Ideas for buildings, industry, and scenery

You're off to a great start! Let's begin with a little questionnaire!!

What do you like to run car wise in the freight department?

Any freight cars you have on order or want to buy in the future?

Do you run any passenger trains?

It looks like it might be tough to fit a passenger station in between the rails you pointed out above. For example, the Lionel Rico station is 9 inches wide and about 22 inches long.

I would recommend you check out Woodland Scenics' website under o scale buildings. They offer real nice stuff in a usable footprint with the best detail and lighting included!

Pete,

I don't have any passenger stuff yet. 

I have a 5 car spline intermodel set, and 4 coal cars. I like boxcars, I have a covered hopper and would like to get more. I do have a tank car also, but not really interested in them. Minus the tank car and another flatcar, my whole inventory is on display in the center section.

I don't have any cars on order, for now.

The area I proposed for a passenger station has 7 1/4" between tracks.

MO985:

Only input I have is whatever industry you decide try to have a supplier and a buyer. This will give your cars a destination to go to. For instance hopper cars from a grain elevator to a mill then boxcars to feed stores.

Joe

I also use buildings as "scenery blocks". The impression that trains disappear and re-appear adds interest.

Peter

i don't think you can go wrong with a generic warehouse or distribution center or two...here is my latest...pix below...and a link to two interesting building construction sites...i'm not suggesting you be come a wargamer...just take a look at the overall design of the buildings...the looks are very adaptable to model railroad use...

http://www.matakishi.com/factory.htm

http://www.matakishi.com/waterfrontcitysection.htm

howard...

Just thinking, maybe a warehouse district, since you don't have passenger cars,instead of a passenger terminal make a freight terminal your centerpiece, if you like building kits, (which I love), I recommend korber kits, Ameritown etc. They have smaller industrial buildings which may be ideal fo the space you have. Menards has a nice feed and seed mill and several others you might consider. Woodland Scenics Morrison door factory has beautiful detail but a relatively small footprint. Just throwing out ideas. Going to be terrific when you're done! Keep us posted on what you decide to do with pictures!

Forgot to add, if you want a small town, River leaf has excellent buildings with small footprints that all blend together and go well with Ameritown city buildings! Again just ideas!

sawdust43 posted:

i don't think you can go wrong with a generic warehouse or distribution center or two...here is my latest...pix below...and a link to two interesting building construction sites...i'm not suggesting you be come a wargamer...just take a look at the overall design of the buildings...the looks are very adaptable to model railroad use...

http://www.matakishi.com/factory.htm

http://www.matakishi.com/waterfrontcitysection.htm

howard...

 

 

 

Howard,

Did you follow the "cork" idea, or did you use something else? I was thinking of foam board? Or 1/8" luan. 

MO985...

i wasn't able to find cork floor tile locally...so i used recycled priority mail/fedx/ups express boxes for most of the warehouse...the thin corrugated kind...the roof is fine flute single-face scrap booking cardboard from the craft store...roof vents are wood screw hole plugs...match sticks and coffee stir sticks for the window detail...windows mullions are 1/4" hardware cloth with cereal box bag plastic for window material...

hope this helps...howard...florida...USA...

I'd love to hear your suggestions, see pics of your layouts and how you utilized similar areas if you have them. I'm trying to stay modern era, city/ urban. 

The DC independent Hi-Railers had a 4 module station/ factory that covered two of the diverting main lines:

There are the end entrances/exits. the flat structure hides the tracks

And here is what you partially see on the top as a viewer:

Don't just think in two dimension. Think in 3 dimension- the air space above!

Howard and MO985;

Scrap cardboard is a great idea.  It is an inexpensive way to both practice the fine art of model building and to create mock-ups of structures I have seen elsewhere.  They are a very easy to build with just a few tools (exacto knife, cutting pad with graph markings, hot glue gun, ruler, and hardware store spray paint).  I have built  several for my layout that are placeholders for future styrene kits and made a few of my own size and design.  These allow me to visualize the layout and have generated new ideas for the layout.

I am off site or would otherwise include some pictures...

DW

WDW AND MO985...forgot to add this link to more about the warehouse...

http://bigindoortrains.com/for...c.php?f=18&t=133

howard...

In case of any assistance let us know.

Since I'm home taking care of a sick child today, I had some time to play around with my layout on SCARM.

I de-cluttered it some, and made it more "workable" with the track that I have currently, and ease of re-wiring/ de-wiring.

I put it into paint to add some features, Grey= road, Black= tunnel portals, White=mountain outline.

The track at the very back goes down to the lower level and is hidden (only accessible inside the mountain, and will be hidden by mountain/ flat front buildings).

Let me know what you think!

Since I have a fair amount of boxes around, I decided to try out some cardboard buildings. 

I built a maintenance shed to cover up my lock-ons:

And this is the office for my freight transfer warehouse:

Finished freight transfer station!

I adjusted some track placement, and wanted some thoughts.

On the left side, I made an inner loop, and plan on putting the town in this area. I want a passenger station where the speed square is, and have some random boxes starting to represent where buildings would go. Mountain would follow curve between the two tunnel portals and continue along the back. A road would run from this side, right through where the cardboard scraps are at the front edge, over to the right side.

On this side, I moved the freight depot, took out the second reversing loop and added two spurs (directly off the mainline, not ideal, but it's what I have to work with). You can see the rough in of where the road is coming in from the town. The cardboard square represents the woodland scenic door factory, and I have room down the spur for something else as well. I was thinking of something "coal" related on this close spur, since I have four coal cars ready for action. I'm trying to stay a bit mor modern, so I wasn't thinking a tippel, but am open to suggestions, especially with pictures!

Any input or ideas are sincerely appreciated. 

Chris

Scratch built billboard and bins.    John

MO985,

Hit this link and check out the PDF's of their back issues, somewhere about 60 issues or so.

LOTS of cool ideas for scenery and buildings.

http://oscalemag.com/wordpress/covers-contents-1-59/