I was just looking at " S. Front St, Shelton, WA" on Google Earth and guess what I found? It appears to be one half of a sheet of plywood railroad, complete with roundhouse and I would guess a 50 foot armstrong turntable! I believe it to be the Simpson Railroad which is one of the last logging railroads in the U.S. It was quite extensive on the Olympic Pinunsula (spelling?) resplendant with two very high steel arch bridges, it is now but a few miles long, but still active I think. I will have to visit this location next time I go to the coast, which is frequently as I live near Tacoma Washington. Check it out on Google or one of the other sattelite imageing sites available on our computers.
Paul
Dayton and Mad River RR
Shelton_zpsf1276f3f by Donald Schmitt, on Flickr
1953 USGS map Logging railroad - red, Northern Pacific - orange
Cool. It’s interesting if you spend much time on Googlemaps, you can find a lot of “model” railroad designs right on the prototype. Especially around ports. I’ve actually found track arrangements that look like someone took a 4x8 oval plan from a book and built it in 1:1 scale. It’s actually a great way to service multiple spurs in a small area. Even the plant where I work, though no longer using rail service, has a branch to return loop configuration with the loop feeding multiple spurs into the various parts of the plant. The last rail shipment was about 8 years ago and a lot of track has been taken up, but in the 50s/60s we had enough rail service to justify our own switcher and interchange yard.
Not available on Google Maps, the CNJ Bronx freight terminal. Even has a double track loop!
An article on the Erie RR bronx terminal (a few hundred yards up the street/Harlem River) suggested that the modeler might consider some selective expansion.
Regrettably, both facilities are now vanished vistas.
EDIT: That’s either a big 4x6 (tatami, perhaps - 18 x 24 feet) in HO, or a 4 x 8 in Z scale. The mill and rail shop complex north of the river and east of BNSF would fill my double garage.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)