Rail Modeller Software - Full Scale Track Plan Printouts

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
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Hello all, I am considering purchasing Rail Modeller. Would like to hear any comments about its ease of use, and what is the process to obtain full scale track plan prints to use as templates. Thanks for your help, Richard

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Also, am running MAC OS Mountain Loin 10.8.2.

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Hey Richard,

Welcome to the forum. A handy tip: You can edit your own posts anytime by clicking the slanted pencil icon at the bottom left corner of your post.

Tom

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Thanks Tom.

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Give a try to Empire Express by Haddon. Not many bells and whistles but very easy to learn and use. I printed the plan at 1:1 scale (lots of individual sheets to tile together) and used the printouts to transfer the track centerlines to the benchwork by punching holes through the paper into the subroadbed along the track lines. Was very accurate.

Dante

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Thanks, Dante. Will check it out.

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Ditto!

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hey Rich, I used it extensively when designing my current layout, personally I thought it was easy to use, then again I use graphic design software daily so a lot of it seemed to make sense to me. As for 1 to 1 track plan prints, I never have tried that, but, I do know it can export out a jpg image at full size and I guess you could take it to like a kinkos or something like that and have them spit it out on the large format printers they have.

I think I said this in another post, but I just designed it with flex track and peco switches in the software, and then bought and cut track to size based on what the software said. It turned out perfect, sure took the guess work out of laying track as I have never thought of transferring my plan to the benchwork with previous layouts (Silly me).

I also designed my benchwork in it by just using the shape tools because you can punch in exact sizes, so I put in the sizes of wood I had to build with (2x4, 2x2 etc.), because I recycled all my wood from two previous layouts. FYI: If you do this make sure to take the time to go measure wood sizes, because a 2x4 is NOT 2 inches by 4 inches.

I would suggest you download it and try it in trial mode before you buy it. i tried the only other mac software (empire express) along side this and ended up liking this one better but honestly you’ll have to be the judge. Again if you have specific questions about rail modeller feel free to shoot me an email: dweatherby@crtraincrew.com or just post it here.

hope this helps

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Dano, thanks for your help and also providing me with your email. I’m a newbie and have been doing so much research in the past month that my head is swimming, but it’s great, and this site has been so helpful. I first thought that I had found a track plan that I liked, but that was before I and learned much about prototype RR ops. I found that the plan I had selected was probably too limited from an ops standout, and I thought I’d probably get bored with it. So my new selection became the Red Rock Northern plan that I found in the 2013 issue of Model Railroad Planning. Who knew that a discussion of that plan would pop up on this site within the past 24 hours. So I’m getting a lot of good info about the plan. Bottom line is yes, I’m going to try Rail Modeler, because the plan does need to be modified. The other thing that you’ve pointed out, is that you don’t really need to paste down a template over your bench to see how things will fit, if you’ve developed your plan on the computer and know which track and other hardware that you want to use. So I’ll jump into the tutorials, and I’m sure I’ll be in touch. Thanks, Rich (email: richardcwilliams17@gmail.com)

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Another endorsement for RailModeller–I used it extensively and was very satisfied. I haven’t opened it in a while, but as I recall full-size printouts are a simple matter of clicking “full size,” “100%,” or the like in the print dialog.

I also used it to plan my L-Girder benchwork and superimposed the track plan on that to assure all the 1/2" plywood subroadbed pieces aligned properly. As others have found, it was very accurate.

I can’t recall his name, but the developer in Germany was very helpful and responsive when I emailed him with a question or two. At one point I made a suggestion for a track template, and he included it in his next update.

This was at least 3 years ago, and I’m sure it’s more full-featured now than it was then, so it can only have gotten better. I recommend it highly.

Rick Krall