Track Plan design using Scarm

[paul_garwood]

If you have used Scarm to design your track plan you will end up with a professional layout. 

If you try and do this in the Railmaster Track Design mode you will get a shock!, it's virtually impossible to do this, with the very basic tools that are supplied in their software. I just wish there was a way you could transfer the Scarm plan into Railmaster.    

[96RAF]

SCARM and other track design packages like AnyRail, XtrackCad, etc design a layout using proportional track parts in scale. I.e. drawings of the actual track part. These parts fit like the real thing, so you can develop a bill of materials, go and buy those parts and lay them on a board in accordance with the drawn plan.

 

Railmaster along with other operating software packages like JMRI,, Rocrail, Train-Controller, Train, etc use representative track parts, i.e a simple line to indicate a straight, curve or point. There is no intention to follow dimension, you cannot raise a bill of materials and could only use the track plan as a very rough guide to track laying.

 

The two diagrams are not intended to be the same. Its like comparing apples and pears.

[Fishmanoz]

More like comparing apples and anacondas, they are completely different.  All the RM schematic is there for is to allow you to see on screen the interrelationship between your points, TTs and accessories (and detectors when LD comes in) such that you can operate them to allow trains to move around your layout.  The straights and curves are for your convenience in this regard.  You could remove all of them and have no effect on RM.  You could then jumble all of your points and accessories into one corner of your schematic and still there would be no effect on RM.

 

Completely different to SCARM/Anyrail layouts which are highly accurate scale representations of your actual layout including curve radii, inclines, easements etc.