level. No roadbed is good only for sidings as your layout will loose the realistic look of raised track. I did it once and did not like the look.

The foam roadbed comes in different ways. You can by a 24 foot roll, a 12 pack of 2 foot strips, 36 pack of 2 foot strips 5 inches wide or a 12 inch by 24 inch sheet. I chose the 24 foot roll. Thought that was the best way to buy as I was not restricted to 2 foot lengths limiting the number of cuts I had to make. The roadbed is soft and easy to use. The roadbed is very lightweight and there is smooth finish to the top and bottom. There is a cut down the center of the roadbed so it can be separated to lay curves.
I used standard white glue to secure the roadbed to my sound board layout base. You could use wood glue or low temp hot glue but I am not sure if it will melt the foam. Just as with cork roadbed you will need to use track nails to secure the roadbed around curves and when you get to the end of the roll. After it is glued down I used books or flat weights to help the glue adhere better.

I felt having to not split the roadbed saved time and effort when doing the straight sections of track. After I laid my roadbed I realized you can also do curves without splitting the roadbed. This means you can do a 24 foot roadbed run without cutting or having the ends be at different lengths. You do have to use extra nails to keep it flat and I would strongly recommend having something flat on the roadbed to keep it flat.
When doing my curve I did chose to split the roadbed. When I build the upper lever of my layout I do not think I will split it. Splitting the roadbed is a bit harder than cork. With cork you bend then tear without worry. With foam roadbed you need to carefully tear it apart in short lengths. The nature of the foam does not lend itself to easy splitting.
I found the foam roadbed very easy to use. It glues down well. Also using the foam with white glue, I found that it is very forgiving if you make a mistake. On my bridge section I found that I was off about 1/4 inch and roadbed did not cleanly match up. Ballasting would not hide this as this was at my lift out section and I was not planning to ballast that part of the layout. So I went to lift the roadbed to fix it and to my delight the foam did not rip apart like cork would have. It came up very easily in 1 piece. I just re-glued and laid the roadbed like new.
I decided to try this on bare wood and blue insulation foam. After gluing down the roadbed I left if overnight before I tested. On the wood I put 2 pieces of roadbed down. 1 just laid flat, the other I put a book on top to weight the foam down. Both lifted with ease. The roadbed that was weighted did leave some foam residue but that could be easily sanded or scraped off and if you we just relaying the roadbed would not be an issue.
The blue insulating foam was a bit of a different story. It wasn't that it would not lift easily is was that the white glue was still wet! My guess is that the sealing properties of the foam roadbed and insulating foam did not allow air to get in and dry the glue. It took about 2 days for the glue to dry but it did lift off easily. If you use foam roadbed on insulating foam you might try rubber cement. I did not have any to try it.
As I mentioned doing the main line with the foam roadbed was easy. Next came the turnouts and sidings.
Doing turnouts is can be done 2 ways. You can purchase the 5 inch wide sections and cut out the shape you want or you can use the roadbed and cut it to shape out the turnout. Woodland Scenics does not offer pre-made sections for turnouts. I used the roadbed I had from the 24 foot roll as that is what I did when I used cork, cut the roadbed at the angle I wanted and glued it down. Again this was easy to do. All I needed to cut the roadbed was a good pair of scissors. My next task was to get my track from the roadbed to the sound board. I chose to have my non-mainline track at ground level. This posed a problem. Woodland Scenics does not make any kind of foam roadbed piece that will do this. Note, there is no cork roadbed piece for this situation either. An e-mail to them did get a quick reply but not the answer I had hoped for. Their response was, "We tend to build up from the lowest level so we would put our yard in first and then use a Incline Starter piece (probably 2% grade part number ST1410) or a 2% Incline Set if desired, to show a rise out of the yard area." I was hoping they had a part not listed on their web site. I did use their suggestion, as I happen to have a defective 4% riser kit so I had the part in hand and it does work. You just have to trim off the excess on either side of the track. However to do this you have to buy a kit of 8 inclines and there is a bunch of waste as you only need about 4 - 8 inches of the incline to get to the roadbed height.
I decided to cut the foam roadbed to suit my needs. A hot foam wire cutter might do a good job but I do not have one. I used scissors and a carving knife. Neither made very pretty cuts and my inclines were steep but not too unrealistic. They did work. After you ballast you will hide the roadbed. It was best to glue down the roadbed then do your cutting. This could be done on a piece of wood then pulled off and put in place.

Here I used the foam roadbed to get to my ground level sidings. You can see the problem of using a knife but it worked.

Here I used Woodland Scenics incline, 4% to get to ground level.

Here it is after I trimmed it to fit nicer.

One area cork roadbed does out shine the foam roadbed is using it for manual switches. My layout, being a switching layout, will use hand throw switches. Here is were the foam roadbed can give you problems. Because of it's soft pliable nature when you use it to get your hand throw to the track height the nails can press the hand throw down and cause the hand throw to not seat properly. Of the 5 switches on my lower level mainline, I had only 1 that had this issue. It is something to remember.
A couple of other benefits are in noise reduction and life of the roadbed.
When I ran my trains the noise difference from track on the sound board and the track on the roadbed was very noticeable. The life of the foam roadbed should also last longer than cork. Cork tends to dry out and break up over time. With the foam roadbed, as long as you don't keep it in an un-air conditioned room during an Arizona summer it should last many many years.

Cost different is about $.06 a foot. A 24 foot roll of foam roadbed costs $9.49 equalling $.40/ft while a 3 foot section of cork roadbed is $1.39 or $.46/ft.

Overall results.

Pros 1.Comes in a 24 foot continuous roll. 2. Do not have to split the roadbed to do curves. 3. Very forgiving if you mislay the roadbed. (Easy to lift and relay.)

Cons 1. No ramp piece for doing sidings at ground level. (Cork does not offer this either.) 2. Have to be careful when using roadbed for hand throw switch bases.

I was very pleased with my results and would recommend this product.
Overall rating would be an 8.

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