Back to 4mm, new layout plan.

[boxbrownie]

Over the past few months it has been painfully obvious that I can no longer actually "model and engineer" a railway, illness has loomed fast and I no longer have the dexterity to be able to "fine model" as I used to, used to love adapting Kato N Gauge stuff for DCC before decoders where available for them, special speaker installations in 4mm and 7mm stuff.......I can barely solder two wires together anymore, bl00dy frustrating!!

Anyhoo I digress, I have decided over the past few weeks that I NEED to play trains again and as such I am going back to 4mm as some of the RTR stuff is amazing nowadays.

I have ordered the baseboard, three sections 2500x1300 in total (so as to be movable in the future) which should be here before Christmas, I have been palying with plans for a week or so and liked the look of the PECO Bredon plan, I tried playing around with some PECO setrack (for sale now) but found it still a bit fiddly and would need to be ballasted and I didn't like the huger dead frogs on the curved points.

So looking around for a decent ready ballasted track I have chosen TRIX C-Track, ordered all of it now got some and waiting for the rest, it is quite fine being code 83 and the ballast looks fine to me, and will be weathered (something I can still do I am sure) down.

Enough, this is my finished plan using TRIX Track and a softly adapted Bredon plan.

[boxbrownie]

The siding at the back of the layout will be hidden and gives a bit of storage, the lower left will be a MIlk Drop with a Station on the main at the front(ish) with a goods yard in the centre.

It will be DCC, with sound..........I did say I want to PLAY trains

[luckymucklebackit]

Looking forward to see this develop David, it is an interesting plan, my only concern would be the curved points, these can be a source of derailments, as many have found out.

Jim

[Montfort]

PLS build this layout too: http://www.pls-layouts.co.uk/html/bredon_oo.htm
Hope that helps.

[boxbrownie]

I understand your observation, worried me also which is just one reason I dropped the PECO setrack plan, the TRIX has better geometry and a larger radius, also they have a full metal automatically switched frog area, no wiring....woohoo....I think with any point on a curve back to back is going to be critical and I am prepared to double check everything and if necessary make adjustments to the check rails to tighten the tolerance, which I used to do in 7mm.

[boxbrownie]

PLS build this layout too: http://www.pls-layouts.co.uk/html/bredon_oo.htm
Hope that helps.

Interesting, but although the say they now use R2 curves for modern stock it looks like they still include the PECO Setrack curved points which I understood to have a R1 curve (and not a good geometry either).

[Ironduke]

Hi Dave,
I've been messing about with your track plan in Anyrail but frankly I can't make head nor tail out of the Trix C track geometry. What radii track are you using? Can you attach your .any file?

[boxbrownie]

Minimum is R2......I shall attempt to attach the file, although I have had to plan the layout in several sections because of the 50 piece limit on the trial/free software.

[boxbrownie]

Cannot post the whole layout (more than 50 pieces) but here is the mainline with the part numbers hopefully clear.

Site does not allow .any files

[Montfort]

When I need to use more than 50 pieces with Anyrail, I cut the layout in two files and export each one as a jpeg picture. Then I use Windows Paint to put them in one picture. Hope I'm very clear...but I'm not really sure.

[boxbrownie]

When I need to use more than 50 pieces with Anyrail, I cut the layout in two files and export each one as a jpeg picture. Then I use Windows Paint to put them in one picture. Hope I'm very clear...but I'm not really sure.

Same here, although I use Photoshop........that’s how the original plan I posted earlier was done.

I actually went to the Anyrail site to buy the software.....but then found it was £40..... so 50 piece limit it shall remain.

[Montfort]

I actually went to the Anyrail site to buy the software.....but then found it was £40..... so 50 piece limit it shall remain.

Same thing here (€44). So it will stay at 50 pieces.

[Ironduke]

I actually went to the Anyrail site to buy the software.....but then found it was £40..... so 50 piece limit it shall remain.

I've used XtrkCad ever since 2000 and it remains free but I tried Anyrail recently and I was impressed with its relative ease of use so I paid the $60(AUD). XtrkCad still shines through when it come to flexible track design, though.
I think of it this way: railway modelling can cost thousands of dollars so not paying a mere $60 for good track planning software seems a bit mean. Especially if it saves you from buying expensive track you didn't end up using. Anyway I find layout design as much of a hobby as railway modelling itself (or a symptom of OCD ).
The .any file should be in your Documents folder. You probably have file extensions hidden. The file will have an Anyrail icon. But I can work off your picture.

[HarryR]

AnyRail, value for money? depends on how you calculate it, I bought my copy, admittedly at £35, 2 or 3 years ago & I'm still guaranteed at least one more full version upgrade.

Based on my experience they also deserve praise for their customer service, when I lost my registration details & software because of a hardware failure they were happy to sort me out, at no cost to me, because I could cite my Paypal transaction number.

[boxbrownie]

I have the .any file no problem at all but this site will not let that file be attached. Even tried renaming to a .jpg but even had issues then attaching as it didn’t recognise the structure I guess, sorry.

As to the cost of the software I think a few years ago that price wouldn’t have seemed so excessive but now when you can buy new software programs of all kinds for anything between £2 to £15.....£40mseems a bit excessive, before I went to buy it I genuinely thought it might have been £15-20 which I wouldn’t have even blinked at, but £40 came as a surprise.

But it is great software with a huge library.