Thriftwood Parva 3 (Planning)

The planning for the layout needs ‘a good thinking about’!  There are many different ways of doing it but I like to use software to do a virtual plan. In my view it has many advantages: You can set a minimum radius and the software tells you if any part of your track is below that minimum.  You can move track around until you are happy 😃 with the layout. If you really want to you can add scenery and see the whole thing in 3D.  But finally you can print the whole thing full-size.

I use AnyRail £40 (there is a free trial version) but it only works on Windows OS. If you want software for Mac OS it is RailModeller Pro £38.99 from the App Store (there is also a free version of it called RailModeller Express which is free)

Once you have printed out and stuck together the many sheets (hundreds in our case) you can put it on your layout boards to see how it will fit. Making any alterations now will be much easier than later.

THEN you can start laying the track ………….

As you can see you replace the plan with track all on a cork layer and make minor adjustments as you go.

In part 4 we discuss the slope.

You keep going until all the track is laid!