2014-May - Getting the track plan onto the layout

Now it's time to transfer the track plan to the layout.


I drew a grid on the Styrofoam, 12" grid in red and 3" grid in black.


I printed out the track plan from XtrkCAD full-size on regular letter-size paper, with the option of location markers selected. I laid the track plan pages onto the layout and stuck a straight pin in each location crosshair and made sure it lined up on the corresponding grid line on the styrofoam. It worked quite well.


Then came the painstaking process of poking the straight pin through the track centreline every centimeter or so to create a line of pinprick dots in the foam. After removing the paper track plan I put a dot with a blue Sharpie in every pinprick, and then connected all the dots to end up with all my track center lines readily visible.