Printing track plans 1:1

[Capt. Grimek]

I had mine printed at a blueprint printing outfit-from a hand drawn plan. So far I'm really glad I did this! It was rather expensive though about $80 on 36" wide rolls 17' long. I'm still trying to decide whether or not to simply glue it to the plywood and lay track and ballast directly over it or to use a ponce wheel. It's tempting to use as is (glued down and painted over) as there is a tremendous amount of info. on the sheets. Building footprints, switch sizes, grading start points, aisle cutouts, etc. I am concerned about track/ballast having lifting issues later although I keep getting conflicting reports about whether or not that is an issue... I could use more feedback about that. Anyway, it's up on the plywood table tops (future cookie cutter) and I'm in the process of getting the entryway/doorway/lift-bridge area marked and cut out.

[jjbmish]

I drew my layout up in autocad then plotted it out full size on 30" x 5'-0" long sheets.  It helps that I work in an Engineering office and have access to a plotter.  But it worked out great.

 

John

[rrinker]

 I went through the effort of  printing out the entire 8x12 layout in full size and piecing together the pages with the registration lines. It took an awfully long time to get it all lines up on the table surfaces. Then I used a pounce wheel to transfer the outlines, removed the paper (now a big pile of scrap) and marked the pinpricks from the pounce wheen with a sharpie.

 After I was done with all this, I said, never again. Maybe for small specific areas where alignment is super critical. Otherwise, my use of actually drawing the plan is to make sure what I want till fit. If the track ends up shifted a half inch this way or that from the exact super-precise plan, I'm not goign to worry about it.

                              --Randy

[rxanand]

Thanks for the suggestions. Like Ryan, I have printed out plans on 8 1/2 x 11 sheets and taped them together. The problem is that errors start adding up over long distances. By the time you have taped say a dozen sheets together, things are no longer in stright lines. Thats why I was wondering whether its possible to print on larger sheets. I will definitely try to take my DXF files to a professional printer for my next layout.

[Dave'sRailroad123]

I forgot the most important hint - - Almost any architect or engineer has a roll of drawing paper that is old or not what he normally uses.  My bet and experience is they will print your files  for the cost of the paper plus a little thanks!

[Dave'sRailroad123]

I have done exactly what you are asking and it worked out well.  A bit awkward but I cut out the track plan 3 inches each side of the centerline, laid the cutouts on plywood and transfered the centerline with a pizza cutter I dremeled sharp teeth into. (found out later that device is called a "ponce") Do relatively short (4 to 6 feet at the most) cutouts and be sure you mark your cut points.  Then you can adjust your cutout patterns on the plywood so waste pieces are minimized.  How wide to mark your sabre saw lines?  Well I "ponced"  the centerline on the plywood, ran over the "ponce" line with a black sharpy, then marked a 3 inch block of wood with a centermark and holding a pencil at the side of the block traced along the centerline.  In doing the subbase there were splices, of course.  These were then done with another piece of plywood glued and drywall screwed across the bottom of the splice.   My 14 by 20 layout is L Girder and the track base was easily graded using pedestals and adjusting grades with a level which is probably covered in another thread.

[SilverSpike]

I wish that I had access to plotters that print in the large rolled sheets. I have only printed my 1:1 output for  3rd PlanIt track plans on 8 1/2" X 11" sheets with ruled lines to match them up and tape together.

My understanding is that you can take your track plan files to print shops such as Kinkos, Sir Speedy, Office Depot or Staples and they may be able to print your plan out on the large rolled paper similar to what you mentioned in your question. You many want to call your local print shop to find out what file formats they support and then you could take your files loaded on thumb drive for them to upload and print using their software and plotters.

[rxanand]

I have been using 3rd Planit for some time now but only recently discovered that the program can export track plans in the DXF format that is used by Autocad. Apparently, there are print shops that can print or plot DXF files on large sheets of paper like the ones used by Architects. Has anyone tried to do this with 3rd Planit files? How did it work out?