Another publication mentioned the concept of "Layout Design Elements" in the construction of a model railroad. Basically, an LDE is a scene or area of the prototype that piques your interest. In my lifetime, I've lived near or regularly driven past a few interesting elements that I'd love to incorporate into a large layout someday and I enjoy trying to model them using RR-Track. These have included:
- Sections of the PE/SP/UP "Torrance Branch" including the street running in Gardena and the Torrance Railroad Bridge (appears on the Torrance city seal) . The railroad bridge could actually be a feature of a switching layout similar to the Gum, Stump and Snowshoe because it literally worked that way when the small steel plant was still in the area.
- The ATSF Redlands Loop branch that ran through the San Bernardino valley. Just about all of the track is gone, but the right-of-way and many of the buildings are still in place.
- The SP/UP Anahiem branch that included street running down Santa Ana Street and Olive Street, literally making a turn at the intersection. This branch is still in use.
- The UP Santa Ana River Viaduct in Riverside. It's a 900 foot concrete arch viaduct that's over 100 years old.
- The Riverside packing house district off the ATSF mainline (3rd and Commercial Street). The tracks are still in the pavement in some places. Sadly, the National Orange Company packing house burned to the ground back in 2001, but there are some very good drawings available from the Library of Congress. Special shout-out to Yesteryear models for declining my offer to purchase their H.O. kit to get the drawings and pointing me to where they got them.
- Shebogan Falls, Wisconsin. I have neither lived, nor been there, but I saw an interesting set of photos online and did some searching using Google Earth. The street-adjacent branch (west of Kohler) is being resurrected and had some interesting features.
Let's face it, none of us has the space to model a real railroad to a high level of accuracy in our scale, but you can definitely grab and model pieces to incorporate into a layout.
