Model Railroading > Track planning before computers took over

Lionel put out this track planning template kit in the 1950's.  One used the ring to pick up a 
template of a Lionel track section and press it on the ink pad, then rubber stamp it on a piece of paper.
Repeat until you get the layout you ..... ummmm I mean your kid...... wants.

Once you make out the plan, its time to go to your local hardware store and buy the track and switches.
While you are there, pick up a new Scout locomotive with 2025 whistle tender, and maybe a rocket launching flat car.

We have this template set at our Cotton Belt Depot Museum in Tyler TX thanks to the late Mr. Con Sweet.

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Thanks for sharing. That is very interesting.

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com

Thats neat Shane, I never knew those things existed.

No kidding!  What an interesting post!

I think there were a few other ideas in between such as using a photocopier to copy your turnouts and place them on large Butcher's Paper mockups laid across the room.

That sounds like some kind of museum and would be worth a look.  Thanks for your post.

Rick

Lots of nice big memories there. Thanks for sharing.

Jim
Hatboro, PA​

Thanks for the look back.  Those were the days!  Mine was a Gilbert American Flyer (S guage) layout before transitioning into HO.

Kent in CArmel Valley

I had Lionel as a kid in the mid-1960's but never saw that.  What I did, and still do instead of using a compuer is graph paper, a scale rule and a compass.  

I some how like the ability to first draw out the room to scale, visualize the space and what curves will fit where and design a track plan that way - I never could wrap my head around doing it on a computer even though I've been using computers since the early 1980's.

Cheers, Jim Fitch

Not to be outdone, of course, AC Gilbert's  AMerican Flyer made a similar track planning kit-without the goofy looking "Decoder ring" and stamp pad however.  I'll have to go dig in my basment to find it.

Hmm... interesting!

- Jeff Carlson

Gee I bet track was MUCH easier to buy then when your plan was complete....

I miss the guy that was addressed to.  

Yes,I also miss Con.He posted some neat pictures.

Uncle Joe,Seffner,Fl.

Unfortunately, I had one of these sets new!  I found it easier to just put the track and switches on the table and move them around to what I liked at the time.  I tacked it down loose so I could get it up and move it again and again.  I sold it along with all my Lionel to Officer Pelzer, a local policeman who was into Lionel and threatened to cut my wooden go kart in half every time he caught me running it around the neighborhood!  When I got into HO I actually did add some scenery.  God awful looking died green and brown sawdust and a mountain made out of chicken wire and some asbestos plaster my father had laying around from lagging the boiler!!  Oh what we didn't know back then! 

Peter

Cool, I have one of these too along with a pile of assorted Lionel, American Flyer and assorted 60s/70s HO and N "stuff" from my late grandfather.