Rethinking the Baseboard

I've built my railroad on a special purpose table built in my basement. Unfortunately with all this rain the plywood I have been using has warped and I can see bulges and swellings all over the place.

I considered using Foamcore board but it is very expensive and, lo and behold, it warps as well. Check this out:

That's 5mm foamcore. Of course the thicker foamcore uses less card vs foam so it is far less inclined to warp. However, it's expensive - about $13/A2 sheet.

So I'm left with heavier plywood or...how about just plain polystyrene sheets?

I noted some on eBay for $15 each but of enormous dimension - 2400 X 1200 X 25mm.

Yes, 2 of these will just about do it. One for the baseboard and one for the scenery, ramps etc.

A short video of my old tank engine on the layout

Looping around the innner track from the station and then up and crossing over to the middle track.

Coming in to the station.

A very quick update - protoype layout ready!!

Some track is now concealed behind the rams on the inner track.

For those of you who helped by reviewing my track plans, notice I have included extra points to allow both entry and exit from the outer loop.

An HDR photo of my Fleischmann tank engine near the station in the middle of the layout.

Baseboard Basics

Just a quick post showing the baseboard under construction. I've built 2 frames - one 1200 x 600 and the other 800 x 1400. It's basic 19mmx75mm timber construction with a few reinforcements here and there. Some  nice cutting and chisel work too!

The plywood sheets are 3mm thick and come standard in 800 x 1200 which is convenient. Note that they are not always square though! I could not be bothered straightening them - most likely I'd make them worse anyway.

I've joined the 2 parts of the L together so that they can be separated easily enough later for transport. I plan on investing heavily here and want to hang onto this if we move again.

I'll be putting some coach bolts in here tomorrow with wing nuts. These sections are screwed together for now.

Just added a little 200 x 800 plywood piece to the larger baseboard as a separate item to allow both boards to be separable (above).

And below is a picture of my desk with various bits of train and electronic detritus liberally polluting it. All the Arduino software is working, of coures, and the test layout is running smoothly.