Placing Rail Served Industries On Layout Edge

[fast car]

Let's run this up the flag pole and see if anyone salutes...

Those of us modeling ISL's are always looking at prototype industrial spurs and I don't need to tell you that in most cases, you see rail served industry tracks on both sides of the industrial spur or main track. Whether in dense industrial areas:
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&t=k&ll=2...00545&z=18
Or in more open areas, such as this:
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=43.11...9&t=k&z=17

Since most ISL's are built on narrow shelves, for the most part, we tend to put our structures against the backdrop, but on the front edge of the shelf, we try to pick "open" industries such as a team track or just model a part of a loading dock and imagine that the rest of the structure is behind the dock, as has been done and usually recommended by Lance Mindheim and others.

Here are examples of the type of structure/track arrangements I'm talking about and a few of my own thoughts about them...

First we have structures on both sides of and parallel to the main track:[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]The obvious problems are having to reach over the front structure and not being able to see what is spotted behind it unless you carry a mirror in your pocket. It's usually recommended that if you do have an arrangement like this, that the front structure should be positioned so that you don't have to reach over it - but that may not be practical if you are trying to model an actual track/industry arrangement.

Next we have structures on both sides of the main track but one track is at an angle or curving away:[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]I think this might be a bit more workable in that you can look around the end of the building and see what's spotted there, but there is still the reach over problem.

Finally, we have an industry where the track runs inside the building (with or without another track opposite it) - a very common prototype situation:[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]I've had some thoughts on doing something like this where you'd actually be able to see inside the structure and have a detailed interior looking something like this:[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]Besides the reach over aspect, all these arrangements share the same basic problem - coupling/uncoupling cars behind or inside the structure. I manually uncouple all my cars and would not want to necessarily have to pull the whole track, just to get say the first or second car of a 4 car cut.

So I'm wondering how many of you have actually placed structures on the layout edge, where the track would be behind or even inside the structure and what your thoughts/experiences about doing something like that are.

I had a similar issue when attempting to model a double warehouse that had four tracks between the two structures. However, since I had four tracks the best solution was to us a under track uncoupler on the track that was next to the structure closest to the edge. The Lance Mindheim photo below show the two structures that were tied together with breezeway in Miami.



Below was my attempt to model this railroad deadend, that was situated near the end of my shelf layout. Instead on modeling just the interior, I chose to model the entire structure with a two lane road running along the edge. I also situated a breezeway between two structures that were neat the edge to allow visibility through the walls.