Need someone to develop track plan

Taerrah

New Member
Here are the requirements:

Room: 9’ 4” X 6’ 8” usable. 0 elevation = 54” Eye level = 68”
Scale: HOn3
Trains: One 3 or 4 car freight or mixed train plus locomotive, tender, and caboose every couple of days. One 4 or 5 car passenger train every day and twice a day on weekends and holidays.
Shape: Walk in with medium aisles. (I'm 240# - no duck under)
Curves: Sharp and very sharp 18" and 16"
Prototype: Fictitious historic mining and logging short line. Today’s major cargo is tourists. Most tourists and provisions are still carried to No Name City by the C & M RR. Limited logging and mining round out the C & M RR’s timetable.
Terrain: Mountain and woodland. Makyala is situated in a flat valley while No Name City is in the mountains on a slight incline. There is a white water river half way between the two giving the illusion that the train generally follows and crosses the river a few times.
Equipment: 2 locomotives are old 2-8-0’s and there is one fairly new industrial diesel switcher. An old Shey occasionally makes an appearance. Rolling stock is mostly old timer. The C & M RR, named for the founders, operates on a very tight budget and uses hand-me-down equipment from a number of roads including D&RGW, SP, UP, and Santa Fe. Little railroad equipment or property has ever been repainted except for covering Heralds and changing the name.
Speed: Due to the tight curves and lack of track maintenance, speed limits are between 5 and 30 mph with an average of 25 mph.
Operators: 1 or 2
Towns: Makyala is a typical small city of the 50’s similar to Rapid City or Tucson, population about 50,000. It is a little slice of Norman Rockwell Americana. Visible are at least 1 main street, paved roads, buildings, flats, backdrop, and the main yard. It is situated at 0 elevation. No Name City exploits it’s colorful boom town past akin to Deadwood or Tombstone. It features Old West buildings with a smattering of new and 2 – 3 Dirt roads and streets. It lies high in mountains.
Yard: 2 -3 track yard with simulated interchange track, 2 stall roundhouse, turntable, program (Caboose) track.
Industry: Timber, Sawmill, 1 or 2 mines, Stamp mill, Cattle Pens, 1 or 2 more.
Stations: Passenger with Team track in No Name City. Passenger track runs down the middle of Main St. Team track on next (lower) street. Freight – Passenger combination in Makyala yard
Electronics: DCC, Sound, Wigwag crossing signals
Track: Code 70 mainline, code 55 yard and sidings. Turnouts #4
Point to point with continuous running - multi lap track in view at some points. Single mainline w/ 2 passing sidings or spurs long enough to hold train. 1 wooden trestle – wood or steel bridges
1 or 2 storage tracks.
Plan: I like the concept of San Juan Central (out of print) but am leaning toward modifing Rio Grande Southrn in '18 Taylor Made Model railroad Track Plans' by J. Armstrong
I hope this comes out
:rolleyes:
 

Taerrah

New Member
I dunno

I don't have any idea, but I can't save it as a jpeg or any of the authorized extensions. Tried to e-mai it to myself. It uploaded and downloaded, but won't open:mad: Any ideas?
 

Tyson Rayles

Active Member
What type of file did you save it as? To find out if you don't know (if you are using a windows OS ) go into windows explorer, locate the file and click on it to highlight it, then go to file on your toolbar and go down to properties and click and it will tell you. If all that fails but you can print it out, do that and (hoping here you have a scanner) scan it back in and save as a jpeg. If none of that works send me a PM and I will give you my e-mail address. You will have to send me a white e-mail (don't go thru the Gauge it won't let you attach files to e-mails) with the file attached and I will see if I can figure it out or you can PM Dave Hagan and he will help you.
 

shamus

Registered Member
Hi Taerrah
Welcome to the gauge, did Tyson sort your posting problem for you? Would need to know what the file extention is, i.e. jpg/bmp/pdd etc to help you.

Shamus
 

Taerrah

New Member
Sort of

We're working on it. The file extension is *.ral and I can't figgure out how to change it to a gif. Thanks Chris
 

Tyson Rayles

Active Member
Shamus, Taerrah e-mailed the file to me. It is a RAL file type, with a MS-DOS file name and 72.5 kb. Would only open in word pad and of course when open it was all in computereeze. Taerrah do you still have the plan on your puter? If you do resave it as a jpeg. Also will the atlas freeware let you save?
 

Taerrah

New Member
AARgh

The only file xtensions available on this program are: ral, bmp, pcx, wmf, emf, and dxf. Tried to do bmp and change that, but I don't have a required program to open it as a bmp
 

Tyson Rayles

Active Member
Save it as a bmp and e-mail it to me, I should be able to convert it. However I will be leaving for work soon so depending on when I get in for lunch (if I get in for lunch :D ) it could be later this afternoon before I can post it.
 

shamus

Registered Member
Re: AARgh

Originally posted by Taerrah
The only file xtensions available on this program are: ral, bmp, pcx, wmf, emf, and dxf. Tried to do bmp and change that, but I don't have a required program to open it as a bmp

From the programme you have drawn it in, just save it as a bmp, and don't try and change it. send me an email to
Shamus@the-gauge.com with the attachment.
I will sort it out.

Shamus
 

shamus

Registered Member
Okay, got the plan, it was in a ".bak" file format, how did you manage that?
It's now a jpg, here it is.

Shamus
 

Attachments

  • layout 01.jpg
    layout 01.jpg
    82.1 KB · Views: 335

Taerrah

New Member
Excellent

Whew! I don't know how I got a .BAK, the puter did it. Thanks for posting it for me, now maybe someone will have some good ideas. No Name City is on the lower left of the plan by the 2 parallel tracks, and Makyala is on the lower right and extends about a foot toward the bottom of the screen. An ideas greatly appreciated. Chris
 

billk

Active Member
RE: Weird file formats - Here's what I do sometimes out of desparation:
1. Display the picture on the monitor.
2. Hit the "Print Screen" key (you know, the one you never use and maybe didn't know what it was for)
3. Open up the "Paint program" and select "Edit - Paste"
4. You now have a picture, in Paint, of what the screen looked like when you hit Print Screen. You can crop it, resize it, edit it, and whatever else Paint lets you do. Then save it as a .BMP, .JPEG, or whatever toots your whistle.
 

Tyson Rayles

Active Member
Well I have doddled and doddled :D and can not get all that into that space. I figure it can be done, just not by me. One of the problems is while the track is basically n-scale the rolling stock and locos and buildings, etc. are not. I wish you luck and if you do build this please post some pics cause it has the potenial to be a neat little railroad. BTW will you be able to access this from all four sides?
 

Taerrah

New Member
Thanks for trying. Unfortunately, I omitted the walls and benchwork perimeter. Access will be limited to the walk-in area and the front (bottom) of the layout. The other 3 sides are walls, and it took a lot of sweet talk and promises to the superintendant or real estate (wife) to get this much. I am very gratefull for this land grant. The other problem is the 5 foot reach in the upper right hand corner by the trestle and 2 turnouts. I thought I could leave a hole in the back of the montain for the 5 finger sky crane.
 

roryglasgow

Active Member
Posting Pictures from Atlas RTS

Taerrah,

This is a late response, but here goes...

From RTS:

1. Pull down the File menu and select Save as.
2. From the "save as" box, click on the arrow on the list next to Save as type. Select Bitmap (*.bmp).
3. Enter the file name. MAKE SURE THAT YOU PUT .BMP AT THE END! If you don't then the program will overwrite your trackplan file with the bitmap. Silly little bug that can be quite annoying...

If you have Windows 98, ME, 2000 or XP, you can use the Microsoft Paint program that came with Windows (click the Start button, then Programs->Accessories->Paint). Otherwise, you'll need a program like Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop.

4. Open the file you created above in your Paint program.
5. Pull down the File menu and select Save as.
6. Pull down the Save as type list and select GIF or JPG/JPEG format.
7. Click the Save button.

The new file will have the .gif or .jpg extension, depending on what you chose. Both formats compress the image so that it doesn't take up as much room as a plain bitmap. GIF format is more appropriate for drawings, and JPG is better for photos.

One more thing... I've noticed that RTS often clips the edges of the image. My solution has been to put one section of track on each edge of the plan to force RTS to clip the image outside the edge of the track/benchwork. It's a hassle, but you get what you pay for...

Is all that clear as mud? :) I think I've used my allotment of bold text... hehehehe

One of the advantages of doing it this way (as opposed to using the screen-print method) is that you can save the image in a larger size, then use Paint or another program to add colors and other enhancements.
 
Top