One of my favorite pastimes for the last 50 years has been layout design. I had two years of drafting in the late '50s, and have used graph paper for scaling up the design.
In the last ten years I’ve been using a combination of Excel and freehand to do this, and the purchase of layout software was just not justified - until now.
My current layout is due for a rebuild, probably within 12 months or so. The design and building is my favorite part of the process. So now that I have a real need for a new design, software just seems to be the way to go.
I am not interested in making a major learning curve step, so CAD is out of the question. Other than that (or other difficult to learn/use software), is there anything out there you have used and found appropriate??? Your comments and experiences are greatly appreciated!
By the way, my space available is 15 x 11, an ex bedroom, and I model in HO scale.
I prefer 3rd PlanIT track planning software. It is a great tool for layout design, planning, and offers 3D views as well as running a virtual consist to test the track plan for operations.
It is available for download from El Dorado Software. I will say that this program does have a learning curve, but it is worth the effort. In any case at least you can see what other offerings are out there.
I have recently upgraded to the latest 3rd PlanIT Version 8.01 and it has some improvements that were sorely needed from the previous version. Below is a screen shot of the program open with my most recent track plan:
Here is a 3D version of a portion of the same plan:
The other widely used choice is XtrkCad, available for free at http://www.xtrkcad.org/ There is a learning curve, but I found that doing the demo/tutorial, then working with it for a while, and them repeating the tutorial got me through it pretty well. There are some who disagree. I think it may be one of those things that depends on how you are wired. It does not have 3D rendering capability, but it does deal with elevations and calculates grades.
I’ve used the Atlas RTS program and the XtrakCad program, and while the XtrakCad is more powerful, I found that the Atlas one was far easier to use. You have to register it to unlock all of the tools, and the flextrack tool takes some getting used to, but you can design a good layout of virtually any size with it.
I don’t really use software to design, but to fiddle and come up with ideas. I prefer to design with pencil and paper. It’s easier.
For “fiddling with digital snaptrack”, I like to use RTS, because it is free. You can theoretically design anything with it, but generally it’s happier when you stick to the rather rigid snaptrack designs, or start with those and then replace sections with flextrack to make the design flow better. I find it a great way to fiddle up trackplans or portions of them, especially small-to-medium sized plans.
The hardest thing was to figure out how to use flextrack, but it’s not too bad. Just figure out what radius and angle you need, or what length of straight, and handle it like big pieces of snap-track.
The CAD programs are probably more flexible, but that’s what I do for a living, and I have developed a moderate allergy.
Aside: Does anybody know if Atlas’ own layout designs are available anywhere as .ral files?
If I had to draw my design with pencil and paper I’d be in big trouble! It would start out great, but after about 20 minute, I wouldn’t be able to read anything, I’d get off track, and it would be a mess!
Let me add a vote for 3rd Planit. Its not very intuitive but truly wonderful once you get used to it. The quality of the documentation has improved greatly in the recent versions and the people on the Yahoo group for the product are friendly. You can use it to design track layout, scenery and benchwork.
I am in the process of designing a new layout and have used 3rd Planit extensively over the past few weeks. Having done this exercise, I can’t even begin to imagine designing a layout with just paper and pencil. The challenge I face is that my space restrictions are somewhat severe but I want to use curves with a minimum radius of 24" with Number 6 turnouts. I must have gone through about 100 designs before I found one that worked for me.
I started out with an early version of Atlas’s RTS program…even having had some CAD experiance, I still was frustrated to the point of going back to paper. Then a couple years ago I started seeing the XtrakCad program mentioned, and started playing with it. Before I could do much with it, I had to give up on my basement layout plans due to health issues. Last winter, when I decided to take a shot at an N scale Unitrack layout…XtrakCad had a Unitrack library, so it was a natural starting point. I’ve been going at it big time for the last 9-10 months, and I must say I really like it…especially since picking up on some of the tricks, and finding additional libraries (technically parameter files in XtrkCad). I’ve found the XtrkCad Yahoo group to be a big help… http://groups.yahoo.com/group/XTrkCad/
I’ve done serious design work with Atlas Right Track, XtrkCad and 3rd Planit. Of the three, I prefer XtrkCAD hands down. And it’s free. I paid $109 for 3rd Planit.
Atlas RTS is by far the easiest to use, but it has serious flaws when trying to align turnouts and sidings. The software does not match reality and it is impossible to get the software to replicate turnouts and sidings correctly.
Use RTS if you are keeping it extremely simple, but go with another software if you want accuracy.
Since I design using Armstrong Squares, I much prefer to overlay them on good old Quadrille ruled paper. Then I lay down main tracks and rough in the lesser design elements.
Detailed designing is done full size, using a graduated trammel and lengths of flex track on card stock. I always include spiral easements, and allow for vertical easements into grades. After marking centerlines and tie lines, I cut out the cardstock and use it as a tracklaying template.
Using this method is a heavy consumer of card stock, but I never have a Whoops moment when something that looked good on the screen or printout meets the real world.
One caveat. I hand-lay specialwork by building it in place, so I don’t have to wonder if the Brand X turnout will fit in the space allowed by the Brand Y-specific software.
I vote here for Cadrail. I have used it for a long time and while I have tried others including 3rdplanit and Xtracad I keep going back to Cadrail as I find it more intuitively obvious to figure out it’s features. I have to admit to an adversion to manuals so I figure if I can’t figure out a program just my playing with it, I don’t think it is a well thought out program. Cadrail features just seem to be easy for me to find and figure out. YMMV. - Nevin
I’ve used the RTS and Xtrakcad as well and like both. The Xtrakcad is a little harder to use but much more versatile, especially if you’re planning to use curved turnouts etc. With the RTS you’re pretty much locked into Atlas track and equipment with no modifications possible.
By the way if using Windows Vista you may not be able to access the help menu from the toolbar. Instead you can run it as a separate file and it will work fine. I also found the Xtrakcad demos to be excellent. It actually walks you through the process.
I tried XTrak and really wasn’t happy with it. I thought it was too complicated. (This from an engineer who took CAD classes) I was happy with Atlas RTS even with it’s “quirks” and “Limits”
