Here at Leviathan Hall, we like Ticket to Ride and play exclusively with the 1910 expansion. We have never even opened the smaller cards that came with the base game.
I have been considering making a new box insert that would hold the expansion inside the regular game box for quite a while. My original intention was to make something from thin oak or something along those lines. In doing a little research, I realized that lots and lots of folks use foam core for custom inserts of all types.
I decided to give foamcore a try. At worst case, I would have a prototype for a later wood version.
There is a pretty active Reddit forum on foamcore, with lots of examples and tips. One of the pinned recommendations is to check out Esoteric Order of Gamers YouTube tutorials. These are pretty good starting points.
One of the best tips for me was not to overthink getting started. No real need to meticulously plan how the insert should be. Just use the box and arrange the components until the right combination reveals itself.
Foamcore goes together really quickly once the initial layout is decided. I built the outside walls and bottom first. The inside dividers came next, starting with the train compartments on the right side and just building out what I needed as I moved along.
The only place I tried to get a little clever was with the expansion cards. I added layers of foam core to the bottom that are a little narrower than the card compartments. This should make it easier to scoop the decks out of their slots. This is a shot of me working on getting the right height for my card base before final gluing. This is also the shot that best shows that the interior dividers are shorter than the outside border, to allow the game board to sit flush with the box top.
My final product came out just a little different than my initial layout. As I was building the compartments, it just flowed along nicely with the small changes in the layout suggesting themselves.
All in all, the outcome is acceptable, especially if I tell myself this is just a working prototype. Functionally, this thing is exactly what I wanted. Aesthetically, my cuts did not end up being as square as I would like them, some of my edges are slightly beveled. I also have some glue spots that show up.
This is a completely serviceable insert until I get an itch to make a version 2 in wood with removable trays for the trains, etc. Based on the timeline from when I originally thought about making a custom insert for this game until making foamcore version 1, there is solid 5 years before anything will happen.