Hi,
I drew up a plan a while ago for a home layout in On30, using a pencil and a compass. However, I want to make sure that I have the turnouts laid out correctly (atlas No.4’s). Any place I can get some decent track planning tools, such as templates? What’s the wallet damage gonna be like?
Cheers,
-Chris
One way to get accurate templates is to copy or scan one each of the track components you will use, then reduce them to the scale of your drawing. If you are doing it with a computer, you can even flip a right-hand tunout scan to a left-hand image.
Since you’ll be buying the turnouts anyway, this adds little cost and insures accuracy. Just be sure that the lines you draw meeting the templates are “square”. It’s easy to be off a little on this and it will make it impossible to build the layout as drawn.
Byron
Model RR Blog
Chris,
There are tempates available:
One of the problems you run into is that most of these templates are for ‘HO’ - so the track ‘center to center’ spacing may be too narrow. As long as you have a computer, Atlas has FREE software for track design(works on Windows PC’s). Check out the Atlas web site:
http://www.atlasrr.com/righttrack.htm
Jim Bernier
Jim’s made a good suggestion, with one caveat: one thing to watch for with “store-bought” templates is that they often don’t exactly match your brand and model number of turnout. The CTT templates (for example) are OK for a general idea of what will fit. But in tight spots, you’ll be better off with templates scaled from the exact turnouts you will be using.