App: Empire Express Basic
Developer: Harry Haddon
Genres: Graphics & Design, Productivity

Design your model railroad with Empire Express. Empire Express harnesses the ease of use and power of your Mac so you can quickly, easily, and accurately design your model railroad empire. 

Empire Express Basic is the free edition of Empire Express and it includes most of the features of the paid edition. Layouts in the Basic edition are limited to 50 objects and it does not include the catalog creation and group commands. Empire Express Basic is a great way to design your small tabletop layout or module.

Designing a layout is as simple as dragging track from the catalog palette to the plan window. Track pieces are automatically aligned to create accurate, kink-free track connections. Flex track can be easily bent to create smooth curves which meet your minimum radius standard. 

Included in the Empire Express catalog are some of the most popular brands of track (see our web site for a complete list). The tool palette includes line, rectangle, circle, polygon, and text tools which you can use to draw the layout room, structures, and scenery.

* Easy to learn and easy to use *
Empire Express uses the macOS conventions you are familiar with making it easy to learn. Empire Express has a simple and efficient set of tools and commands that makes it easy to design your layout.

* Multiple undo and redo *
If you change your mind or make a mistake, you can undo the changes you've made to your plan. You can undo your actions one at a time all the way back to the last time you opened the document. If you decide you don’t want to Undo your action after all, you can use Redo. You can choose Revert to quickly restore your plan to the last saved version.

* Catalog palette for quick selection of track *
You do not have to navigate through complicated dialogs to place track in your plan. Simply drag the desired type of track from the catalog palette to your plan.

* Convenient measurement window *
The Measure window is a compact window that shows the mouse position, the ruler tool measurements, and the car capacity of the currently selected track. The car capacity feature allows you to quickly calculate how many cars will fit in a siding or yard. Just select the tracks and read the car capacity. 

* Powerful Inspector window *
You can use the Inspector window to examine and change information for the selected objects in a plan. And you can set information for more than one object at a time. For example, you could select multiple objects and set the color for all of them at once.

* Smooth flex track *
With Empire Express you’ll get smooth, constant-radius curves that meet your minimum radius setting. When you connect flex track between two other pieces of track, Empire Express creates a variable-radius curve to make a smooth transition between the two pieces.

* Additional features *
- Rotate, flip, and lock objects. 
- Set the color and pattern for drawing and filling objects. 
- Choose style, color, and alignment of text and more. Even spell-check. 
- Parts list shows all of the track in your plan. 
- Zoom in and out to different plan scales.
- And more…

* Designed for the Mac *
Empire Express was designed specifically for the Mac — it is not a converted Windows program — and supports the standard Mac features such as copy and paste and drag and drop. It has the Mac look and feel that you prefer.

* Runs on a range of Mac models *
Even if you don’t have the latest Mac or a lot of memory or hard disk space, you can probably still run Empire Express. Version 2.3 will run on any Mac with Mac OS X 10.9 or later.

* Documents are compatible with the paid version *
Empire Express Basic documents are compatible with the paid edition so you can upgrade to the paid edition and continue working on the plans you started with Empire Express Basic.

Release notes:
If you have pictures in your Empire Express plans, open them with this version before upgrading to the next macOS after Mojave. Empire Express 2.3.1 will convert pictures that are incompatible with a future macOS to a compatible format. It also contains interface improvements for Mojave and future macOS releases.