Track plan help?

[iis612]

I am not even sure that I am posting this in the right place...
Here is the track plan that I am working on so far...

The red lines indicate a scenic divider (i.e. backdrop) On the top is the staging area. On the left side you can see the turntable sitting, all alone, that is where my yard will be. Obviously more needs to be done to make this a workable plan. I need to add some crossovers, a yard, ad infinitum.
If the resident planning gurus could take a peak at this and give me their thoughts, it would be most appreciated.
Crud, the dimensions don't show on the picture. The grid is in 3" increments.

Thanks,
Matt

Here is a slightly more useful pic

[Russ Bellinis]

Is that a second turntable sitting on the peninsula to the lower left side? It looks like it will be a fun railroad to operate with a lot of room for scenery, more industries, or a bit of both.

[iis612]

That is a second turntable on the penninsula. That is where McGrew yard will be. I have a few more industires to add, but I am going for a nice balance between scenery and switching.
The turntable on the top is strictly a cheapo staging TT, it's entire purpose is to reduce the need for human interferance.
I will post more as I have more. The design is slow going, as I am really weak at it, and I am still learning Xtrack.

Matt

[Squidbait]

Matt,

Could you attach the XtrkCad file to your post, so we can diddle with your plan?

[iis612]

I will give it a shot.

Sorry, xtc extensions aren't allowed. I can email it if you want.

Matt

[Squidbait]

I will give it a shot.

Sorry, xtc extensions aren't allowed.

Matt

We'll see about that! Just hang on a tic, and I'll see if I can twist some arms to allow .xtc files as attachments.

[iis612]

I am going to try to upload it to Photobucket and make it available as a download.

[iis612]

The best I could do at Photobucket is upload the bitmap image. I think, but I am definately not sure, that Xtrack will import bitmap images.
Here is the link
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q253/iis612/pm2b.jpg">http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q253/iis612/pm2b.jpg</a><!-- m -->
Disregard that. Photobucket converted it to a jpeg.

[iis612]

The best I could do at Photobucket is upload the bitmap image. I think, but I am definately not sure, that Xtrack will import bitmap images.
Here is the link
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q253/iis612/pm2b.jpg">http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q253/iis612/pm2b.jpg</a><!-- m -->
Disregard that. Photobucket converted it to a jpeg.

I was wrong, Xtrack will only import .xtc files. Hopefully you can get those arms twisted Marc. I would love to see what your diddling could produce.

Matt

[Squidbait]

Try it again Matt... I've used my influence for the good of The Gauge.

[LynnB]

As I had stated in another post if you post the code in a single post with cut and paste from the notepad then resave it from your computer back to .xtc file.
Been a while since doing it myself so let me try
step1 open xtrkcad plan to check where you have it saved .
step2 copy the plan to such as I just did renaming it plan bridgenote.xtc in the same folder
step3 open up notepad and open the renamed file by first changing the file type from txt documents (*txt) to All Files andto you will now see all the .xtc type files in the list of that directory and open the copy of original file and all the code will be there
step4 copy all the code to the clipboard and paste it in the thread
step 5 copy all the code from the thread into your notepad new document and now as in step 3 change file type to All Files and resave the pasted file with a .xtc extention named whatever you want and open it in the xtkcad program.
Now one problem you may come across is the maximum characters permitted in a post is 60000 and this unfortunetly would include empty spaces and the code for xtkcad is loaded with spaces, so saying that, this post may only be fyi only if your plan is too large.

[Squidbait]

Lynn,

You could do it that way, however it's much easier just to ask the mods to allow uploading of a particular file type. Then it's just point and click, and no big deal. Since Xtrkcad saves the file as a text file anyways, I don't see that there's any particular space savings in doing it your way, just more room for confusion for people who have a hard enough time navigating the internet.

[LynnB]

Lynn,

You could do it that way, however it's much easier just to ask the mods to allow uploading of a particular file type. Then it's just point and click, and no big deal. Since Xtrkcad saves the file as a text file anyways, I don't see that there's any particular space savings in doing it your way, just more room for confusion for people who have a hard enough time navigating the internet.

How true.

[iis612]

Alright, let's try this again.
Disregard the new stuff on the left side. That is supposed to be the yard throat, terminal lead, and switching lead. I am going to redo pretty much all of that.

Matt

[iis612]

There should be an update coming by this afternoon. I will post the pics, and a copy of the .xtc file.
I uploaded a photo showing the items that I will be changing, soley for the sake of discussion.

Clearly there are several changes that need to be made to the staging area, not to mention the entire visible yard area.
I will have to use paint to add where the streams, rivers, and roads will be, but that is later.
Matt