Layout Planning with AutoCAD

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C

chucu

New Member
Well after about 10 years of not having a layout I have purchased a home with an RV garage and conveniently enough we do not own an RV and my better half is allowing this to become my train room. I am an Architect and am very savvy with AutoCAD and wondered if someone can point me in the direction if such a thing exists to AutoCAD blocks of track and switches to use. I have tried several other track planning softwares and I just can not get the hang of it and would like to use the wide flexibility of AutoCAD.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
C
 
I have done some CAD for layout planning, but I haven't tried to replicate any commercially available trackwork. So far, I've just drawn a #8 turnout the way it would be constructed on the real thing, so I'm not sure if it actually conforms to say, a Walthers/Shinohara #8 turnout. But, I'm sure you could measure up some trackwork and pop out some blocks easily enough.

Other than the turnouts, what would you need as a block? Are you thinking along the lines of Atlas Snap Track sectional track? If so, Atlas has a track planning software with those blocks already loaded in it. I'm not sure if you could export the drawing file to .dxf or .dwg, though.

To answer your original question, I haven't seen anything intended for AutoCAD that could be used. To be honest, I really haven't spent much time looking, though.
 
More then anything I suppose I am looking for blocks of the switches. Or if anyone can point me in the direction to some detailed dimensional drawings for the various switches I can input that into AutoCAD.

Thanks,
C
 


I use IntelliCAD, which is an AutoCAD clone that can read/write DXF and DWG files. It's equivalent to ACAD of several versions ago.

Somewhere along the way I did pick up a drawing with various types of HO turnouts. If it's the kind of thing that would help you, send an address and I'll pass it along.

I just drew up a plan by one of the other guys in our club for the second and third levels of our layout. He refuses to use anything except pencil and paper, but he's got grandiose ideas!
 
I haven't seen model railroad details for AutoCAD either. Have you tried XtrkCAD? It feels a lot like AutoCAD and already has all the libraries you need. You can get it at http://www.xtrkcad.org/Wikka/HomePage. There's an excellent tutorial at the site also. I can't imagine that, since you're already comfortable with AutoCAD, you couldn't pick up how to use Xtrk with a an hour or so spent with the tutorial.
 
Thanks for the link, Jim. I'll give that a whirl and see how much different it is from AutoCAD. Maybe this would be the trick for the OP.
 
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