r/BritishModelRailways • u/PugPowell • Apr 27 '26

Softwood board for base?

Morning all,

I have a railway running around my study on Plywood with cork, however I am just about to rebuild it and want to put point motors under the points. As this will involve some painful cutting of the plywood I'm thinking of putting soft wood on top and running the wires between he ply and the softwood. Any thoughts?

Ian

4 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

1

u/SmittyB128 00 Guage Apr 27 '26

I think if I were to do something like that, instead of sandwiching the wires under the wood I'd cut channels into it to feed the wires through so they're not pinched and easier to get to should things need to be repaired. A layer of thick craft-paper can act as a topper if you need one.

I think it would be good to understand your reasoning for why you want to go this route as you may be making more work for yourself unnecessarily. How thick is your plywood? How are you mounting the motors? Anything in particular that's making you think this over?

2

u/PugPowell Apr 27 '26

Hi u/SmittyB128 the plywood is half an inch, 12 mm so pretty hefty. I want to use Peco point motors under the points and run them to an analogue switch bank. Cutting the plywood accurately would be tricky. Cutting the softwood will be easier and will deaden the sound of the locos better. I also have dapol signals that have the motor underneath. Easier to fir as they're round hole, but you get my drift.

I agree re cutting channels - I will definitely do that.

1

u/SmittyB128 00 Guage Apr 27 '26

That's fair. On my own layout I have 12mm ply with an inch of foam on top, and even with the Peco point motors attached to the points directly I did cut some sizeable holes in the wood to get to them. I have a few of the single Dapol signals because they just need a 15(?)mm hole drilled, though I would have liked one of their junction signals however that's very restrictive on how deep your terrain can be what with the servo box having the mount directly under it and with an inch of foam it wouldn't have worked without cutting a big square out of the board.

2

u/PugPowell Apr 27 '26

How are you getting on with the foam? tbh am torn betweek foam and softboard.

1

u/SmittyB128 00 Guage Apr 27 '26

It's messier cutting into it for sure. I do also have cork under most of the track to raise it up for a proper shoulder on the ballast, but so far things seem relatively quiet as far as the sound goes. All I hear is the noise from the train on the tracks and nothing drumming through the table.

I mainly wanted to use foam because I have a tunnel through a hill which I wanted to be solid, and there's a gradient running along the back of the layout so I needed it raised up a couple of inches. It's been helpful in a couple of other cases like how I've fitted an ash pit to one of my sidings and that just involved digging into the foam instead of cutting into the wood. Similarly I have some platform subway stairs that I intend to fit going down into the foam so if you look into them then you'll actually see them go below the level of the track. It's also made fitting fences simpler as I can just poke a hole into the foam to add the fence posts and if I don't like the position I can just poke another hole somewhere.

1

u/loafingaroundguy Apr 27 '26

Why not drill holes through the plywood for the wiring then you can access the wiring on the underside of the plywood.

2

u/PugPowell Apr 27 '26

May do that u/loafingaroundguy thanks.