Nails, screws or nothing?

Absolutely!  even at the  switches.

Ed Reutling

Ed's right!

Ditto, what Ed and Flanger have said.  The glued ballast will be more than enough to hold things in place.

So it will be o.k. to take the screws out even at the switches? Great that was the news I was hoping for. Thanks guys.

CofG

"The Right Way"

Even at the switches.  The adjacent track sections will hold the switches in place just fine.

From my experiences, a majority of the noise that is transferred to the benchwork is due to the glued ballast, at least it seems like it on my railroad. My track is hand-laid on wood ties and 3/8" upsom board for the sub-roadbed. On hidden track where there is no ballast, everything is near silent. On the ballasted areas it is much louder. I am attributing this to the white elmers glue that dries very rigid. I have heard that there are alternate adhesives that can be used that cure with more flexibility and thus will not transfer the vibration as well. All the ballast on my layout is complete so I won't be experimenting with anything new until my next layout, but thought this might give you something else to consider.

Tom:

The reason that your track becomes noisy is bcause upsom board is prepared mainly from ground-wood and recycled paper products. The board is highly acidic in nature and can hold petroleum products and metals. Once you saturate the upsom board (very absorbent) with glue it becomes a solid product, therefore NOISY!  The EPA considers the dust from upsom board a health hazard and causes respatory problems, WEAR A MASK ! ! ! Woodland Senics roadbed is the best product that can be used in lowering track noise. It is a extruded polyurethane which is designed for noise reduction. I do not understand why people want to go CHEAP on the most important part of their railroad - -TRACK - -!

George/nw2124   "Progress - either you are for it, or get out the way!"

The publication, How To Build Realistic Reliable Track by Kalmbach Publishing contains the six page article: Quiet Roadbed, Better Train Sounds.  The author evaluates 18 combinations of roadbed configurations and rates them by Overall Effectiveness, High-Pitched Noise, and Low-Pitched Noise.

A very interesting read.

Matt

Matt: Thanks for reminding me of this again. A great source all should check out! Glad you posted this!

George/nw2124   "Progress - either you are for it, or get out the way!"

I find it funny that you assume that I chose upsom board because I'm "CHEAP" when you never bothered to ask why I chose it.

Nature of the beast Tom.

 I had used the Woodland Scenics product on my former 3 rail layout and it was good but the best I found is Flexxbed (Vinylbed)  The new stuff is not as good as the vinylebed but it is very good....http://www.hobbyinnovations.com/

I was thinking of using some stuff like I use in my field of work ( auto mechanic ). It's called strip caulk and it's that tacky stuff we use on the AC on cars. It comes in rolls and and is just slighty narrower than the ties of our track. I thought about glueing it down to the table top, then place the track on top of it and since it's tacky will help hold the track in place until I get the screws in. Then once painting and ballating is done, pull up the screws.

CofG

"The Right Way"

Tom: I apologize! I did not mean your were cheap using upsom board, I was just referring that some modelers do use cheap items where it counts. Sorry Tom!

George/nw2124   "Progress - either you are for it, or get out the way!"