  We report a comparative study of rigid layer Raman-active modes in $N$-layer
transition metal dichalcogenides. Trigonal prismatic (2Hc, such as MoSe$_2$,
MoTe$_2$, WS$_2$, WSe$_2$) and distorted octahedral (1T', such as ReS$_2$ and
ReSe$_2$) phases are considered. The Raman-active in-plane interlayer shear
modes and out-of-plane interlayer breathing modes appear as well-defined
features with wavenumbers in the range 0-40~cm$^{-1}$. These rigid layer modes
are well-described by an elementary linear chain model from which the
interlayer force constants are readily extracted. Remarkably, these force
constants are all found to be of the same order of magnitude. Finally, we show
that the prominent interlayer shear and breathing mode features allow
high-precision hyperspectral Raman imaging of $N-$layer domains within a given
transition metal dichalcogenide flake.
