New Floors for the S&C

The operators at Oakdale will find switching a bit more comfortable with the new flooring.

One of the things I had been meaning to do for quite some time was to provide a comfortable flooring for the railroad room. With the layout in the basement, the floor is concrete which is a bit harder on the feet than a wood floor. My first choice of flooring was carpet, specifically carpet squares. With their built-in padding, they can be quite comfortable. The best part is that they could be temporarily removed when working on the railroad. The bad part is that the cost would be in the thousands of dollars so I have just lived with plain concrete for several years. This weekend, I received a flyer from Harbor Freight and found that their foam rubber matting was on sale. It comes in two-foot squares which can be locked together. To make a long story short, I came out of the Harbor Freight store with a bunch of tiles and installed them in the aisles. the total cost was in the low hundreds of dollars instead of thousands. The tiles don't cover all of the floor but they do provide a much more comfortable walking surface that the concrete.

Although plain concrete remains in places, it is under the railroad rather that at the walking surfaces.

The really big downside to the mats is, fortunately, only temporary. In all the kneeling down and getting up, I found muscles that obviously haven't been used very much. I may be walking funny for a couple of days but it is worth it to finally get a floor down.