Anyrail vs Hornby track plan

[StuAllen]

I planning my new layout - I had to pack away my previous layout when we moved home about 6 six years ago and now I’ve decided thanks to some recent Acurascale purchases it’s time to finally clear the garage out of all the boxes we havent unpacked yet and build a new layout. 

I’ve bought a couple of trackplan books for inspiration - I like the plan 12 from the latest Hornby edition. I’ve also been playing with the trial version of Anyrail on my PC as well, I know it’s limited to 50 pieces and was planning of upgrading to the paid version. One of the features I wanted to try is being able to print the layout out full size so I can start to see what it looks like real size and start planning other buildings etc. but I also want to tweak the design as needed. This is where I’ve hit a snag. I’ve started copying the design from the trackplan book into Anyrail (without any tweaks yet and within the 50 piece limit)  but I can’t get the track to line up - has anyone else come across this? Which is right?

 

[ITG]

I assume you are planning using Hornby set track? No experience of using that in Anyrail but I spent hours on Anyrail with Peco flexitrack. Unless you already have lots of set track, it might be worth considering flexi track. That will give you more realistic track spacings and radii.
 

Certainly printing out full size is very helpful but best to be pretty certain of the track layout before doing so, as it’s pretty heavy on paper and ink if you end up scrapping it too regularly.

 

Of course, with set track, it is possible to plan some configurations which won’t actually line up in practice, but I think you can mix the use of set and flexi, which will perhaps give opportunity to make things line up.

[DCB]

It's quite normal for published trackplans to not work.   Both in Anyrail and the real world. Allow an extra 10% length and width and you should be all right as long as the track pieces used are still available, lots of C.J.Freezers plans used curved diamonds which are no longer available.   Set track is ok for getting accurate dog leg free sharp curves and straight straights.   The se track points are OK out of box for running Thomas and Perky around the dining room table or floor and for running pre 2000 stock but for serious modelling they waste width and are a constant cause of derailments.  Carved up they are fine for minimum space, trim then down to streamline spacing (2") or even scal e 42/ 44mm, but Streamline small radius are 2ft radius and no longer than Set Track which often has a 15" radius dog leg half way along..   Have a Look at @Harlequin's plans for inspiration, not Hornby if you want a model railway and not a toy train set .  Don't get me wrong there's nothing wrong with toy trains, I had hours of fun racing Hornby 0-4-0s on a double track oval when I was younger, like 45 and my son was 5...   Sadly he grew out of it

[Chris M]

I found Anyrail was pretty accurate with Peco streamline and a bit of set track. I've now built three layouts starting with an Anyrail plan and they have pretty much been exactly as expected. I couldn't of achieved any of them without detailed planning on Anyrail in the first place. Printing it out full size is time consuming but well worth it. You get a good idea of what your layout will look like. A bit of imagination is also useful at this point. I printed this plan out full size, tried it and decided it wasn't quite right so I made a few tweaks and printed out the 40 odd pages again. I found the cutting the edges and sellotaping together was a bit of a pain but well worth it.

 

When I was happy with the plan I cut it up so I could use the plan as a template for cutting the base for the track. Very useful if you use open baseboards.

 

It worked out well for me.

[StuAllen]

Thanks for all the advice, Peco Streamline it is - I’ve been playing around with Anyrail agin this morning and can see how how I can adapt  the plan to suit. Chris - thanks for sharing those photos, they’ve illustrated what I was trying to achieve very well.