The recent thread about multiple industries on the same spur got me thinking again about what a neat prototype Hancock, Iowa would be for a small, simple shelf layout. With only four turnouts, the Iowa Interstate serves Crop Production Services (a fertilizer dealer) and Hancock Elevator, IAIS's largest grain elevator, sharing a single stub-ended spur to the north, and the out-of-service Oakland Branch extending to the south is used for car storage. Hancock Elevator loaded a variety of IAIS, BNSF, and KCS covered hoppers, CPS unloaded both granular fertilizer in covered hoppers and liquid fertilizer in tank cars, and a wide variety of cars were stored on the branch at various times, including empty unit coal trains, intermodal flats and well cars, and a wide assortment of old tank cars. With the cramped switchback move required to reach the branch, and the creative way IAIS crews often switched the elevator, this could make for a really fulfilling layout that's interesting to operate.
Here's the track diagram for Hancock that I use on my layout, where Hillis siding, which is actually three miles east (left) of Hancock on the prototype, has been compressed into the Hancock scene in order to preserve a bit of open rural running further east. For a small layout focused on Hancock alone, Hillis could be removed completely, with the mainline in both directions acting as single-track "staging yards" for trains working Hancock, or that main could form a loop, with behind-the-scenes staging allowing you to run IAIS road trains and UP and BNSF detours.
Council Bluffs is to the right on the main, the Oakland Branch is the vertical line passing under the main above the "Branch Sw." notation, and the Outside and Pocket tracks are collectively referred to as the "hill tracks" as they drop down from the mainline. The elevator spur serving CPS and Hancock Elevator is at the bottom. On the prototype, it extends about a mile past the elevator, and as cars are loaded, they're shoved up the spur.
The photo below shows the view looking north toward the elevator after we've just come down the Outside Track and past the Branch Switch. To the left is CPS, and Hancock Elevator is in the distance.
CPS receives fertilizer loads in spurts throughout the year, while the elevator ships grain on a regular basis. I've never heard of a conflict requiring IAIS to move a CPS car in order to work Hancock, but the elevator had their own Trackmobile, so it could be that they cleared the way for the railroad, moving the CPS car out of the way onto the Oakland branch.
If the elevator is loading, headroom to work the branch is very limited, making for some challenging switch moves as cars transition in and out of storage. Also, IAIS trains bringing grain empties from Council Bluffs (from the right in the diagram above) would sometimes use some unusual switch moves in order to spot them. They'd run down one of the hill tracks with the empties, couple to the loads just beyond the elevator's loader seen in the photo above, and pull them back up to the mainline...so the power was pulling loads while it shoved on the empties they'd brought with them. The loads would then be shoved toward Hillis on the main, and the train would then run back down the hill pulling the empties, run around them using the Pocket track, and finally shove them toward the elevator for loading.
In the photo below, the loaded hoppers on the mainline in the distance have just been shoved there after having been pulled up the hill from the elevator. The power has just pulled the empties down the Pocket track to the right and cut off, and we're now preparing to run around them on the Outside track for the shove move to the elevator. In the weeds to the left is an empty unit coal train stored on the Oakland branch, passing under the covered hoppers on the main.
Lots of interesting switching for such a small space!
In my case, I've chosen to model Hancock as part of a larger layout. Here are a couple in-progress photos showing how it stands today, first looking north toward the elevator:
...and then looking south toward the hill tracks and the Oakland branch:
