What Track Planning Software Do You Use Poll


What One DO You Use For Track Planning?


  • Total voters
    130
Stoker -- AnyRail offers a free trial. Not a "free to use to create several layouts by working around the free trial limitation forever" mode. Reading is FUNdamental.

The poster was bragging about how many layouts he had been able to design on AnyRail's dime.

It's quite clear that's using the free trial in a way that AnyRail never intended and thus, inappropriate use of Intellectual Property. Call me all the names you like, it doesn't change the uncomfortable facts.

I'll leave this thread and you all to your justifications.
 
AnyRail is fully aware of how their software can be used and their choice is to distribute a free version to use as you see fit for as long as you like.

Here's the actual statement from their site:

AnyRail is developed by a small company. If you like AnyRail and find it useful, then please pay us for our work. You can download and try it for free to see if you think it is worth the money.
Kindest regards,
David Hoogvorst
DRail Modelspoor Software


Note he says "try it", not use it forever with workarounds.

That's just the facts. I'm not attacking you, but you might want to think about the underlying reasons why you have such an emotional reaction towards me and the facts I am stating.

30
 
How about that! A couple of old headbangers playing with trains and loving it! The old saying is true "real life is stranger then fiction"

I still like metal "Hard Rock or No Rock" I even like some newer bands Slip Knot and Mudvane, but mostly I just listen to NPR but some times I break out the old LPs and play it LOUD. I am just a big kid at heart.

These days I mostly listen to Bluegrass, but 30 years ago I was a total Metalhead. Even spent a couple years in a Metal band running sound and lights. I still listen to some good hardcore metal now and then when I am feeling nostalgic. About 10 years ago I was doing a westcoast roadtrip and was hanging around L.A. for a bit. I had always heard that Lemmy hung out at the Rainbow, so I got myself a motel room on the strip right near there where I could walk (stumble) to a couple of the bars in that area. I walked into the Rainbow, and lo and behold there was Lemmy playing the bartop game at the end of the bar sipping on a Jack&Coke (at about noon no less). To my amazement he was all by himself. I sat down and BS'd with him for a while, he was a really interesting character. I told him that the first Motorhead album I had was on 8-track that I had gotten a milk crate full of tapes for $5 at a garage sale and he says " Those 8-tracks were the best, you could listen to your favorite stuff over and over just by punching one button".
 
Thank you for the link, very interesting reading!

Louis

Hi Louis,

I don't know if you got this far in your reading but you might want to play with the demo just for fun.

In case you missed it not only can you view your layout in 3D (from any point of view) you can actually run trains on it, throw switches, couple/uncouple cars and make neat 3D movies to share with folks.
 
Thank you, when I get time I will try it out. That sounds like something I would enjoy. I will have to make a fictional layout because mine is pretty boring, but that will be fun as well!

Louis


Hi Louis,

I don't know if you got this far in your reading but you might want to play with the demo just for fun.

In case you missed it not only can you view your layout in 3D (from any point of view) you can actually run trains on it, throw switches, couple/uncouple cars and make neat 3D movies to share with folks.
 
I messed around with a couple of other programs and settled on AnyRail. I liked it well enough to send them my money, it was worth it to me. What others do makes no difference to me. AnyRail is a nice, easy to use program that does what I need it to do.
 
Indeed AnyRail is quite nice, very simple, very European and well suited to those designs where there is a close coupling between the design and the actual construction.
 
Well for one thing it's country of origin. But it's focus on "pieces of track" is what I was thinking of. Some programs are like this but some programs are more CAD-like in that the drawing of the plan is mostly "decoupled" from what you use to build the plan. You may specify a specific make and model of turnout (because of the fixed geometry) but the rest of the plan is lines, curves, easements, spirals, etc

Somewhat like drawing the plans for building a home. The draftsman doesn't pick from a library of pieces of wood, he draws shapes the represent things. The builder turns those "shapes" into a physical entity.
 
Got it. Doesn't matter to me that the guy who did it is outside the US. And since I am planning on using Unitrack, it works perfectly for me. Maybe I'm European:rolleyes:
 
The amount of space available for a layout in Europe tends to be less then we have in the States so layouts tend to be more compact and often have lots of interesting trackage (is that a word?) and sectional track is probably the norm.

I remember as a child using Marklin metal track. Then they came out with a plastic tie track but I don't know if they ever offered flex track.

As an adult my layouts got bigger and I desired more realism. Sectional track no longer seemed appropriate and I switched over to flex track and commercial turnouts.
 
Interesting. I never thought about the amount of space available, seems like an independent variable when it comes to the program used to design track. If the Unitrack ends up giving me a "kids" layout and something short of total realism, then I'm OK with that. I'm not plannng on trying to make the cover of a magazine!!
 
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This is an interesting conversation and even though I have nothing intelligent to add to it I still wanted to let you know I am enjoying it.

Louis
 
Unitrack is very nice.

Backmann makes a sectional track product that offers a wide range of radii up to nearly 36" - this is much better stuff then Atlas which (last time I looked) stopped at 22". I guess Atlas users switch to flex track at that point. But any product with integral roadbed is going to have a hard time flexing.

Over the years I've looked at any number of European track plan books and they all seemed heavily oriented to sectional. Wish someone from that part of the world would jump in and enlighten us.
 
I use XtrkCAD because the price is right :D and it does what I want. For the main part of the layout the minimum radius is 36" so something that only goes up to 22" won't work for that. However we have a section as yet unbuilt that is designed to use sectional track and switches which will be an independent town that will be low enough for kids to operate. It will probably have some of those toy train accessories and use toy train rolling stock upgraded by replacing horn hook couplers and adding decoders to the engines. XtrkCAD easily accommodates the simple trackwork as well as the complex parts of what I am doing.

I also like that I can highlight a section of track and move it or copy it if I am changing an area configuration. I also use layers to separate track, structures, and benchwork.
 



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