Just some info for those of us who still like to use paper, pencil and ruler to engineer their track plans: I use unlined 8 1/2 X 11 paper and 1/2 in. / ft.. and line out the overall room first. Then the boundary of the layout. These I do in ink so's not to rub them out when using an eraser. Everything else is in pencil. What's critical here is drawing curves. Since I design plans using Lionel tubular, I use their O gauge curves.
This now is the "It's Okay if you Laugh" part: I use jar lids and caps of an exact scale size to get the curves and it serves me well. An example is an old mayonnaise jar lid that yields a 3-inch diameter (72-in. scale) circle. Of course, my plans are drawn to represent what would be the center line of the track or switch. I know it's primitive but I enjoy drawing plans this way.
Hoppy
