i noticed that nobody mentioned scarm ....
it used to be free and now there is charge for it ..
i used it to do mine, mostly atlas code 100 HO track ..
It was heavily under development at the time of this 2 year old thread, and not really ready for prime time. The closest newest software mentioned here is probably XTrackCAD, and even that had been around for a while. Many of the others - way longer. The first layout I designed with 3rd PlanIt would be close to 20 years ago now.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Captain_Bill12Just curious since you own both cadrail and 3rdplanit can you tell me if 3rdplanit supports tracing over a photo like cadrail does?
Inserting a image in CADRail is new in Version 10, but I have not tried it in that program. Note that the utility of drawing over an inserted image in either program may be limited in other ways -- it's often difficult or impossible to exactly match a published track plan, for example (usually due to many published speculative plans being unbuildable as drawn without handlaid-to-fit turnouts, etc.).
Copying prototype track arrangements from a scale map is also not typically helpful as they cover so much more area than we can devote in the model. So the practicality depends on what you’d like to do.
Byron
Layout Design GalleryLayout Design Special Interest Group