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Having problems designing my railroad
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I'm presently working on a movable shelf style switching layout. Its 8 feet by 14 inches cut in half to make two 4 feet sections. When drawing out the plan for this i initally just sketched some ideas on graph paper. Once i had a rough idea i drew a scaled grid on the computer and then printed it out so i could use that. It was probably not the easiest or simplest way of doing it but it meant i had blank white paper that was easy to draw on with a lead pencil. I had the foot lines as solid black with lighter lines every 6 inches and finally dotted lines marking every inch. It was easy to draw it up as a table in MS Word. Once done you can print out as many copies as you want, and rubbing out the lead lines doesnt rub out the printed lines. You can choose to scale it any size you like so you can easily use the templates ndbprr mentioned. <br /> <br />So anyway, once i had decided on a particular design i transferred it to large pieces of card in full 1:1 scale. I think most people you talk to would recommend that you do this. I certainly helped me refine my plan. You can use spare/scrap/unused pieces of flex track to check track spacing and check clearances for cars. In my experience this is probably the single greatest benefit of doing a full scale drawing. Another thing i did was spread out the full size plan on the kitchen bench (or a part of it at a time for a large plan) and then you get a rough idea of what it will look like when built. You can see how far you have to reach and what the track spacings look like and flow of the track and how buildings will fit in etc. Once finished with that i then used the full scale drawing as a template for cutting out the roadbed and also as a guide for building turnouts (since i built my own). <br /> <br />My last tip is that for both plans, whether its the scaled down version or the full scale mock up make sure you have a template that is an accurate representation of the footprints of the buildings you plan to use. This is especially important for buildings that are close to the tracks or where a track runs into a building. It was critical for me because on my plan i have one of the Walthers backdrop buildings with a track running into it. Using the template ensured that i laid the track the correct distance away from the backdrop to fit the building in where it was meant to go with the rail track going straight into the door just like it was supposed to with perfect clearances. Doing it during the planning stage saves much time and frustration later when you realise you buildings are bigger than you thought they were. <br /> <br />Thats pretty much all i have to offer so good luck with it no matter which method eventually works for you.
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