MiMrailBeta
Track and layouts for modellers

Plan your track the way the real railway built it

MiMrail is a track and layout planner that knows how real railways built their pointwork, country by country. You choose where your railway is, lay the track the way that railway laid it, check it in 3D, and take it off the screen as printed templates, 3D printed sleeper strips or laser-cut sleepers.

Open MiMrail Read the manual

It runs in your web browser, on a computer, with nothing to install. Your work is saved to your own file.

MiMrail is in preview. You can plan, check and view your layout in 3D now. Printing and the file exports are switched off for the moment while I tidy the loose ends. If something doesn't work as you'd expect, please tell me.
MiMrail's 3D view of Interlaken Ost in H0: curving tracks on wooden sleepers with SBB lattice masts and portals carrying the overhead wires, the aerial photograph draped over the baseboard.
Interlaken Ost in H0, straight out of MiMrail. The track follows OpenStreetMap's rail lines, laid with SBB standard turnouts, under SBB's own masts and portals.

It isn't CAD

You don't draw lines and arcs and hope they meet. You don't need to know what a closure curve is, how long a switch should be or where the crossing nose falls. All of that is built in, railway by railway.

01Choose wherePick the country. Its turnouts, rail, sleepers, spacing and model standards come with it.
02Pick a turnout by nameDB's EW 190-1:9, an SBB EW 185-1:7, an AREA No. 8. MiMrail builds it from that railway's rules.
03Click to lay trackStraights, curves, transitions, crossovers, ladders and sidings join on by themselves.
04Read the checksClashes, tight curves, narrow aisles and pointwork across a baseboard joint are listed. Click one to go to it.
A DB EW 190-1:9 turnout in H0 with its sleepers and the German key points WA, ZS, WM, BE, HS and WE.
A DB EW 190-1:9 in H0. Every turnout tells you where each figure came from, and whether the railway printed it or MiMrail worked it out.

Where it covers

MiMrail opens on a map of the world. Choose your continent, then your country, and the app sets itself up for that railway, down to the units and the words on the screen.

North America Live

AREA · AREMA · US and Canada

AREA and AREMA turnouts from 1893 to today, plus the railroads' own plans. Stub switches, three-throws, slips and scissors.

Germany Live

DB · Deutsche Reichsbahn

DB's standard turnouts, the Grundformen, with DB's own labels for the key points.

Switzerland Live

SBB · BLS · SOB

SBB standard turnouts from 185 to 1600 m radius, on wood or concrete, with SBB's clamped baseplate.

Netherlands Live

ProRail · NS

ProRail turnouts and slips from ProRail's open design data, with Dutch level crossings and hectometre boards.

France Live

SNCF

SNCF's unified turnouts from the 1949 laying plans, with the French names for each point.

Australia Live

NSW · ARTC · Victorian Railways

New South Wales standard gauge, and Victoria's 5 ft 3 in broad gauge from the VR's own drawings.

Great Britain Growing

Network Rail · BR

All 61 BS113A turnouts and the British fine standards, from OO to P4 and S7. PlanIT! projects open as they are.

Narrow gauge First steps

600 mm field railways

Any scale at its exact gauge, with sleepers laid by eye and twist-lock printed spikes.

Still to come Later

Austria · RhB · and more

Austria is in preparation. If you'd like your country next, let me know.

Start from the real place

If you're modelling somewhere that exists, you can start from it. Put the country's own maps under the plan: aerial photographs, and historic maps back to the 19th century. OpenStreetMap's rail lines can be laid as track, with its buildings, platforms and roads. Or lay a scanned plan under the track and scale it with two clicks.

The MiMrail screen: Interlaken Ost laid in purple over swisstopo's aerial photograph, the tool rail on the left and the settings panel on the right.
Interlaken Ost over swisstopo's aerial photograph.
Eye-level 3D view along an Interlaken platform, with portals and masts carrying the contact wire.
The 3D view: standing on the platform to check it clears.

Getting it off the screen

A plan on a screen doesn't run trains. MiMrail gives you three ways to turn it into track, and you don't need to have used a 3D printer or a laser cutter before.

MiMrail's print dialog: a turnout template tiled over two A4 sheets.
PRINTED TEMPLATES

Build it the traditional way

Full-size templates tiled over ordinary A4 or Letter, with registration marks and a scale bar, plus each rail drawn straight with its bends marked.

MiMrail's 3D sleeper strip dialog for an SBB turnout, with baseplates, rail clamps and connecting webs.
STL · 3D PRINTING

Sleepers and fastenings, printed

Sleeper strips with the railway's own baseplates and clamps. Print a test coupon to fit your make of rail, then slide the rail in.

Close-up of a laser sheet: red sleeper outlines to cut, black engraved pockets and blue sleeper numbers.
SVG · LASER CUTTING

Sleepers cut from a sheet

Every sleeper cut with its holes, its pockets engraved and its number marked, so it goes back in the right place.

Everything else on the bench

Baseboards and the roomDraw the room, lay benchwork along it, and get warned about tight aisles and pointwork over joints.
Ground and gradesLevels, vertical curves, cuttings, embankments, tunnels and viaducts.
LinesideOverhead line, level crossings and boards, placed by each railway's own rules.
Wiring, DC or DCCGaps, feeders, frog polarity, shorts, reversing sections and blocks.
Ready-made trackPeco, Atlas, Walthers, Märklin, Roco, Tillig, Kato and more, if you'd rather plan with what's in the shop.
Your own unitsFeet and inches or millimetres, prototype or model sizes, at the touch of a button.

New to MiMrail?

The manual walks you from choosing your country to your first layout, then through every tool, with pictures throughout.

Read the manualOpen MiMrail

Where you can help

Every country pack depends on good information. I'd especially like to hear from you if you have:

  • dimensioned turnout drawings from any railway, especially British narrow gauge lines;
  • published standard turnout tables, or open track data, for a country you model;
  • careful measurements of the model rail you use.

Get in touch