railroad tracks?

[Ross H]

I need to update an old hand drawn map that includes railroad tracks. Old maps I've seen, and the one I'm updating,  have a single line with short lines at 90 degrees to distinguish from roads and other things. Is this line style available in Designer? Can I create it.

[NotMyFault]

The best option is to draw a segment of about 180x360ps size of that line as b/w. Export as png. Import as new image brush.

Then use this brush with pen tool to draw curves (in Designer).

This allows to hand-paint the lines and give it a retro style.

[Old Bruce]

Use the Appearance panel and make a two stroke curve. One is thin and solid the other is thick and dashed, try a pair of settings of 0.1 and 2 for the dashed line. The 2 is the gap, note the squared off no-cap.

 

 

[Ross H]

Thank you both. Very helpful.
 

[R C-R]

8 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

Use the Appearance panel and make a two stroke curve. One is thin and solid the other is thick and dashed, try a pair of settings of 0.1 and 2 for the dashed line. The 2 is the gap, note the squared off no-cap.

Small nit pick: Extreme bends like in this Extreme bends rr track.afdesign example result in misshaped cross-ties, but no real-world tracks would have them.

[joe_l]

6 hours ago, R C-R said:

Small nit pick:

Feels more like a hack. What about text on a curve?

no-misshape.afdesign

[Old Bruce]

No railroad has extreme bends.

[JimmyJack]

1 hour ago, Old Bruce said:

No railroad has extreme bends.

Railroads no. But MAPS of railroads, absolutely. It's just a matter of scale. 🙃

[v_kyr]

Since personally I'm a friend of reusability, aka: "...why reinvent the wheel when there are already a bunch of such available solutions...", I would take a look at things like these ...

• Railroad Track Brush in Illustrator
• Railway Brush in Photoshop (brush download here)
• Draw a Railway/Railroad on a Simple Map in Illustrator (Youtube video)
• ... and so on ...

... and then adapt & tryout them to/for Affinity.

[NotMyFault]

42 minutes ago, JimmyJack said:

Railroads no. But MAPS of railroads, absolutely. It's just a matter of scale. 🙃

If you look at the actual map and scale: the tracks and lines are hand-drawn. The scale is fixed / unchangeable. The map painter carefully placed its hand-drawn cross lines so that no hard bends occur, or no cross-lines are placed in such areas. If you want to exactly replicate, you may paint every line by hand (pencil or pen tool), or simply do not create small bends.

[JimmyJack]

2 hours ago, NotMyFault said:

If you look at the actual map and scale: the tracks and lines are hand-drawn. The scale is fixed / unchangeable. The map painter carefully placed its hand-drawn cross lines so that no hard bends occur, or no cross-lines are placed in such areas. If you want to exactly replicate, you may paint every line by hand (pencil or pen tool), or simply do not create small bends.

🤣 😂
It's all a matter of scale.

[R C-R]

36 minutes ago, JimmyJack said:

It's all a matter of scale.

The rasterized JPEG version from the first post has noticeable errors at just about any scale, including cross-ties that are not perpendicular to the path of the track & ones that are not centered across it. There are also several places where the cross-tie is thicker at one end than the other, not too dissimilar from the ones in the sharp bend using the method @Old Bruce suggested.

[yukonPete]

I'd also like railway tracks but a 2 rails + railway ties kind. I want a one object solution, preferably in publisher V2, but in Design V2 if necessary. (I want a simple line so it can also be in map legend.) I've played around and come up empty. My confusion is partly around "Use the Appearance panel and make a two stroke curve. One is thin and solid the other is thick and dashed" and any role that layer effects can play. Also previous discussion is V1, and now we're on V2.

Thanks, Peter

[NotMyFault]

1 hour ago, yukonPete said:

I'd also like railway tracks but a 2 rails + railway ties kind.

Like so?
 

[yukonPete]

thanks. Sometimes my brain just puts up roadblocks. So only in designer or designer persona. Couldn't find where your second pic was taken.

peter

[NotMyFault]

You need Designer Persona to access „Appearance Panel“ to add multiple strokes.

Next, add this as „Style“ to style panel (on iPad under Layer FX).

You can use this style directly in Publisher.

[yukonPete]

Thanks.  I'd tried styles before but haven't figured them out. I just want to change the name of the new style to tracks, not style 11. I've used styles in pagemaker, indesign for decades. But I just don't seem to be able to make the affinity style, I think of it as object style, editable like text and char styles. I guess I should look in help or in help videos. Hints?

Peter

[NotMyFault]

28 minutes ago, yukonPete said:

Thanks.  I'd tried styles before but haven't figured them out. I just want to change the name of the new style to tracks, not style 11. I've used styles in pagemaker, indesign for decades. But I just don't seem to be able to make the affinity style, I think of it as object style, editable like text and char styles. I guess I should look in help or in help videos. Hints?

Peter

In Designer:

Right-Click on the style symbol to get the context menu allowing to rename.

Edited February 5, 2023 by NotMyFault
typo (thanks @R C-R)

[R C-R]

2 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

Right-Click on the style symbol together the context menu allowing to rename.

'to get' ?

[NotMyFault]

2 minutes ago, R C-R said:

'to get' ?

together we are strong 😂

[yukonPete]

duh! I'm bad for that second button aspect. I think all the style things should work the same: para, char, object, (are there any others?) — double click the style and get all the attributes, the name included. then edit, or whatever. The object style I see sort of useless if using in a publication where things should be fluid, easily changeable. I hope I'm missing something here. For example, the railway tracks need to be one size if close in, and another if farther out. 

Thanks for persisting in my questions. I find the video answers too long and convoluted and needing an index.... Lack of patience? Too many things to do. Longing for early mac pagemaker days when my mantra was if I could think of it, I could do it!

Edited February 6, 2023 by yukonPete
bit more clarity in my desires