Has anyone ever tried plank flooring for the restoration of a coach or interurban? Some in the group I'm with want to install it in our 100 year old interurban. I'm dead against it not only because of it's modern look, but it floats on the surface and is not fastened. With the movement of a car and temperature changes from summer to winter (I'm in Canada) I'm concerned it might buckle a bit. Opinions?

Railroad carbuilders were careful to eliminate anything that could rattle when the car is underway. Examples include:

- Interior veneered panels were screwed down onto felt anti-rattle strips.

- Window sash latches ("pinch latches"). The better designs have locking bars with wedge-tapered ends, to force the moveable sash outwards against the rub rails.

Therefore I'd avoid a floating floor. It will probably "drum" when the car is in motion.

- Doug Debs
Niles Canyon Railway volunteer

If this is a coach, that means that there will be seat frames screwed to the floor through the vinyl plank. I would be afraid that through the long cold winter the plank will contract enough to unlock the joints, and the whole job will have to be redone. What is the existing wear surface, and is it worn hollow under the seats?

Exactly what my concern was!
It's a brand new tongue and groove 1 1/2" wood plank floor on the car now. The original was totally shot. We fully expect to install a 1/4" sub floor on top no matter what type of flooring we use.

You don't mean that vinyl plank flooring from the big-box store, do you?

That stuff is an engineered product that is only designed to work in homes. It requires the substrate be practically perfect to the spec, and it fails quite ugly when it is not. I am sure you've seen vinyl flooring that has failed. The installer expected the material to bridge across minor defects in the substrate, and it really sucks at that actually.

Check with the factory but I am quite sure they will not approve a surface which actively flexes at every track joint, which coaches do. That will cause slide-past at the interlocking edges, which are just not made for movement.

The other issue is flammability. Give the stuff a good flame test. Increasingly flammable and toxic-when-burnt materials have crept into building construction in the last 40 years, the result is that when you once had 15 minutes to escape a house fire, you now have closer to 3. The toxins then hinder escape by attacking brain function.

For your 1/4” layer you might consider rolled rubber or similar material intended for transit vehicles. Possibly commercial carpet in the aisles.

Yes I do. It was definitely not my idea.

Several years ago, I helped demo the old floor in a coach and repair the rusted out sections of the floor pan. But, we had a home remodeler build the subfloor and install the engineered flooring. I can't remember what type of flooring it was. Within a year the flooring started to curl up. My concerns were the water and snow that was tracked in and the temperature extremes. On Santa trains, we had a propane furnace that heated the car up fairly quickly, and then the car set overnight and got cold again. In the summertime the car can get pretty hot while being shut up during the week.

Tom Hamilton

Oh boy. If you’re forced into vinyl plank flooring, I’d suggest a high grade, i.e. expensive, commercial grade LVT. It glues down with a contact rubber cement so it can also be fussy to lay. I wouldn’t use the interlocking stuff due to temperature concerns as mentioned above. Be forewarned that impact resistance to anything with an edge to it leaves much to be desired, at least in my personal experience with a particular brand so get samples and drop stuff on it as a test. Same with having a piece of stone stuck in your boot - you’ll cut the wear layer. I’ve come to hate it. Your substrate has to be smooth, like luan glued down, with the joints filled with leveling compound and sanded smooth. Imperfections in the substrate will transmit through.

All that said, I wouldn’t use it. Nope.

Are there any regulations that might apply that could be mentioned to dissuade the idea?

Not really, as it sounds like it will be more of a maintenance headache than anything else. If the vehicle is being used regularly for hauling customers and from a fire/life/safety point of view, using materials that have some kind of acceptable rating that would meet test performance criteria for flammability and smoke emission characteristics would be a good idea. The proposed product should already have something like that, so not sure if it would help.

As a reference for flammable testing standards, see: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/s ... Part%20238. Probably more information than you really want.

MDR

OK, the interurban is 100 years old and you are restoring it? Obviously, replicating the original material is not only historically appropriate but probably will last long as the original did..... why not use what has worked well during its historic operating life? BTW, I immediately refuse to even consider buying a home which has been flipped with that lousy laminate plank overlay flooring in it when simply refinishing the old T&G floor underneath would work better and last longer. Go with the real thing and save yourselves a lot of trouble down the line. BTW, subfloors don't go on top, they go underneath.

I totally agree with you.
You didn't read carefully what I said about the subfloor. I said the subfloor is to go on top of the new 1 1/2" planking. The finished floor, what ever is used, would go on top of the 1/4" subfloor.

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Thanks Kelly, but I think you misunderstood what I meant also. We ripped out the original floor entirely right down to the metal frame. We then relayed a new wood, 1 1/2" thick, 3" wide tongue and groove (maybe 4") from one side of the car to the other (not end to end), just like the original base floor was. That's where we are at now. There will be a 1/4" plywood sub floor installed on top of that. The final flooring will be on top of that. See the attached photo.

It this is preservation, why would you re-invent the wheel (or floor)... just replace what you found "in kind"... there was likely no plywood, and defiantly no "engineered" material... likely two layers of wood, and as in interurban possibly a linoleum overlay, more likely just paint...