Martin

Your last paragraph is indeed a fair comment of my head long rush to make Templot part of my tool kit. This is partly due to the fact that I already have the Peco Finescale track to emulate the track diagram (in condensed form) so it was easy for me to simply start learning Templot on a project I am already familiar with.

My successful single slip was made starting from scratch, outside of The grand design. But it did not give me the potential space saving I am looking for. I will keep trying to fit the double slip into the nine foot space.

As to Illustrator, I have been using this software for about 15 years so it is an established part of my tool kit.

i have noticed that WINE has chosen Windows XP for me. Is that what other Mac users use for Templot?

Best regards, Paul

Hi Paul,
 

As you know, my experience of layout planning for Shipston, is a somewhat salutary tale.  Firstly, of course, spending nearly 20 years researching the line (whilst also being an aircraft modeller!), before then trying to turn it into a railway layout did not help.
 

Being a traditionally trained draughtsman (albeit later acquiring CAD experience), at the time I did my layout planning (to get the boards built) I naturally used pencil and paper on a drawing board.  This approach ultimately failed, because by not using track templates, etc, I was apparently able to get all I wanted on my boards (including the adjacent gas works) -  or so I thought...
 

When I finally came to the track-laying stage, years later, I discovered that the only way to actually get all that on the boards I had, by then, made, would have been to loose the gas works.  Once I realised that, I finally fell out of love with the whole project. The rest is history, as they say.
 

Now of course, I use a planning program ('AnyRail5') and you cannot beat actually laying the track out to see how various ideas work (or not).  Still, on the plus side, my loss was your gain -  looking forward to seeing how your Shipston progresses.

Steve N

Hi Steve

The problem, as I now see it regarding the gas works, is the width of the goods yard.  The station itself will fit on a 2 foot wide board in 4mm scale, but not the gas works.  I have thought that the latter could be built on a separate stand alone board which could be attached to the side of the running layout.  The original space I had planned on using would have allowed this.

If the gas works side of the plan were to be against a wall or, better still, against an alcove on one side of an old fireplace, then the plan could be turned around with the back of the station building in front of the layout and the gas works in the alcove.  I don't have this opportunity at the moment.

My plan is to build the baseboards and then set out the current plan and see how it looks with the buildings in place.  We do have a strange situation here, where the layout follows the buildings rather than the other way round.  As the current plan shows, the main buildings do straddle the baseboard joints but your 1/2" bases will sit nicely within cutouts in the Sundeala.

By the way my first attempt at layout design was to use plain wallpaper liner, a pencil, the buildings and the Peco turnouts.  I have a photo somewhere. . .

Hi Paul,

 

You have rather lost me there. Wine does not use any part of any version of Windows. It is its own program which replicates the Windows functions in its own way.

 

Mostly the result looks similar to what Microsoft calls "Classic Windows" -- or at least it does on Ubuntu Linux. Looking at your screenshots I think the same applies on Crossover on a Mac. Wine on other Linux distributions may look different.

 

Having said that, is Crossover offering you a choice of appearance? Sorry I don't know anything about Macs.

 

regards,

 

Martin.

Martin, I have two screen grabs to explain what I mean, I will PM them to you if that's ok?

My boards numbered only two, and even that one joint seemed to be just in the wrong place!  The other issue of course, is not just the joint between baseboards, but the juxtaposition of any strengthening timbers underneath the rest of the boards.  Funny how they, or their intersections, always seem to be exactly where you want to place a turnout.

 

My present planning, is based around the assumption I will make use of the existing boards I have made.  To that end, since my CAD drawing for the baseboards includes all the sub-baseboard timbers, I have imported a view of that framework as an image into AnyRail5.  By sizing it to fit a rectangle the size of the assembled boards, already drawn in AnyRail5, I then know exactly where all the potential problems are, before I start 'virtual track-laying'.

 

Steve N

 

Steve,

My boards have yet to be put together, though all the components have been cut for the 4"x1" nominal frames.  The baseboard joints are fixed but the strengthening cross pieces are moveable until I get the plan finalized.  The Goods Shed looks like it will straddle two boards which means that it will be removable.  The station platform could be cut at the board join but I would prefer not to do that, so having it as a removable item is also a possibility.  The Engine Shed, Cattle Pens and other small Yard Buildings are all within one board so they can be permanently fixed in place.

There is an upside to all this.  Buildings that straddle a baseboard join help to mask that join!