# Layout Designs?



## Seans_World (Aug 14, 2009)

Just wondering if and what programs everyone uses to design their layouts on the computer. I am not cad suavy so something basic is what I would like to use. I tried drawing my ideas out in MS Paint and Corel Drawing but it looks like a 4year old drew it up.

Thanks Sean


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## TonyLou (Sep 3, 2009)

Hi, Sean 
You may try www.anyrail.com Hope you enjoy. 
Tony


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## Dougald (Jan 2, 2008)

Sean

As always, a disarmingly simple question is complex to answer. In short, more info is needed about your goal in the design process.

If your goal is to design an interesting operations oriented trackplan for a given space that meets some self developed standards, then a manual method such as John Armstrong's by the squares is by far the best.

If your goal is to draw an as built railroad with a diagram suitable for publication or sharing electronically, none of the existing packages will easily do it but all after a steep learning curve and some hairpulling can eventually be forced to spit out something credible.

If your goal is to draw a trackplan which you already have decided on and which you know fits your space in order to decide on a list of commercial track components, most of the existing programs will do the job. RRTrack is a particular favourite of many large scalers.

The basic difficulty is that the programs are inevitably based on libraries of commercial track. Thus they are not well suited for railroads built totally from flex track (like Llagas Creek) or hand laid track. In addition, using track libraries makes the drawing process extraordinarily cumbersome just to check if a certain curve will fit into a tight space.

The current issua of Model RailRoader (Nov '09) does a product comparison of three programs - it may be worth a read if you intend to purchase one.

Regards ... Doug


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## Jerry McColgan (Feb 8, 2008)

I have used RR Track for many years and I like it but Doug has brought up some interesting points that should be considered.

http://rrtrack.com/

Jerry


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## Seans_World (Aug 14, 2009)

Thanks guys, and I suppose I should have included more details of what I am try to do, but that early in the morning at work my brain is kind of in a fog. I want to do my current layout and include future track plans to come up with a few ideas of extension loops. I will try the ones you guys have listed so far and see what happens. Thanks again 

Sean


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