03-10-2014, 04:01 AM
FCIN Wrote:Reinhard;That is an interesting area. It has a lot of similarities with SoCal. The most eye catching is the absence of boxcars (with one exception) from the "shoeboxes" but covered hoppers and tank cars are frequently used. Lots of "shoeboxes" have some smaller tanks and get served by rail with covered hoppers and/or tank cars. I think that is the way to go on a contemporary layout to join "shoeboxes" and railroad tracks.
Really enjoy watching your layout transformations and find it quite inspiring.
Although not Southern California, you might want to have a look at the west side of Phoenix, AZ. Quite similar to SouCal. Start here and move along to the west: https://maps.google.com/?ll=33.444164,-1...1&t=k&z=17. It's still Union Pacific has plenty of industrial spurs and interesting industries, including those nice shoe box structures. Could even model industries as though they along the main line rather than just an industrial spur, although the spur would be my preference.
Just a thought.
One of the few boxcars at a shoebox http://goo.gl/maps/DyBMc
This is a more frequent setup in this days, hoppers at a shoebox with tanks http://goo.gl/maps/kYfCz
A nice guy in the West Coast Rail forum pointed me to this facility in LA with a shoebox and boxcars http://goo.gl/maps/kU01G
We got here a nice relationship 1 shoebox = 1 layout = 1 average room, shoe size matters :o
Reinhard