Scouting the Paper Trail

With the materials gathered in place, its time to get working. I use Empire Express for the Mac, and it has the option to print out your plan in a one to one ratio. I have a real need to get as much of this right the first time, so for me, printing out a paper copy and trying it on for size was vital.

The plan prints out in a series of single sheets,

and it only takes a few minutes to cut the excess paper off the edges, and line up the sections with tape, like this double crossover

Building up the overall plan in 1-1 is kind of fun, actually. Part puzzle work, it's nice to see it take shape in "real time"

Once the whole side (template) was put together, it was time to take a look at it from a spacing standpoint.

I pulled a car out of the storage box, and first checked to see if the RIP track was really going to work (I had concerns on it's length.

It does, but without much room to spare.

You may notice the box - on the template - in addition to track center lines, it prints out what ever you mark, in this case, the building site for the engine house, and in the next photo, the cut lines between modules.  This is important for when the modules get moved in the future, as I wanted no turnouts on the "Fault" lines.

As I mentioned, everything prints  - even your screw ups. Here, clearly, the turnouts didnt' connect as they were supposed to, and more importantly, looked like they did on the computer screen. This shouldn't be a real problem in the real build, as I'm handlaying them in place, and can adjust this much without too much trouble.

I now have the whole leg of the layout down, and set. Now, it's time to print out the next side.

 Thomas,

So glad to see you back and straight into it, looking forward to catching up and seeing your progress on my nightly fix of MRH!

Like the "Empire Builder program" being able to print you layout 1 to 1, and will have to invest in something like this for when I begin laying track.

Welcome back, and keep posting with what will surely be another great construction blog...

Cheers,

Jason...

The track planning process is cool - I think several of the available and popular programs allow you to print plas full sized.  I should try it with my version of RTS to see if I can get the plans for the remaining sections of benchwork before I install them.

Looking forward to your continued adventures.

So this Layout is for real. His fantastic tale of the chain saw is Behind him and what looks to be a switching Pike in the Sky peeks it head out of the shell and is taking it's first look at the new world.

Personally I can't wait to see what it grows up to be and being a modular layout I really think we have a great build in store for here at The MRH web site.

Good luck Scarpia and I'm really happy to see your back on track.

Do you have a track plan to show us or is that what were looking at ?

Any way you look at it good luck and Happy Railroading and really glad to see you back in the building zone.

Dan

Thought there was a track plan with the MRH article he cites in the original post.

@ Dan, I'm not sure if I'll ever have a "real" layout - one thing I've learned is that I can't make any long term predictions....times just change too fast. However, there's no reason to not have fun with even the temporary ones!

@Joe  you're right, there was, but here's another copy.

@Micheal, I had intended the RIP track for just a single car that spur is meant to store cabeese  - (see track M9 listed above).

So back to work on the paper trail...with that leg down and things looking mostly ok, I printed out the next side, and started lining things up.

I started from the far end, and things began progressing nicely.

..and than it all went horribly wrong. They don't meet up - not even close!

I wracked my brain what may have happened. Did I mis-measure when I drew up the plan? Was the room bigger than I thought? I realized that can’t be, as the modules fit perfectly, so it must be something else....

In the middle of the night, I woke up and realized I hadn’t changed the print setup scale back to 100% from 65% (I reduce it accordingly so I can print the whole plan on a single sheet for reference). Back to the printer, and a new set of pages came out, and the old one in to the recycling bin.

Now it fits.

With the right ones printed out, it was time to cover the entire layout plan. A couple of hours of cutting and taping saw the entire railroad covered with the printed plan, which, for the most part, lined up as it should. There were a few spots that would need some care while track laying, but overall the connections were good, and things are progessing as (mostly) planned.

That plan is looking very good, Scarpia. Lots of switching for sure.

Roy

Thanks Roy - I'm hoping it will!

Back to work, with the template down and now on the module tops, I decided to go a bit further with my paper model, as again, I really need to minimize my screw ups due to a lack of supplies.

A visit to the Fast Tracks website let me download and print out the turnout templates that I'll be using (in this case, HO scale 5, 6, and the 6 crossover). With those in hand, I went ahead and pasted the cut out turnout templates into their locations, right on top of the printed plan (I aligned them by centering them along each axis on the track center line the plan indicates).

This may seem somewhat of a duplication of effort, but to me it makes the plan a lot more "real"  and I was able to identify mmediatley a couple of placement issues, especially where the double cross over was to go

The double crossover was a feature I was determined to put into this layout, regardless of it's usability. Bryon Henderson had strongly recommended against it, and after some thought I agreed to removing a second one from the original plans I was working on. Basically I'm determined to put it in as I have the Fast Tracks Jig, and I want to make one - no other reason.  In it's planned location, there would be minimal space to put it to actual use, maybe just enough room to allow a single locomotive to escape, but that's about it. Yup, that's the end of the module to the right.

A few solutions to this came to mind - either slide it farther in, which would reduce the siding, as well as the arrival track length; make it simply a visual feature that was non-functional; or maybe add a drop extension to make it more useable; or just live with it as is.

Need to think a bit on this one.