What does the GR staff use to do the trackplans of the various layouts featured in the magazine?
Ray, Do you mean the type of software we use? We use Adobe InDesign for all of the magazine layouts. (Up until a year ago, though, we used Quark Express.) Do you have a question about the design? I’ll try and answer it if I can.
Oops, I think I misread your question. For trackplans, we use Adobe Illustrator. For layouts (designing pages), we use InDesign.
Ray, I used Photoshop to do the trackplan for the Tuscarora RR. I don’t think I used anything that isn’t included in Photoshop Elements, so that’s a pretty inexpensive way to get going. The key to doing any trackplan–layers. Learn to use layers, and you’ll be a much happier artist. Put each design element (i.e. rock walls, ground, track, ballast, plants) on its own individual layer. This way, as you draw each new element, you’re not erasing what you drew underneath it. If you want to make a change, you can erase your mistake, and what’s underneath it is still there. I think the TRR plan had 12 layers when everything was finished. Illustrator allows working in layers as well. I’m just not as fluent in Illustrator as I am Photoshop. Later, K
See , I’ve been wondering this also.
I have had to draw it out then take a photo with the camera.
I’d love to have GRYs do my RR with trees, hills etc.
I guess the only problem is it changes so much.
I don’t do a lot of planning of the “in the house” type i really work it out as i go. But when i was doing my area 3 it was necessary to do some of this stuff and as i am not vet computer literate i used graph paper drawn out a 1:10 scale.
I find that if you spend too much time drawing things up, and hanging around hobby shops and reading magazines you don’t actually do much!
Rgds Ian
You know, Ian, I agree with you 100% on that, too much thinking equals too little progress[:)]
On the other hand, and in defense of “the planners”, this can also be an enjoyable part of the hobby. I can understand that there are those that don’t have the space, time or money to build a Garden RR, but they are just as happy drawing up dream empires on paper or digits. Sometimes a flight of fancy leads to great advances in the hobby as a whole, even though the inventor never laid a foot of rail or coupled a single gondola.
To each his own.
Thanks, Rene and Kevin. I’m a long-time Photoshop user, so I’m quite familiar with layers – one of the best features they ever came up with! I don’t have Illustrator, though. I do have Aldus Freehand, which I’m not quite as adept with as PS. I’ve used Freehand to illustrate two booklets I wrote for high power rocketry hobbyists, but those were fairly simple graphics. My layout is being constructed almost entirely “on the fly” – just making it up as I go. Which is pretty much how I do most everything. 
I just get a general picture in my head of what I want, and work out the details along the way. But when it’s finished I’d like to draw up a trackplan to post online. Also, it would probably be helpful to have one on hand when my layout gets featured in GR someday.
Exactly Jack, exactly
Ian