Dan’s Train Blog

I’ve had several people write me and ask if I think they should buy 3rd PlanIt because they like the plans I was able to make with it.

3rd PlanIt (3PI) (http://www.trackplanning.com/) is a CAD system strongly optimized for drawing model railroad track plans. I’ve been using it off and on since 2000 or so. I was a semi-experienced AutoCAD user many years before that.

The Good:

• I designed my layout and continue to maintain the plan as I build in 3PI. It has been stable and productive for me to use. I use version 7.10.006 which was released March 2, 2004.

• I find the feature set of 3PI powerful and fun to use.

• If 3PI was being maintained I would recommend it highly.

The Bad:

• No updates were been released between early 2004 and early 2007.

• 3PI is the product of one man, Randy Pfeiffer. I truly believe his work is very good (again — I’m a happy user) but it can be a problem when a company is essentially one person. Occasionally Randy gets committed to other tasks such that purchase orders sometimes do not get processed in a timely fashion.

• NOTE: (February 2007) Version 8 has been released!! In April 2005 the next version, 8.0 was coming “soon” and Randy Pfeiffer gave a detailed view of what he had been running into as he implemented threading to 3PI. I’m a Win32 C++ developer myself and his commentary looks legitimate. See his posting at the Yahoo! Group 3rdPlanIt : 3rd PlanIt Users Group

Bottom line:

NOTE: (February 2007) Version 8 has been released!! I like the product. It took a long time for Version 8 but it looks good. I can now recommend that other people buy 3PI.