What should this be?

[KB02]

Here is a generally blank canvas. What would you build?

Chat GPT suggested a lumber yard which, actually, was what I was first thinking about. Image generation gave me this:

It would have to all be done with backdrops as the rear most track is up against the wall.

Don't know that I'm totally sold, but what do you all think? What would you build?

 

[J.Albert]

It pretty much looks like "just a yard" to me.

I would suggest replacing that "switch in the middle" (2nd track from the rear) with a RIGHT-hand switch off the yard lead. It will make the lead more "symmetrical" (as actual yards were built), and increase the yard's capacity by an extra car or two.

If you were to remove the switch closest to us, and just make that "one more yard track", it will increase the yard capacity further. Might be a good spot for a small freight house.

I would then add a switch "just to the right" of the switch we already see on the upper right. Make it a single track (parallel to the yard lead) towards where we see the red tractor. You can make this an "engine service/holding" track (without interfering with the yard).

As it's set up now, you have to keep the track at the lower left "open" to access the track we see near the red tractor. Can't really be used for other stuff.

 

[Marlin39]

How big is the footprint?

 

[KB02]

I drew it up in SCARM to get a little better idea of what I have. My plan was to make this some kind of industry. The track at the top of this pic, of the back of the picture above, would be the main serviceable track, with the other two as storage tracks. Like I said above, whatever I do will just end up being a picture on the wall, but I figure it needs something other than my poorly painted mountains.

J.Albert - I like your suggestion of making the yard more symmetrical. I think I had just used what I had on hand when I built this up. It certainly poses its issues when I try to switch cars into and out of it. I've got a couple more beat up switches laying around. I'll have to see what I can do about that.

 

[Marlin39]

I drew it up in SCARM to get a little better idea of what I have. My plan was to make this some kind of industry. The track at the top of this pic, of the back of the picture above, would be the main serviceable track, with the other two as storage tracks. Like I said above, whatever I do will just end up being a picture on the wall, but I figure it needs something other than my poorly painted mountains.

View attachment 262236

J.Albert - I like your suggestion of making the yard more symmetrical. I think I had just used what I had on hand when I built this up. It certainly poses its issues when I try to switch cars into and out of it. I've got a couple more beat up switches laying around. I'll have to see what I can do about that.

It would be a lot easier to give you suggestions if you told us the size of the footprint. Less is better in small spaces.

Once you let us know how big that is, we can probably give you some better suggestions. One large, multi car serviced, industry would be ideal.

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The Walthers Cornerstone Valley Cement kit gives you the structures you need to add a realistic cement factory to your HO Scale steam- or diesel-era layout. Cement is one of the most popular of all building materials. Modern cement is made in special plants consisting of several buildings, each...

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[KB02]

The area in question is roughly 48" long from the start of the first turn out and is roughly 14" deep. Like I've said, I'm basically just looking for a backdrop industry that won't look too out of place, you know?

 

[Marlin39]

You could probably combine a couple from Walthers or FOS and make an entire industrial area.

Search results for: 'background building'

www.walthers.com

Seckler's Cold Storage (N-HO) - barmillsmodels.com

“Seckler’s Cold Storage: “HO” Building Foot Print: 17” x 3 (give or take!) “N” Building Foot Print: 7.5″ x 2.5″ (give or take!) Welcome to our biggest “background kit” ever ! It’s almost always tough to find enough space on a layout to build industrial scenes with structures of...

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BACKGROUND KITS HO SCALE

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[Rico]

Being short tracks I’d go with an industry that uses short cars like cement hoppers or tank cars?
I’d probably remove one track too, less is more they say.
You could also have the rear track enter a building flat to give the illusion of a larger industry.

 

[Iron Horseman]

You could probably combine a couple from Walthers or FOS and make an entire industrial area.

Search results for: 'background building'

www.walthers.com

Seckler's Cold Storage (N-HO) - barmillsmodels.com

“Seckler’s Cold Storage: “HO” Building Foot Print: 17” x 3 (give or take!) “N” Building Foot Print: 7.5″ x 2.5″ (give or take!) Welcome to our biggest “background kit” ever ! It’s almost always tough to find enough space on a layout to build industrial scenes with structures of...

barmillsmodels.com

BACKGROUND KITS HO SCALE

fosscalemodels.com

This is what I was thinking. Background flat buildings. That way you don't have to remove a track to fit the actual industry building. Having said that though, I would then make the tracks closer together. I mean way close, so that s short ramp from one car to the next would allow a car on the 3rd track to unload through the two boxcars on the inside tracks to the loading dock. That is prototypical.

 

[KB02]

I went into Tomkat's thread Background Flats You can use, and printed off a few buildings then taped them to the wall. Came up with this:

Put the little loading shed over one of the cars just to see how it looks. If you pretend the orange hopper is a switcher loco, you could load up three cars at a time and then put them in the storage tracks awaiting a move. Could potentially have up to 9 cars in play... I don't know. Going to have to let that sit for a bit and see how I feel on it. Downloaded a hand full of other buildings, too, so I might print them out and play around a bit more.

 

[TheXModelRailroader]

Im with J.Albert. I would fill it in and make it look like a yard. Shutting is one of my favorite aspects of railroading.