trackplantools.jpgI’ve spent some time over the last few years surveying a number of different software solutions intended to help users design their model railroad – most recently trying Altas’ RTS. Each of the programs I’ve tried have offered a fairly comprehensive set of tools, and allowed users to draw simple track plans. Beyond that scope, most of the programs tend to get far too complicated – at least for casual use. It strikes me that despite best efforts, designs never quite work in practice, and serves the users best as guides rather then blueprints. As such, I’ve will continue to rely on Adobe Illustrator as my program of choice.

As I iterated here, Illustrator is not a program that many people use – at least not in relation to its big brother Photoshop, and it is geared to the graphic design industry, not CAD. That being said, I have found that it’s easy to lay out basic radii and switches and get a sense of what will fit in a space using the program, and to use these drafts as a guides, as ‘real’ track planning is done on the baseboard.

With that, I did happen across a fairly useful little plug-in for Illustrator intended to help users draw track plans. Developed by Rick Johnson (senior illustrator at Model Railroader Magazine), this plug-in helps draw switches, crossovers, basic curves, strait track sections and stubs. Elegant, simple, and fairly comprehensive (you can specify the turnout size by simple holding the turnout number down while clicking) this inexpensive plug-in works well, and removes a great deal of headache.

Rick offers the plug-in as a shareware release with a limit of 100 uses before he requires the user to pay $15 to register. The 100 uses is more then enough for any user to adequacy try the tool, and the $15, well, money well spent!

http://rj-graffix.com/software/plugins.html