Working on the small loop town at the end of my layout, trying to make the most of this small bit of layout. To the left are two sidings that go behind the bedroom door and dead end at the wall. To the right the mains that go down a narrow shelf a few feet and join to a single main track the continues to the main layout where it splits back to the main loop of the layout As I plan it now, the depot is where shown in the photos, a water tower will be left of the depot. a "road" will cross the track at the rerailer (where the boxcar is) the road will come in past the two commercial buildings on the right and a single house on the left then in to a yard for the depot that will probably be grave. the front left corned will have a bit of a hill to nowhere that I started to make today. I'm still debating the are where the tools are laying in the photos, perhaps more hills.. But I'm looking for idea to make the most of this space. Also there will be grass and street lights, etc...
To get more bang for the buck in that space, think small buildings to make the area feel larger. I like the depot, but many small town stations were quite a bit smaller. Instead of the DPM style "town" buildings, look in the resources section here on TB and check out some of the structure plans there.
Think of a street that runs across this at an angle with store fronts and perhaps an auto garage and the likes. A street intersection with street lights. Railroad crossings with flashing cross bucks. A freight depot where the passenger depot sits. Move the passenger depot out onto the main where a train would most likely make a station stop. Fire department, police department, small restaurant, general store and even a hardware store that sells lumber out back. Some of these mini-businesses can be two stories tall while others are one story. The spur track up in the left hand corner of the picture would look good with a small grain elevator. Don't forget resident homes or even a farm setting. This may sound crazy but you could show earthquake damage where the fault is moving in one direction and has moved the curbing. Just some ideas.
Thanks for the ideas. I'll sit down and think about them and see what I come up with. Kind of distracted today with painters from the apartment building running in and out painting the balcony a ugly new color.. I also have to make it study enough in case my cat decides to explore it since that part of my layout can't be closed off like the main layout.
I'd consider putting the entire 'town' on a higher level, with the track down in a 'ditch', with cross bridges at streets. and lots of retaining walls. Years ago somebody did a door layout based on D&H where they did one end like that and the end result was rather stunning. Because the town buildings were high and the track was low there was no way to see 180-degrees of the curve from any angle. That would be a much bigger-population town, of course, to justify the infrastructure, but you'll see a lot of places where street level has evolved up over time to get around the problems of railroads, where railroads can't go up for grade separation. A flat loop with structures sprinkled will always look like a loop. The only place in my life I've ever seen a prototype for an oval turnaround is in Burnside, PA - looks exactly like a layout with a small town in the middle.
You can check out a layout I build for a friends and a few strangers. One in particular, the longer I knew him the stranger he got. Check out the second layout posted: Layouts - Built For Friends Who knows what ideas this might set into motion? Layouts are built the product of a man or woman's vision.
Yes, I agree that the depot should be on the main, not on a spur. And yes, I tend to specialize in stranger friends than most, too.
FWIW..I have something like that on my layout, although it's a little bigger space. I tried to make extend the town beyond the space with building flats and a bridge leading off the layout (these also hide the staging in the back). I didn't want the town "higher" which is a good trick to hide the loop, so I tried to hide it with a overpass and a under pass,etc.. I was hoping the different levels of scenery would break up the flat loop and draw viewers away from it a little. The first pic is from about eye level and the other is from the back access to the staging tracks. Tom L.
