So I stopped at Borders the other day and noticed they had a section of books about local history. Lo and behold there was one dedicated to the Cleveland Flats and another about railroad stations in northeast Ohio. Cool!
I started flipping therough the one about the Flats and found lots of pictures to answer questions about what the track layouts are and structures, business and what not that occupied the area.
For example how did the NYC cross the PRR tracks to get to the waterfront, maps showed a bridge that I couldn’t figure out how it was possible without a 10% grade on the prototype. Answer: level crossing and an interlocking! I also discoverd that my 4x10 area for the tracks at Whiskey Island is woefully undersized, I can accomodate about 60 hoppers, the real trackage can accomodate 300 or more! And what industries were located on the south side of Whiskey Island, a Sohio (remeber them) storage and tanker load/unloading dock and a salt mine.
These books are from a series titled Images of America so I would imagine that there are plenty of others availble to cover other regions of the US. They are published by Arcadia Publishing and I’d be surprised if you couldn’t find em at Amazon.
They are not without some small problems. Literally the pictures are small so finding close details will be a challange. But they are also all credited so you may be able to contact the original source for closer/larger prints.