James River Branch: News Archive

Website News Archive: March 2011

20 March 2011

Track planning continues to be the hot topic. I've provided the AnyRail source files for all of my track plans so you can tinker with them yourself! Simply look for the download AnyRail source file link at the bottom of each track plan page.

19 March 2011

The Rokuhan conversion chart proved to be an instant hit, and shortly after publishing it I received a request to do the same for Märklin track—that is, make a conversion chart so folks can build my track plans using Märklin track instead of Micro-Track. Since there's considerable convergence of track geometry between brands, this seemed like a perfectly reasonable request.

18 March 2011

I'm sorry to say I haven't done any work on the James River Branch for a while, and for obvious reasons. I did, however, pay it a little attention when I purchased a new camera and took some random shots of the layout (right). I needed a replacement pocket point-and-shoot, and I must say the Canon PowerShot SD4000 is a mighty impressive little toy. With manual overrides for most functions, it allows me to stop down the aperture for improved depth of field. It's still nothing like what can be done with Helicon Focus, but it's getting close.

Incidentally, my track plans have been getting quite popular. So has Rokuhan track, and I've been receiving requests to develop track plans for it. The current collection took a couple of months to put together, so please be patient. Know, too, that Rokuhan is planning to release 30-degree versions of their 45-degree curve sections, which will be a boon: not only will it further expand the options one has for track planning, but it will mean you'll be able to build any plan designed for Micro-Track using Rokuhan track.

As it happens, over half of the plans in the collection are "Rokuhan compatible." These are now highlighted in the list of plans; additionally, I've included a conversion chart indicating which Rokuhan track parts correspond with which Micro-Track parts. (Actually, you can build any plan right now with Rokuhan track if you're willing to cut 45-degree curve sections down to 30 degrees.) These are good times for Z Scale!