Drawing a Track Plan with XTrkCad

I was writing down the coordinates, then I realized I didn't need to since I could just use the describe tool. Sometimes it is hard to break old habits.

I do both. For example, I measured the radius of the big turnback circle and also measured the distance from the backdrop so I knew where to put the center, but for the straight sections I am just pretty much "eyeballing it" to get things pretty close to where they really are. Since the track is already down, exact positioning isn't too important.

Thanks!

Jamie

 

Part 16: Easements

One of the most essential planning & construction techniques to get problem free trackwork is the use of easements. Basically, an easement is a transition between straight track and a curve. If you use sectional track, you do not have the ability to include easements because when you join a straight piece of track to a curved piece of track, the joint represents an immediate change from straight to curve. This abrupt change can be problematic when encountered by locomotives and cars. Without easements, you can get derailments caused by the ends of longer cars wanting to swing outwards as they encounter the curve.

Real railroads have this same problem and must include easements into the engineering of their track alignments. This engineering involves lots of complex calculations to produce the appropriate track geometry. Fortunately, track planning software makes it simple for those of us without degrees in mathematics to include easements when we design our track plans. In XtrackCAD, including easements in our track plans is as simple as making a few clicks with your mouse. To begin, click the Easement button on the toolbar:



In the above image, notice that the button reads Easement None. This indicates the easements option is turned off and easements will not automatically be created when we draw our track plan. When you click this button, you are presented with the Easement dialog box:



Notice that there are four options for easements in XtrackCAD: None, Sharp, Normal and Broad. When you select one of these options other than None, the fields in the dialog box automatically change to reflect their new values. Since I have a large layout, I prefer to use broad easements so I select that option. Selecting this option yields a minimum radius of 16.5”, which is good since the minimum radius I have established for visible curves on my layout is 15”:



When you click the Done button, the button on the toolbar changes to reflect the new easements setting:



It's a good idea to check this button to make sure easements are setup correctly before you join any track.

One final word on easements with regards to my layout. As you know, I laid out my existing track before I had a track plan. So how did I design my easements? I use spline roadbed on my layout. One of the many advantages to using this type of roadbed is that you get natural easements when you lay out your roadbed. Even though I am using spline roadbed, I still want to include easements in my track plan because I may need them if I ever use a different type of roadbed such as laying my track on sheets of extruded foam. Plus, there really is no reason not to include easements unless you are building a track plan comprised entirely of sectional track.

 

Part 17: Joining Track

So far we have drawn some simple circles and lines on our track plan, which is really no different that what we could have done with a pencil and paper. However, we are about to see where the magic really happens in XtrackCAD: joining tracks. After we complete this step, our basic shapes will start looking like a real well-engineered mainline.

Not surprisingly, you use the Join tool to join track:



We are going to join the straight track to the large radius turnback curve. One of the advantages of the join tool is its ability to join together different types of track, such as straight track to a circle in our example. I have zoomed in on the following screen images to make the join operation more clear.

After selecting the join tool, click one of the tracks to be joined in an area near the join. Don't worry about clicking in a precise location, since you will be able to control the precision of the join in just a moment. When you do this, a red circle is drawn on the track to show that the join action has been initiated:



Next, click the other track in the approximate area of the join and keep the mouse button held down. When you do this, the application will draw a new track between the two tracks being joined:



You can then drag the mouse and the track join will change as you drag; this allows great flexibility in joining track exactly as you want. When you are happy with the join, release the mouse button and the two tracks are joined:



A few things to notice in the above image: First, we ended up with two sections of track between our original tracks. These two sections represent the easement (the shorter track joined to the straight track) and the actual curve of the join. Second, notice that the two sections of track we joined were trimmed appropriately to give us our desired outcome. In other words, the straight track was trimmed and now transitions nicely into the curve with an easement, and the circle of track is no longer a circle but instead is our turnback curve that we wanted.

 

Part 17: Joining Track (continued)

These next three images show how I used the same join operation described in the previous post to join the straight track to the circle track on the helix base:







Finally, here is an overview of the entire lower level track plan so far:



With just some simple pointing and clicking, we have established a nicely flowing mainline complete with easements at all transitions from straight track to curves. Not bad, but the best is yet to come!

 

Part 18: Finishing the Mainline

So far we have learned how to draw circle tracks, straight tracks, and how to join tracks together with easements. Using these same simple techniques, I finished the mainline through the Emerson scene of the layout.

First, I drew three straight sections of track:



I have selected these new sections of track so they are highlighted in red and can be easily seen. Notice how I have drawn these tracks longer than they actually are. This makes it easier to join the tracks together. Plus, XtrackCAD will automatically trim excess track as needed so always make the tracks as long as you like to simplify the joining process.

In this next image, I have performed the three joins just as I did in the previous post. The tracks now have a nice smooth flow just like on the actual layout:



The final image shows the overall track plan so far with the mainline completed through Emerson:

 

Part 19: Parameter Files

We have completed drawing the existing mainline through the Emerson scene of the layout. There is also a long passing siding in Emerson, and we need to draw this as well. Here is a view of the track arrangement in Emerson looking down the aisle from the helix:



The turnout at the south end of the passing siding can be seen to the right ahead of the Conrail locomotive sitting on the passing siding; the north turnout can be seen at the left just ahead of the CSX locomotive. We will first add the south turnout to the track plan.

On my layout, all of my turnouts are of the Atlas N-scale code 55 variety. XTrackCAD comes with several predefined track libraries for just about every line of commercial track available on the market (including Atlas code 55 in N scale). Before you can use any of these track libraries, you must first add them to the application. This is done by selecting the File > Parameter Files... menu item, which displays the Parameter Files dialog box:



In the above image, you can see I have selected the Atlas N-Scale Code55 entry in the list of available parameter files. When the application was first installed, there were no parameter files selected. I had to open the Parameter Files dialog box and use the Browse... button to select the appropriate parameter file. On my Windows 7 system, XTrackCAD installed all of the parameter files in the following folder:

C:\Program Files (x86)\XTrkCAD 4.0.3a\share\xtrkcad\params

I navigated to this folder and selected the atlasn55.xtp file, which was then added to the list of parameter files. I then checked the box next to the parameter file and clicked the OK button, making the track library available to me in XTrackCAD. Afterward, the various sections of track available in the Atlas N-Scale code 55 product line are displayed in the selection bar at the top of the application window:

 

Part 20: Adding a Turnout

Once we have made the appropriate track library available in XTrackCAD as described in the previous post, we can begin to use sections of track in the track plan. The first thing we will add is the left hand turnout at the south end of the Emerson passing siding. All of my mainline turnouts have #10 frogs, so we want to select the appropriate turnout from the selection of track at the top of the application window:



Once the correct piece of track has been selected, I click the section of straight track where I want the turnout to be added and continue to hold the mouse button down. By dragging along the track, you can control where you want the turnout to be inserted. By dragging on either side of the track, you can control the orientation of the turnout: the diverging leg of the turnout will always go to the opposite side of the track where you drag the mouse. The proposed turnout position changes as you drag the mouse and does not get created until you release the mouse button and press the <ENTER> key. For example, in the image below, I clicked the mouse on the mainline where I wanted the turnout to be inserted, the dragged the mouse above the mainline so the diverging leg of the turnout would go below the mainline:



While the turnout is being positioned, it is drawn in blue, indicating it can still be moved around. Finally, after releasing the mouse and pressing the <ENTER> key, the turnout is inserted right where I wanted it and in the correct orientation:

 

Part 21: Display Options

In the previous post we added the first turnout to the mainline. When we did this, we not only got the turnout but also some text to go along with it. This text is the part number of the turnout we added as well as the lengths of the adjacent sections of track. I have no particular interest in this information and find that it clutters the track plan. Thankfully, it is possible to suppress this information by selecting the Options > Display... menu item to display the Display Options dialog box:



To hide the unwanted labels, uncheck the options for Track Descriptions and Length and click the OK button. The track plan will be redrawn without the labels:

 

Part 22: Parallel Track

XTrackCAD has a lot of tools that do really cool things. For example, we have already seen how the Join tool magically connects two sections of track using smooth transition curves called easements. Another nifty tool that I use often is the Parallel Track tool:



As its name implies, this tool is useful for quickly adding a new track that runs parallel to an existing section of track. We will use this tool to draw the start of the south end of the Emerson passing siding that will be connected to the diverging leg of the turnout we added in a recent post.

When you click the toolbar button for the Parallel Track tool, the Separation field appears in the status bar at the bottom of the application window:



The value entered in this field controls the distance between the existing track and the new section of parallel track. On my layout, I use track centers spaced 1.5” apart, so I have entered that value in the Separation field as shown in the above screen image.

Once you have entered the separation value, all you need to do is click the existing track section where you would like to create the new parallel track. In our lesson, we want to click the section of track immediately to the left (railroad north) of the turnout we placed in a recent post. When you click this section of track, XTrackCAD draws a new parallel track based on the position of your mouse. By holding down the mouse button, you can drag to either side of the existing section of track to determine where the new track will be placed. In this screen image, the track has been drawn above the existing section of track because I had the mouse slightly above the existing track when I clicked:



I then dragged the mouse below the existing track so the new track would be placed in the correct location. Releasing the mouse button drops the new track right where I want it:



Once again, click-type-click-done! Perfectly placed parallel siding, no ruler required.

 

Continuing the Siding

For the next part of the tutorial we will continue working north from the south end of the Emerson passing siding. This siding runs adjacent to the existing mainline, with track centers spaced 1.5” apart. We have already covered all of the required steps in detail, so I will just skim over the next steps until we get to something new.

First, I drew a track circle for the turnback curve at the end of the aisle. Since the mainline circle is centered at (26”, 26”) and has a radius of 22”, the new circle has the same center but has a radius of 20.5” (22” minus the 1.5” difference in track centers). Here is the circle:



Next, we use the Join tool to connect the parallel track (drawn in the previous post) to the diverging leg of the turnout. Here is how the track looks after the join:



We do one more join to connect the parallel track to the new track circle. Immediately following the join we have this:



Next, we zoom out to see how everything looks overall so far:

 

Continuing the Siding

Moving to the north end of the Emerson passing siding, the following steps are required. First, we add a #10 right hand turnout to the appropriate location:



Then we add a short section of parallel track:



Next we join the new parallel track to the diverging leg of the turnout. Notice how the join operation actually extended the parallel track just a bit to make things flow smoothly:



Then we join the same track to the turnback curve:

 

House Track

Emerson features a house track off of the siding near the north turnout. This short spur can be clearly seen in this photo:



Again, we can draw this house track using simple tools that we have already covered during previous steps of the tutorial. First, we add a #7 left hand turnout to the appropriate location on the siding:



Next, we draw a track parallel to the siding:



Notice that this parallel track is actually a curved section of track. Until now, we have only used the Parallel Track tool on straight track. However, this tool will work on curves just as well, adjusting the radius as needed so the parallel tracks will share the same track centers.

Finally, we join the turnout and the house track using the Join tool:



You can see that the house track is much too long on the track plan. We will take care of this in the next step.

 

House Track Changes

Before we continue, I want to let everyone know that I made some changes to the north end of the Emerson passing siding. Basically, I deleted the house track and siding in this area and redrew them using slightly different methods. The biggest difference is that I drew the siding entirely using the Parallel Track tool where I had previously used a long join immediately off of the leg of the mainline turnout at the north end of the siding. I did this because I thought it was a better representation of the actual track alignment on the layout. I then added the house track back in using the exact steps shown in the previous post.

The updated track plan is shown in this screen image:



The differences are subtle, but if you compare the above image to the last image in the previous post you can see that the three tracks look to be in much better alignment, which makes sense since I used the Parallel Tool the second time around. I guess I missed the common sense of using the Parallel Tool to draw parallel tracks!

 

Part 23: Modify Track

Before we can call the existing track on the layout “done” on the track plan, there is one final detail to take care of. If you go back a few posts to when we drew the house track, you will see that the house track is much longer on the plan than it is on the layout. This is because the house track was created by using the Parallel Tool to copy a section of the adjacent siding track. As a result, the house track needs to be shortened.

As with most other tasks in XTrackCAD, shortening a section of track is quite simple. (Notice how often words like “simple” and “easy” appear in this tutorial?) For this particular task, it is the Modify Track tool that comes to the rescue:



To use the Modify Track tool to shorten (or lengthen) a section of track, select the toolbar button, click the end of the track to be modified, and drag the mouse to the desired new end point. When you release the mouse button, the track will be redrawn using the new length. A handy feature of this tool is that when you drag the end of a track that is being modified, the track will keep its overall geometry. In other words, straight tracks will remain straight and curved tracks will keep their constant radius.

Here is the track plan so far showing the corrected house track:

 

Part 24: Curved Line Cleanup

With all of the existing layout track added to the track plan, I want to export the track plan to an image that I can use on my blog to replace an outdated version drawn using Microsoft Visio. XTrackCAD does have an export feature, but when I tried it out, I noticed that my curved benchwork lines were way too thick while the straight lines were just right. If you recall way back at the start of this tutorial I used the Table Edge tool to draw the straight benchwork and backdrop lines, but had to use the Curved Line tool to draw the curved benchwork and backdrop lines since there is no curved table edge tool. At the time, this didn't seem like a problem. However, I have now learned that when you output a track plan (print, image, etc.), the table edges don't scale up but the curved lines do. Therefore, any curves were coming out way too thick.

To resolve this issue, I went back to the Describe Tool and selected one of the curved benchwork lines:



As you can see, the Line Width field was set to 64 for this curved line (and the others as well). I changed the value to 32 and the line width looked much better:



I then repeated this step for any other curved benchwork and backdrop lines. This produced much better results:



Although the lines look just a tad thin in the above screen image, they come out just right when the track plan is exported to an image (as you will see in an upcoming post).

 

Part 25: Text

One last thing I wanted to do before exporting the track plan to an image was to add some text labels to identify the various scenes of the layout. Before doing this, I selected an appropriate font to use for the labels by selecting the Options > Fonts... menu item to display the Font dialog box:



As you can see, I selected Calibri 18 point bold as the font for the labels on my track plan.

Next, I clicked the Text Tool on the toolbar:



After selecting this tool, the Font Size field opens up on the status bar at the bottom of the application window:



In this field, I selected a value of 300. While this seems like a large number, realize that fonts get scaled on a track plan just like other objects. So for example, let's say you add some text using an 18 point font on the track plan. Since there are 72 points per inch, that means you are adding text that is 1/4” tall. When you zoom out to view the entire track plan, any text that is 1/4” tall is going to appear as tiny dots—not at all what we want. Therefore, you need to pick an appropriate large point size for labels. In my case, 300 looks just right.

Once you have selected the appropriate value from the Font Size field at the bottom of the application window, click in the area where you want to add the text. Like before, don't worry about being precise because we can take care of exact positioning in just a bit. Once you click the track plan, a vertical bar will appear. You can then type the text you want. Once you have done this, click the text with the mouse and drag it to the exact position where you want it and release the mouse button. Finally, press the <ENTER> key and the text is locked on to the plan:



In the above screen image, I have added two text labels to the track plan using the steps I just described. A sharp eye will notice that I have drawn these text labels onto layer 10, which I have named Labels. I also made the color of this layer black since that is the color I want the labels to be drawn in.

 

Starting Layout #6 and will give this a try !! DJ

 

Part 26: Export to Bitmap

Now that I have the track plan “completed” to show the existing track on the layout, I would like to produce an image that I can place on my blog to replace the existing track plans that I created using Microsoft Visio. This can be done in XTrackCAD by selecting the File > Export to Bitmap menu item which displays the BitMap window:



There are three options that you can select in this window:

• Print Titles – includes the contents of the Layout Title and Subtitle fields (as entered in the Layout Options window) in the exported bitmap
• Print Borders – includes borders and ruler tick marks in the exported bitmap
• Print Centerline – includes a dashed line down the center of any track on the plan

The third option is very useful if you are printing a full size track plan since it allows you to locate the track centerlines on the layout for the purposes of installing roadbed and track. Since I am using this bitmap for display purposes on my blog, I selected the first two options only.

The dpi field (dpi is short for dots per inch) allows you to specify the resolution of the bitmap. As you make changes to this field, the contents of the Bitmap field change to reflect the size of the exported bitmap. I selected a value of 4.000 which produced a bitmap with dimensions of 926 by 579 pixels.

When you click the OK button, you are prompted for a folder location and file name to use for the new bitmap. Once saved, the bitmap is saved using the standard Windows BMP file format. Although this type of file can be viewed inside Windows, it is not useful for the web. Therefore, I used Adobe Photoshop Elements to convert the BMP file to a GIF file, which I uploaded to my image hosting website Photobucket. The resulting image is shown here:



You can now see the updated track plan on my blog at the following link:

CSX Dixie Line in N Scale: Track Plan

Now that the existing plan is completed, it is time to move on to actually designing the new track on the lower level of the layout.

 

I myself use AnyRail 4 EN, which does everything I need it to do for me. It is a easy program, and doesn't take much space. Some of these others are to complex for me to figure out. And that includes reading the manual several times.

 

Be advised that in the Mac version and (I believe) the Linux version, there is a known bug in the export code that generates an invalid output file once the complexity of the drawing gets beyond a certain point.

However, (and I'm choking on these words as I type them) if you have access to a PC, you can take your XTC file over to the PC and export it from the PC version of the program with no problem.