That may be true, but I try to keep away from any out-of-the-ordinary stuff. I like to try to make my scenes look “real”, i.e. believable in the eyes of the common man or woman. Even if I dig out a photograph to prove that something exists, that still won’t make my layout look any less toy-like to a visitor.
[LATER EDIT:] Here are some examples of bizarre prototype structures. IIRC, Bachmann based these on businesses that existed along the original Route 66. But I won’t be putting any on my layout.
Camp Grayling, MI has a balloon track near the airfield, wrapped around what appears to be a loading facility for gear and/or vehicles. Camp Grayling is a big National Guard facility that hosts training for units throughout the midwest.
The Western Maryland Scenic RR in Cumberland MD has a couple of things. I think this is former B&O trackage. First, a curved plate girder bridge is over the Potomac south of the depot. You can see the cross girders running between the main girders:
North of the depot the double track main crosses Wills Creek at an acute angle. The creek is a vertical walled concrete channel. The rails are supported on closely spaced girders that run from the concrete wall to a long skinny pier in the center of the creek. There is a steel walkway next to the rails. Normally we don’t model bridges that are quite this acute to the waterway.
The Nashville Chattanooga & St Louis had a branch that went to Tracy City that curved off and then crossed back over on a bridge just before the main entered the tunnel south of Cowen. Cowen, which is a pretty small town today was a major helper station back in the day.