Using Templates to Plan the Track Locations

The AnyRail program we used to plan the location for the Atlas FlexTrack we'll be using lets you print out full size patterns for the track and turnouts from the plan you've developed.  Jeff, who designed the layout using AnyRail, printed out 97 pages of full size layout patterns!  Our next task, which we undertook yesterday, was to piece together all those sheets and tape them so they would remain in place.  It was a job that took several hours to accomplish.  But, we can now see in realistic size just where the track will be placed and whether we want to make any adjustments to track location before we start laying roadbed and track.

Jeff is piecing together the pages for the yard

The yard completed, it's on to the loops serving the "town" area of the layout

A portion of the "town" area, showing the passing track that will allow mainline trains to bypass local freight trains

A view of the whole layout, with the yard in the foreground

What will be a mountainous area, with logging camp, elevated outer loop and a tunnel (indicated by the solid blocks); the log pond and sawmill are at the right rear

The completed "town" area, with the mountainous area in the background

For now, the patterns are laid out in their approximate final locations.  We still need to screw down the plywood so it's fully secure--we only tacked it in a few places so it wouldn't more around while we were testing the track locations.  Once that's finished, we'll position the patterns in their final locations.  Then we'll use a pounce--like seamstresses use to make patterns on cloth--to trace the centerline of the track.  And we'll use an awl to mark the location of the turnout throws so we can drill the holes for the Tortoise machines with accuracy.  That will then let us lay down the cork roadbed and prepare to lay track.

Sure, we could have done all this by the seat of our pants, drawing the lines for the track directly on the plywood base.  But by using AnyRail, we took our planning through several iterations until we had all the features we wanted and fit everything into the space we've got.  The printouts are merely the culmination of that process and they are carrying us a very long way toward our ultimate goal--getting track down so we can run some trains!

AnyRail...a software tool to build a layout

At the end of my last entry I said I would discuss the modeling tool that I used to design our layout. I had an initial pencil sketch that was derived from looking at other layouts and then combined with the physical constraints of the space I had available in my workshop. However, I needed a way to formalize the drawing into something that could be implemented.

After looking at the various software programs available online I decided on a program called AnyRail. There were numerous tutorials on Youtube to help get started, it appeared to have a large library of track components from a variety of companies and it was free...well almost. There is a free version which lets you use up to 50 track pieces in a design. Surprisingly, this worked out quite well until we decided to add the switching yard which put me over the 50 piece limit. I could have split the layout into sections and kept them in different files but in the end I decided to purchase the program. You can do some interesting things with the program, like set track heights and compute slope percentages and it just seemed easier to do if I had the complete layout in one file. So....I paid the $60 for a license. It seemed a little steep but I think it was worth the cost.

Here is a screen capture of the AnyRail website.

AnyRail website

As you can see, you can produce a really nice layout that includes the track and structures/objects from libraries of manufacturers products. Now that we have our layout pretty well planned I'm going to start exploring some of the features to help plan our scenery. You can also look at layouts in 3D...here is another screen dump from their website.

3D view of a sample Layout from AnyRail

Here is the 'final' design of our layout.

Current design of our layout

There is a logging camp area, sawmill area, town area and switching yard area. We also have a small farming area if space permits. The left leg is about 8 feet long and the top leg is about 14 feet long.

AnyRail is very easy to use. As you can see in the image, you can define your layout bench shape and use that as a background. You can setup various settings to define things like layout size, grid spacing, alerts for minimum radius curves, snap to grid and snap to track endpoints, auto-connect, etc. You can see this in this image.

Setting Options along the top Ribbon

Then you can select track part libraries from various manufactures to use to build your layout. It is basically drag and drop. Once you've selected an object, like a piece of flex track, you can change it's shape using various menu selections. In the case of a flex track you can define it's length if straight, or curve length and radius if it is a curve or easement. You can move it, rotate it and move it next to another piece of track and have them connect together.

Menu Options for Piece of Atlas #500 Flex Track

One of the best features, and the most frustrating, is the alert when you create a curve that is less than the minimum curve radius you set in the settings. When creating a curve and trying to have it meet up with another piece of track coming from another direction you want them to meet up and connect together. It can become very frustrating to have them very close but when they auto-connect one piece has to change shape a little so that it connects squarely into the other track piece. In the image the track marked with a red line shows that the minimum radius of that part of the track has fallen below 18” which is my minimum radius setting. What's a little 6” radius curve among friends.

Red Highlight for Tight Curve

The feature we are playing with now is the capability to set a track section height and then the slope 

of adjoining track to go up to and back down from that height. For example, you can set a piece of track to be a bridge at four inches high and then compute a 3 percent slope in each direction. This will help us determine the heights we can achieve for the track heights in the logging area around the mountains we have planned. Here is an example.

Heights and Slopes

The final feature I'll mention is that you can create various sections within your layout. Our layout has four major sections....the outer track, the switching yard, the reverse loop in the logging area and the reverse loop in the town area. This will help in our DCC wiring planning.

Track Sections Highlighted in Different Colors

Now that our benchwork is pretty complete we need to transfer our track plan to the benchtop. We are going to use the cookie cutter approach to track layout. AnyRail can print a full size printout. When I did the print dialog box said 208 pages!! Luckily it went down to 97 when I clicked on the suppress blank page option!

One page of 97 to Print

Next step....tape all those pages together!