help please

[TRAINALEX100]

hello
i have had my layout for about 7 years and i have decided to rip it up and start again. The problem is though i don't know where to start, i have a 11 foot by 4 foot room and in that space i want a fiddle yard across the back and and a station that's as long as possible and with at least 4 platforms, iv'e drawn some ideas but they all look boring in my opinion and i'm wondering if i can have some help
thanks

 

[bsillett]

Try this free http://www.scarm.info/index_en.html
it should help you get the most out of your space.
Also I'm in the process of building my first large layout (12 x 7 area) and I'm going to have mine double decked via two helix's so that the fiddle yard is under the layout thus giving me much more modelling room. You could try something similar.
Another free design prog is here http://www.anyrail.com/index_en.html
Very good programme.
Good luck and enjoy.

 

[bocaj]

Any Rail is not free, only the trial is free. And your limited to 50 peices of track in the trial.

 

[bsillett]

Any Rail is not free, only the trial is free. And your limited to 50 peices of track in the trial.

Opps yer sorry I've got the ful version anyrail4, my mistake.

 

[bocaj]

So your best of downloading Scram and getting Everything for free!

 

[bsillett]

To be honest, I think Scram is a better programme that Anyrail and just wish I had found it first before lashing money out. Not sure about Hornby Track Master software, but it is only a tenner.

 

[bocaj]

I found Scram just in time before buying AnyRail. Track master will probably be good if your only planning on using track secotions made by Hornby.

 

[Stevenage91]

Hello everyone. I too, am also thinking of ripping up my railway set, although I only have a small 4x6 layout. I am a member of a local model railway club, who had told me about XTrkCAD. It is fairly complicated program to use, depending on your I.C.T skills, but defiantly worth looking at. It is a free download, with no trial. It offers all types of track, layers of track, points and you can customize the board to your own size. The rest, I have yet to discover, but is deffinatly and advantage to drawing it all out by hand.

If you are going for a very complicated layout, with point motors, signalling ect, I have been told that macromedia fireworks is good to help with the wiring.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/xtrkcad-fork/ This is one of many websites to download it from.

Hope this is of help!