Create a track plan online in your browser

Benjamin | TrackDrawer.com · published 11 November 2026

You create a track plan online by opening a track planner in your browser, choosing your track system and baseboard size, and laying the track on the board. Nothing gets installed: the plan lives in your account and opens on a computer, tablet and phone. With TrackDrawer it takes five steps, and the Auto-designer can do the designing for you, using the track you own.

An online planner has two advantages over a desktop program. You start right away, even on a device where you are not allowed to install software. And what you started on your phone, you finish on your laptop without sending files back and forth. Here are the steps one by one.

Step 1: Choose a track system and a baseboard

Every plan starts with a track system. The system fixes the geometry: which radii exist, at what angle the turnouts branch off and how wide the roadbed is. TrackDrawer knows the track systems of the major brands, from Märklin C track through K and M track, Roco, Piko, Fleischmann, Tillig and Minitrix to toy track such as IKEA Lillabo, LEGO and Duplo. Every piece is stored with its catalogue dimensions.

Next you enter the baseboard: width, depth and a margin the track should keep from the edge. A baseboard can also be made of several rectangles, for example an L shape in the corner of a room. With Pro you also draw the room, with walls, door, window and cupboard.

Choose the baseboard to suit your room, not the plan you would like to have. The smallest curve sets the depth: a circle of Märklin C track R1 is 76 cm wide across the roadbed. How to measure room and baseboard properly is explained in how to make a track plan in seven steps.

Step 2: Enter your stock

A track planner that knows your stock only plans with pieces you really have. You enter your track by catalogue number and count with plus and minus. A starter set or extension set goes in with one click; a long list you load as a CSV file. With Pro you can also have the track counted from a photo: lay the pieces flat side by side with a ruler next to them, then confirm what goes into your stock.

Your stock stays saved in your account. Every later plan uses it, and the parts list then compares what the plan needs with what you have.

Step 3: Let it design, or lay track yourself

Now for the planning itself. There are two ways, and you can mix them.

Let it design. You tell the Auto-designer what the layout should do: run continuously, run several trains, have a station, allow shunting. It then lays out variants, only from your stock and only on your baseboard: ovals, passing loops, stations with sidings, dog bones, figure eights. Free accounts get five variants per run, Pro up to fifty. More in The Auto-designer.

Lay it yourself. You pick a piece from the palette and it attaches to the selected track end. You rotate a piece in steps of 15 degrees, mirror a turnout or curve, and "Parallel" gives you a second track at the system's track spacing. Undo is always there.

The mix usually works best: let it lay out a variant close to what you want and refine it by hand.

Step 4: Check it, view it, ride along

A plan on screen quickly looks finished. The errors hide in the millimetres. TrackDrawer checks every plan while you lay track and shows the results under "Notices":

• Closure: does the last piece of a loop really meet the first, or is there a gap?
• Collisions: do two tracks overlap, or a building and a track?
• Gradients and clearance: is a ramp too steep, does a train fit under the bridge?

Then you look at the plan in 3D. In the cab view you ride through your own plan and see before building whether a station or a curve works the way you pictured it.

Step 5: Save, share and print

Plans are saved in your account and are then ready on every device. To share, you switch on a view-only link and send it by WhatsApp, email or as forum code. If you like, you put the plan in the Railfolio, the public collection of track plans. There anyone can rebuild your plan from their own stock with "Make it with my track".

For building there are three outputs:

• a PDF to scale on one page, with the parts list;
• a 1:1 PDF in tiles from A4 to A0, with registration marks for laying on the baseboard;
• the parts list as CSV, including what you are still missing.

The 1:1 print is free as a preview with 20 percent of the tiles, the ones with the most track; Pro gives you all of them.

Coming from another program that is no longer developed? Read TRAX2 has closed: how to carry on with your layout. How the well-known planners differ is covered in the overview of software for drawing a model railway.

Frequently asked questions

Can I create a track plan online for free?

Yes. For free you make one flat plan with up to 60 pieces and get five variants per run from the Auto-designer. Pro lifts the limit on plans and pieces and adds gradients, bridges, the room and the full 1:1 print.

Does it work without an internet connection?

Partly. Installed as a web app, TrackDrawer opens plans you have already saved even without a connection; changes are synchronised once you are back online. New plans and changes to your stock need a connection.

Does it work on a tablet and a phone?

Yes. On a tablet you get the full three-column screen, on a phone a layout of its own with large buttons and a sliding panel. For Android, TrackDrawer is also available as an app on Google Play; an iOS app is in preparation.

Can I load an existing plan from another program?

With Pro you import XTrackCAD files (.xtc) and AnyRail plans through their JMRI export. From other programs the easiest route is to take the parts list and enter it as your stock.

Try it now

Open the track planner in your browser, choose your system and your baseboard and let it lay out a first plan from your own track.