New and confused

[Ashcat]

 

I’m still at the design stage of my layout intend to go the Railmaster route eventually with wife’s permission “ I’m working on her with extra special Christmas present etc “  in a couple of places I have points following each other and I have read in a couple of places now that for this to work properly there should be a short section of track between each set of points is this correct please?

 

[St1ngr4y]

Hi,

You need to space out the points wherever there would be a conflict with the red/green buttons. This diagram will help to explain this.

/media/tinymce_upload/Point_Spacing.png

The two examples at the top show where there is a conflict, and the diagrams below them show what you can do to correct the situation.

Ray

[96RAF]

 

I’m still at the design stage of my layout intend to go the Railmaster route eventually with wife’s permission “ I’m working on her with extra special Christmas present etc “  in a couple of places I have points following each other and I have read in a couple of places now that for this to work properly there should be a short section of track between each set of points is this correct please?

 

Two reasons Ash

if you have them too close together on the screen you may not be able to place the buttons correctly.

if you have them too close together on your board you may experience derailing of some stock. A short length of straight between points allows longer locos to sort themselves out afore they swing over onto the next point.

[Graskie]

When designing or amending your layout on RM, I found recently, on updating mine, that the system will tell you if points are too close together, presumably to allow enough space for putting in icons for points, signals etc. This does not mean, though. that you have to physically put a short piece of track on your actual layout. Just play around with getting the nearest representation on RM of your layout. Remember that an RM layout does not actually need to exactly resemble your real layout, as long as you recognise any slight differences for what they are, which is in fact quite simple to do and becomes very natural after a while.

[PJ_model_trains]

Hi Ashcat

 

All good advice above.  Nice image with clear guidance from Ray also.

 

When we first start with RM we try make our Schematic layout like our real layout. This is understandable but it not essential. The RailMaster track plan is just a mimic plan, some things have to be set out a certain way and the rest is very flexible. Points are separated on the Schematic plan so you 'cannot have a conflict' between them.

 

HRMS recently put an explanation of the mimic plan on the forum. In brief they gave the example of the London tube railway system. When we look at images of the underground, they do not represent real life distances. They show a station a small bit of track and another station etc. The Schematic layout, or mimic plan as it also is called is a representation of your layout not a copy of it.  Once you get used to it you will find it easy to use and alter, you will no doubt crush it in to try make it fit on the screen. (subject of course to how big your layout really is)

 

So long as you don't design in conflicts with points you will not have problems with RM running your layout. It is a good piece of software and is getting better all the time ;o)

 

Enjoy your hobby

 

PJ 

[Fishmanoz]

Wow Ashcat, some people are making some good "points" for you here. 

 

I have the the short answer - yes. 

[Ashcat]

Thanks to everyone for your help I'm sure once I get things built I will be back for more.