Thank you guys. Finally, I will follow the advice of some of you and use a grid paper and pencil instead.
And I have just received John Armstrong's book "Track planning for realistic operation". I will read what he says in his book.
Stéphan
ROBERT PETRICK dstarr I have used powerful CAD programs at work. The one's powerful enough to be really useful have a very steep learning curve. The freebie ones aren't powerful enough to be worth messing with. I designed my layout with nothing more than squared paper, an architect's scale, a compass, and an eraser. You want to guard against places where you squeeze something in by crunching some track curves down to something rediculous like 7 inches, instead of the 18 inches that is the minimum radius in HO. In fact you want to double check each curve for radius. 18 inches is good for 40 foot freight cars and 4 axle diesels. To run 80 foot passenger cars you want 30 inch curves. You want the John Armstrong book "Track Planning for Realistic Operation". You also want the NMRA recommended practices and standards on curve sharpness and clearances, especially on double track. Very sensible advice. I notice you didn't include 'pencil' in your list of drafting tools. Small oversight, I'm sure, but probably just as well. An eraser is more important than a pencil anyway. Robert
dstarr I have used powerful CAD programs at work. The one's powerful enough to be really useful have a very steep learning curve. The freebie ones aren't powerful enough to be worth messing with. I designed my layout with nothing more than squared paper, an architect's scale, a compass, and an eraser. You want to guard against places where you squeeze something in by crunching some track curves down to something rediculous like 7 inches, instead of the 18 inches that is the minimum radius in HO. In fact you want to double check each curve for radius. 18 inches is good for 40 foot freight cars and 4 axle diesels. To run 80 foot passenger cars you want 30 inch curves. You want the John Armstrong book "Track Planning for Realistic Operation". You also want the NMRA recommended practices and standards on curve sharpness and clearances, especially on double track.
I have used powerful CAD programs at work. The one's powerful enough to be really useful have a very steep learning curve. The freebie ones aren't powerful enough to be worth messing with.
I designed my layout with nothing more than squared paper, an architect's scale, a compass, and an eraser.
You want to guard against places where you squeeze something in by crunching some track curves down to something rediculous like 7 inches, instead of the 18 inches that is the minimum radius in HO. In fact you want to double check each curve for radius. 18 inches is good for 40 foot freight cars and 4 axle diesels. To run 80 foot passenger cars you want 30 inch curves.
You want the John Armstrong book "Track Planning for Realistic Operation". You also want the NMRA recommended practices and standards on curve sharpness and clearances, especially on double track.
Very sensible advice.
I notice you didn't include 'pencil' in your list of drafting tools. Small oversight, I'm sure, but probably just as well. An eraser is more important than a pencil anyway.
Robert
Yes of course. I forgot to list a pencil. Use a #2 (soft) pencil or lead in a mechanical pencil like Pentel. The 0.7mm and 0.5mm mechanical pencils work well. Don't use a ball point pen. Use as big a sheet of paper as you can find. You ought to make two sets of drawing, one showing bench work, how many legs, where they go, how high off the floor, where the wall studs are if you plan to anchor one side to the wall, where the crossmembers go. A second set of drawings to show where the track goes.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
I totally agree with Dave Starr! I’m a long time CAD user, since 1984, and I don’t know how one could use a CAD program on an iPad. CAD programs need large displays. I started out using a 14” monitor and it was cumbersome at best. I find it awkward on anything smaller than 20”. The bigger the screen the better.You would spend more time zooming in and out using an iPad than actually drawing, possibly adding as much as 10X to the time (or more) as using a larger display. Mel My Model Railroad http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/ Bakersfield, California I'm beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.
I just wanted a track plan of my switching layout and found this program:
Simple Computer Aided Railway Modeller: https://www.scarm.info/index.php
There is a learning curve but it wasn't too bad and actually kind of fun.
For a really basic track plan that I print out for mounting turnout route control buttons: http://www.4dbrix.com/
The degree of perfection you want is up to you.
Roger
Didn't Model Railroader receive and respond to a similar question within the last year or so - someone wanted to know what computer layout design program they use because they wanted a layout drawing as attractive as the layouts shown in MR, Great Model Railroads, and Model Railroad Planning. I think their answer was that the beautiful layout artwork is just that - art work using artwork programs not layout design programs. I know for a fact that often their staff artists work from a hand drawn layout plan, with copious notes by the article author or layout owner or both, as well as the photographs, and no layout design program output is involved at all.
Stated another way, with a good computer layout design program output, if you printed out the pages full size you could in theory use those drawings to actually lay the track and build the benchwork. If you tried to do the same thing with a Model Railroader track plan drawing, I think you'd have to interpret and change and modify things, perhaps a great deal.
Sometimes, not often, but sometimes if you compare the photographs, or have been to the layout yourself in person, you can see that the MR staff artist misunderstood or misinterpreted what they saw or were told on the drawing they got. I also sometimes wonder about the "scale" of some of their drawings because the drawings include overhead versions of humans (including past and present MR staffers) and those drawings have made the aisles look very very spacious on layouts where I know the aisles are anything but.
So to the OP I guess I would say if you want to replicate for your layout what MR does in the magazine, start with the best and most accurate possible drawing of your track plan, with clear information about elevations and hidden trackage etc, and then search out a good artwork program that enables you do draw a disciplined version of the track plan to a consistent scale (that is, good straight lines and plausible curves, and building footprints of the right size) and add in the scenery, roads, and such either as your own art or from a library of images. I thought MR named the art program their stuff uses most. I bet their artists work off a library of images and features that they and their colleagues have created over the years.
Dave Nelson
LINK to SNSR Blog
A pessimist sees a dark tunnel
An optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel
A realist sees a frieght train
An engineer sees three idiots standing on the tracks stairing blankly in space
And what about an iPad app to design my layout? Do you know any? Do you know the one model railroader are using?
Video editing software . . . Filmora 9. Works great and if you're not fussy about watermark, free. Otherwise not too expensive for a lifetime licence.
Funny you should ask that. I was going to post a similar question about that software for apple compatable as well. That and video editing software.
So there is two of the same question for the tech gurus here
Shane
Hi there.
I would like to know if there is a program I can use on my iPad to plan my layout. I see beautiful plans on ModelRailroaders magazine and I would like to know if I could use this program
Thanks for your help!