Kato Unitrack · N & HO · iPad
Kato Unitrack plans that snap together —
with the parts list to build them.
RailMind is a Kato Unitrack layout editor for iPad — N and HO scale. Pieces snap to real Unijoiner geometry — so track you snap together is track you can build on your table.
27 buildable example layouts and 19 T-TRAK modules, every joint verified
- No AI
- No account
- No servers
- No tracking
01 · Geometry
Snap is not a metaphor
Snapping only ever lands on a real Unijoiner. Pieces join end-to-end on Kato’s own geometry — the only slack is the millimeter or two of Unijoiner play real track has. Open ends are marked on the canvas: cyan for the end you’re building from, amber for an end still to connect, green when two ends are close enough to join. When a loop closes, it closes because the arithmetic does — every joint in your plan is a joint real Kato track can make. Ask it to close an open end and Close loop searches Kato’s catalog for a run that lands the joint, threading the route through turnouts and the wye, not just plain track. When no run fits, RailMind names the reason — the curves you’ve enabled can’t make the turn — instead of leaving you staring at a stubborn millimeter gap.
02 · Catalog
The palette is the catalog
Every piece you can place is a real Kato Unitrack part. In N: straights, curves with their radii labeled, #4 and #6 turnouts, crossings, the 20-210 double crossover, bridges, viaducts and the 20-283 electric turntable. In HO: straights, curves, turnouts and the 90° crossing — every fixed-length piece Kato makes in HO. Turn on Color track by type and each rail family takes its own tint, so a dense plan stays legible at a glance. If it is on the canvas, Kato makes it.
03 · Editing
A calibrated workbench
Slide a piece and it settles onto the nearest valid joint. Rotate at 15°, 30°, or 90°, or free-rotate with a soft snap that catches on real geometry. Sweep a marquee to multi-select, then move, copy, paste, or parallel-copy a whole run to lay a second track beside the first. Undo and redo cover every edit you make to the track, because design is mostly changing your mind. Set your board or table dimensions and choose the grid you think in — 1 inch, 1 foot, or Kato’s own 124 mm. Squeeze a piece with Apple Pencil Pro to open its edit menu, and feel a haptic click the moment two ends snap together. Keep a busy layout in order with up to ten named layers — show, hide and reorder them; hiding a layer clears the canvas without touching your parts list or the loop math, and new track lands on whichever layer is active. It is the closest thing to pushing track around the plywood without getting up.
04 · Off the screen
See the climb. Print the plan.
Raise a piece and RailMind shows the grade as a live percentage while you build, so a climb never quietly passes the ruling grade you set for yourself. Or pick two points and let RailMind set the grade between them, easing the rise smoothly across every piece in the run. Turn to the 3D view to see the whole layout in three dimensions — bridges, viaducts and grades rendered from the same geometry as the flat plan, in light or dark. And when the plan is right, print it at true 1:1 scale: RailMind tiles it across US Letter or A4 pages, piece labels optional, so you can lay the paper on the benchwork and build straight on top of it.
05 · Parts list
The shopping list writes itself
Every plan produces a parts list with quantities, curve-radius labels, and approximate US MSRP. Import your stock as a CSV from Kato or RailModeller inventories, and the list shows what you still need to buy for this layout — pieces you already own are marked in stock, and the buy column rounds up to whole Kato packs. Or skip the spreadsheet and tap the Kato set you own — M1, M2, V1 through V10 — and its contents count as yours. A parts list from any planner — AnyRail’s list of materials, RailModeller’s parts CSV, a printed list — pastes in and comes back matched to Kato pieces and priced.
06 · Example layouts
Twenty-seven layouts you can build this weekend
RailMind ships with twenty-seven example layouts — nineteen in N, seven in HO and a 27-module T-TRAK club layout — every one buildable as drawn, with real parts, from a twelve-piece starter oval up; High Line Junction alone is 169 pieces. Open one to study how it is put together, or take it as the base of your own plan. Four of them:
Plus Corner Central, Concrete-Tie Oval, Roundhouse Fan, Desktop Oval, Lakeshore Fold, two Triple Main plans, Twin Lobes, Four-Track Stub Yard, Through Yard, Inside Branch, High Line Junction, Trestle Knot, two reverse loops (one for small locos, one on broad R348 curves), seven HO layouts — four of them Kato’s own plans — and the 27-module T-TRAK Club · Show Layout — twenty-seven in all, plus the 19-module T-TRAK library, in the app, behind the Example layouts button on the Plans sheet.
07 · New in 1.2
What 1.2 adds
Four things you can see, plus HO turnouts that match Kato’s and a free tier that now closes the loop Kato sells in each scale. The full list, release by release, is on the changelog.
Modules that snap together
A module is one object: its board and track move, turn in 90° steps and snap front main to front main as you drag. Nineteen ready-made T-TRAK modules — straights, corners, crossovers, spurs facing both ways, a passing siding, a yard and the junction — built to the standard: mains on the 33 mm center, 38 mm from the front, rail ends just proud of the board. Club Checks list open mains, red and yellow swaps and corners that don’t close.
Sixteen more layouts, and a door
Twenty-seven examples now: eight new real-world N plans, four with bridges or raised track, four of Kato’s own HO plans, a Triple Main plan, a Desktop Oval, a broad R348 reverse loop for 6-axle locos and a 27-module T-TRAK club layout. An Example layouts button on the Plans sheet puts every example a tap away instead of only on first run. Open one and it becomes your own editable plan.
One plan, one file
Share any plan from the Plans sheet as a .railmind file or as an image. A .railmind that reaches your iPad by Mail, Messages or AirDrop opens straight into RailMind as its own editable plan.
A way back to the app
Page 1 of the 1:1 print now carries the site address and a QR code, kept clear of the track, so a photographed printout leads back here. The parts list ends with the same one removable line.
Also in 1.2
- Kato’s HO turnouts match the real pieces, so Kato’s own HO plans close
- HO: the #4 turnout box’s filler pieces are in the palette
- HO: pieces that come in a Kato turnout box stay off your shopping list
- The free tier grows to 16 straights and curves per plan in N and 20 in HO
- Zoom out about 5× further, so a whole large layout fits on screen
- Curve chips show radius and angle (R315-15)
- The Double Girder 186, a 186 mm double-track bridge (20-457)
- A short Guide of cards
- A Rate RailMind row in Layout settings
- A free-tier counter that says what your next tap will do
08 · Operating conditions
No servers. No account. No AI.
RailMind does all its work on your iPad. It requires no account and collects no data of any kind. There is no AI anywhere in it — every line on the canvas comes from Kato’s published geometry and your own hands. Your plans go nowhere except your own iCloud, which backs them up, so a reinstall brings them back. The only other thing that touches the network is the App Store — checked at launch for your unlock and its price, and again if you buy — which Apple handles end to end; we never see who you are, and we have no servers for any of it to reach. Everything else works in airplane mode.
09 · Pricing
Free to build a starter layout. Pay once for the rest.
Download RailMind free and build a real starter layout — 16 straights and curves per plan in N, 20 in HO, plus 2 turnouts and 2 special pieces. Sixteen is the M1 starter oval Kato sells in N, closed, with a crossing or a bridge to spare. In HO the everyday Kato curves (R370 to R790) are 22.5°, so an oval takes sixteen curves and two straights — twenty closes that loop too. Nothing else is held back: the full catalog to choose from, real snapping, the parts list, every example layout. One in-app purchase of US$29.99 unlocks every piece, forever. That is the only purchase in the app: not a subscription, not a trial, no unlock packs, no per-piece fees, no ads. Buy it once and it restores on every iPad you own.
10 · FAQ
Questions, answered plainly
Does RailMind need an internet connection?
No — drawing, snapping, saving, the parts list, imports and 3D all work in airplane mode. It uses the network for two things only, both Apple’s: the App Store — checked at launch for your unlock and its price, and again if you buy or restore — and backing your plans up to your own iCloud so a delete and reinstall brings them back — as long as the iPad is signed in to iCloud, and RailMind tells you on the Plans screen if a very large library outgrows iCloud’s key-value quota. That backup is on by default and can be switched off in Layout settings. RailMind still requires no account and collects no data of any kind.
Is there really no AI in it?
Really. No model, no assistant, nothing that guesses. Close-the-loop and Auto-route are deterministic searches over Kato’s catalog. Track geometry comes from Kato’s published dimensions, snapping is deterministic, and every plan is the result of your decisions, not a model’s.
Is it a subscription?
No. RailMind is free to build a starter layout — 16 straights and curves per plan in N, 20 in HO, plus 2 turnouts and 2 special pieces — and one in-app purchase of US$29.99 unlocks every piece forever. That unlock is the only purchase in the app — no subscription, no ads, no unlock packs, no per-piece fees, ever. It restores on every iPad signed in to your Apple Account. The app you buy is the app you own.
What do I actually get for free?
Nearly the whole app, within the free tier: the app’s whole catalog in both N and HO, real snapping, Close loop, the priced parts list, inventory import, layers, 3D and 1:1 printing, sharing, T-TRAK boards, all twenty-seven example layouts and the nineteen T-TRAK modules. Nothing on the canvas is watermarked — shared parts lists carry a single “Made with RailMind” credit line you can delete. The free tier builds a real starter layout — 16 straights and curves per plan in N and 20 in HO, plus 2 turnouts and 2 special pieces (anything in the Bridges, Double Track or Turntable sections, plus crossings, crossovers and bumpers) — enough to close the M1 oval in N, a 22.5°-curve oval in HO, and to taste what turnouts and specials do. Opening an example bigger than that works fine; you just can’t grow it past the free limits until you unlock.
Which track does it support?
Kato Unitrack, in both N and HO scale. In N: straights, curves, #4 and #6 turnouts, crossings, the 20-210 double crossover, bridges, viaducts and the electric turntable. In HO: straights, curves, turnouts and the 90° crossing — every fixed-length piece Kato makes in HO. Support is deep rather than broad — one system’s geometry, done exactly.
Can I bring in existing plans or my inventory?
Yes. RailMind imports stock CSVs from Kato or RailModeller inventories — or just the Kato set you own, M1 through V10 — so your parts list shows only what you still need to buy. A parts list from any planner pastes in too: AnyRail’s list of materials, RailModeller’s parts CSV, or a printed list, matched to Kato pieces and priced. Plans from another RailMind arrive as .railmind files and open straight into the app.
Can I organize a big layout?
Yes — split a plan across up to ten named layers you can show, hide and reorder. Hiding a layer only clears it from the canvas; its track stays in the plan, the parts list and the loop math, and new pieces land on whichever layer is active.
Can I print my plan?
Yes — at true 1:1 scale. RailMind tiles the layout across US Letter or A4 pages, piece labels optional, so you can lay the printout on the benchwork and build on top of it. Page 1 carries the site address and a small QR code in a corner clear of the track, so a printout that gets photographed leads back to the app. Print via AirPrint from the share sheet, or save it as a PDF to Files or Mail.
Does it do T-TRAK?
Yes. Example layouts has a T-TRAK modules shelf with nineteen ready-made modules built to the NRail standard — Single, Double, Triple and Quad straights and a concrete double-track Single; outside, inside, medium, large and extra-large corners and an end cap; double and single crossovers; an industry spur in each hand, a passing siding and a three-track yard on a Quad board; and the junction — each with the mains on the 33 mm center, 38 mm from the module front, and the rail ends just proud of the board so modules meet. The standard junction usually takes Kato’s 20-050 expansion track; RailMind builds its 597 mm main from fixed track instead. The board picker has the matching Single, Double, Triple, Quad, Corner, Inside Corner, End Cap and Junction boards.
Can I share a plan?
Yes. From the Plans sheet, share any plan as a .railmind file or as an image. A .railmind file sent to another iPad opens straight into RailMind as its own editable plan. Plans also back up to your own iCloud, and the parts list shares as text or CSV.
What do I need to run it?
An iPad running iPadOS 18 or later. Nothing else — no account, no companion hardware, no connection.
Will it drive my trains?
No. RailMind plans the track; driving actual trains is a job for a DCC throttle app.
If it connects on screen, it connects on the table.
RailMind for iPad. Requires iPadOS 18 or later. No account, no tracking, no AI — every joint you draw is a joint real Kato track can make. Free to build a starter layout in every plan; US$29.99 once to unlock unlimited pieces.