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Plan from Model Railroad Planning 2005

Lower Level

   Staging

Middle Level

   Philadelphia Division

   Middle Division

Upper Level

   Pittsburgh Division

Composite View

Welcome to the plans for the PRR's Eastern Region!

The "PRR: Eastern Region" is an N scale multi-level layout featuring passenger and locomotive operations at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Harrisburg is the west end of PRR's electrified territory and is in the Philadelphia Division. Portions of the Middle and Pittsburgh divisions are also modeled.

Control is via DigiTrax Radio-Equipped Chief II (DCC) via hand held throttles. DCC control will extend beyond cab control to include routing (control of turnouts) and signals. Computerized dispatching with PanelPro and the Java Model Railroad Interface (JMRI) is implemented.

Track plans are not totally up-to-date but are fairly close to scale. Valuation maps have been electronically scaled and have not been compromised for content vs. space available.

I tried numerous model railroad design programs -- including Atlas Right Track and El Dorado's 3rd PlanIt -- but found them to have too steep a learning curve for a large, complex layout. Having a background supporting electronic graphics, I finally found a solution in Adobe Illustrator when combined with Hot Door's CADtools and Graffix' TrackTools plug-ins. The former allows setting scales on a layer by layer basis. The latter provides drawing curves with easements and turnouts. This is the exact same setup that Kalmbach uses for their publications!

Jerry Britton
Regional Superintendent