Let’s narrow the field

Thank you

Joe, you are correct, yes the scale is HO. I grew up on Long Island and have been into trains since i was a kid, I've been modeling since I was in my early 20's. I built my first layout 4x8 in my 30's. My layout is in my garage and living in Florida the summers are tough, no ac in the garage. I belong to a local RR club here in Palm Beach. We run DCC and I have several DCC locos. 

I looking to model the mid 1980's I will be using Long Island Railroad GP-38's and MP-15's to do the switching. I guess the theme would be industrial. Perhaps somewhere in a fictitious industrial area on Long Island. 

A Place to Start

Type in "One Turnout Layouts", you will see an article come up in MRH by Lance Mindheim on a simple layout switching a bakery in Miami.  If you think this too boring, Lance has another article you should see in your search, also in MRH, switching his new LAJ layout using mostly one turnout.  A lot of operation for a 30 minute session.  Lance suggests you start looking at how long you want an operating session to last.  Obviously this won't work if you want to entertain six people for three hours.  But if you are like me, 20-30 minutes at a time is about what I am looking for.

Since I grew up on Long Island...

Hi Henry,

Since I grew up on LI as well, you may want to consider adding a Lumber Yard or Food Warehouse. You have (still do) King Kullen, Waldbaum's (remember that supermarket? Long gone). Small transload areas would work as well. the LIRR had one in Garden City, LI off Stewart. Ave. Used to go there all the time. Some other small Industries you could add would be for fuel oil. Entemann's Bakery was in Bay Shore, so using that name for your industry would work. 

I do have a list of industries the LIRR serviced on Long Island. Let me know via the messaging system here if you would like a copy.

My snowbird home is not far from your Florida club as I'm just south of West Palm Beach. I saw the club layout running during the fair in January. I'm in the process of building my switching layout down there as well. 

Keep us posted on your progress!

Neal

Lance

Hi Jack,

I am an avid follower of Lance's and his one turnout layout looks very enticing, I like yourself will be happy with a 20-30 minute operating secession, it will just be me operating. I want to focus on details. 

Thanks for the help!

Waldbaum's

Hi Neil. Yes I plan on adding a small lumber yard, and a transload area. There is still a LIRR caboose in the small yard off Stewart Ave in Garden City, this is where the circus trail used to be staged.

I also have Bud's trucking back ground building and was going to rename it Waldbaum's with their logo on a billboard on top of the building. Yes Entemann's will be the name of the bakery. 

Neil anytime you want a behind the scenes tour of our club layout when you are down send me a message, I would be happy to show you. 

Henry

"Yes I plan on adding a small

   Sounds like you already know what you want, so place the industries where you want them and connect them with some track. If you are not sure where to put the track look at the prototype area to see how they typically did it. Don't worry about how they did it in Miami or elsewhere. That's not Long Island.There's a thousand "best" layouts for any area but you only need to build what you want , don't make it harder than it needs to be.....DaveB