In looking around for interesting ideas for my layout, I've found several in my immediate area (well okay; within 35 miles) that are small enough to fit onto most layounts.
Locally, we first visit the recently abandoned Santa Fe branch line in Redlands CA, where we find a small "grain leg" that was still in use a year ago to offload cargo from grain hoppers and load it onto trucks bound for farms in the area. At only about 20' high and with a footprint about the same length on each side, one of these could be kitbashed from the larger Walthers version in an evening and would fit practically *anywhere*!
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Turning 180 degrees, we look west down the now-abandoned team track and find a young Washingtonia palm tree serving as an end-of-track bumper just in case a runaway car jumped the half-buried rotten tie that was originally supposed to stop cars on the circa 2% grade. (I've already modeled this one.)
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Still in Redlands, but now west of downtown on the long-gone S.P. branch line, we find a bridge that is a modeler's dream come true: a prototype through-truss bridge that's only about 60' long! This bridge dates *way* back, as it was installed when the S.P. built the Redlands branch in the 1890s, and the bridge was already well-used at that point.(The S.P. removed it from it's original location, presumably to install a heavier one, and shipped the dissassembled bridge to Redland where it was then put back together like an Erector set. Nobody has ever discovered where it was originally located.)
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The bridge is so short that the track actually continues it's curve as it crosses the span! All of the wooden parts; ties, walkways, etcetera, are rotten and ready to fall apart (in fact, some already have), so tresspassing beyond the chain-link fence is a *really* bad idea. You could shorten a Central Valley truss bridge down to two bays and get a fairly decent model of this bridge, although the original is much more lightly built and appears almost lacy in comparison with more modern structures.
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Next we take a look at a use for that Athearn bay window caboose kit that that you've had lying around unused because you model modern-day stuff. This original sits just 5 miles west of Palm Springs CA, and is still in daily use as the office of an off-road vehicle rental business. It sits only about 100 yards from the then-S.P.-now-U.P. tracks.
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The other side. Note the ample A/C unit and white paint, both needed in Psalm Springs during the summer. (And not infrequently during the fall, winter, and spring, as well.)
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If you like colorful attention-catching details on your layout, this sign fits the bill...
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And lastly (and not so compactly) this rock train loading bin sits right next to the U.P. mainline in Cabazon CA. It loads crushed rock into the overhead bin from a large quarry -that's mostly invisible because it's below ground level- and drops it into the hoppers as they're pushed along underneath. It only takes a couple of minutes to fill a car, so the operation has almost constant movement when loading is underway. The tail end of the spur is used as a RIP track because those rock hoppers get used *HARD*, and several of them are usually parked and awaiting repairs at any given moment. A big old front-end- loader belonging to the quarry usually sits at the end of the spur, serving as both an end-of-track bumper and a means of moving the bad- ordered cars around when there's no loco handy.
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Next up: building palm trees for bumpers...
~Pete