Good day
I am in the process of planning one of my retirement projects. I have two plans the john Flynn Clark fork and the Dave borrows modified cat mountain from the 96 planner issue. Both are less than 300square-foot. I like to rearrange the modules. I have both layouts in PDF. Any suggestions on a software that can copy and paste to make new layout template.
conrailranI have two plans the john Flynn Clark fork and the Dave borrows modified cat mountain from the 96 planner issue. Both are less than 300square-foot. I like to rearrange the modules. I have both layouts in PDF. Any suggestions on a software that can copy and paste to make new layout template.
Most folks use the phrase "track plan" where you are using the word "template." I may be the only one who was confused.
A simple cut-and-paste may not be the best approach to a satisfying layout that makes best use of your space, however. Those two layouts were designed to operate independently, so there is some overlap in function. If you have enough space to build both, a different design optimized for the space and your interests would be more efficient (and probably more fun). The two authors have different philosophies and different modeling goals. And there’s nothing magical about a published plan, especially one that was never built.
From a practical standpoint, these two track plans were designed to use different turnouts, so unless you plan to use two different brands of turnouts for the two parts of the design, you would need to re-design anyway. Turnouts from different manufacturers vary quite a bit -- and the PECO turnouts John Flann used (Great Model Railroads 2000) are especially different from the straight-diverging-leg turnouts drawn in the David Barrow plan (Model Railroad Planning 1996). Note also the correct spelling of the authors' names, which might help others follow along.
Track plans in the Kalmbach magazines are generally not CAD drawings, but Adobe Illustrator renderings of the author's input, which might be hand-drawn or whatever. So while they will be close, they aren’t exact “blueprints.” This imprecision is less important if you have plenty of space, of course.
But if you want to go ahead with melding the two track plans, a good approach might be to print them out at the same scale, cut the printouts apart with scissors, and then rearrange as needed on a diagram of your space drawn to the same scale. This will give you the rough overall arrangement, from which you can do a to-scale plan using the turnouts with which you plan to build.
Good luck with your layout.
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