@Kyle Evans posted:Or Chuck Yungkurth’s Gum Stump & Snowshoe line, which I believe dates back to the 60’s. A correspondence friend of mine up in Pennsylvania built an O scale version of this some decades back, about 16’ L x 18” W, based on WM and Cumberland & Pennsylvania operations...said he had a lot of operational fun with it.
You could also do some urban railroading like the Baltimore inner harbor where those 0-4-0 "docksiders" ran or NY's Bush Terminal or one of the California waterfront railroads.
I have a track plan from my parents home town that, in about a linear half mile of track, had elevated coaling pockets, meatpacking plants and abbatoirs, a fruit distributor as well as foundries with tracks crossing each other and a good number of buildings with sidings entering them. In later years the wooden elevated coal pocket even had SWs shoving single Center Flow cars of materials up onto it for bulk unloading.
One could easily have enough track and structures crammed in a switching layout to spend all days kicking cars.
You might also want to look for the old Model Railroader that has the issue on the Milwaukee Road's Kingsbury branch in Chicago.
That's another great example of something that could be compressed for O scale.
